Sport in school physical education. Historical review of an unfinished critique

© Copyright: Federación Española de Asociaciones de Docentes de Educación Física (FEADEF). Sport appeared as a new system of physical education, creating and forming its own school and facing three big schools or gymnastic dominant trends in 19th-century Europe. The present article raises the positioning between defenders and detractors of sport in relation to school physical education; exposing and developing a historical and critical review which might be seen as unfinished. We used heuristic methodology based on the search of documented primary sources, which constituted a great part for the review and critical analysis concerning original works of the historical period between the end of 19th century and the first third of the 20th century. Renowned specialists in this matter, positioned as supporters and detractors, exposed their ideas justifying their theory by using contributions of great weight and historical importance up to the current state outlining the prolonged didactic and pedagogic controversy among teachers in the framework of school physical education.