Symbolic violence in school physical education: A critical analysis of the negative experiences of future teachers in primary education

© 2018, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. All rights reserved. This is an in-depth study into future Primary Education teachers’ negative experiences in Physical Education School, using Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence. An analysis was conducted of 155 narratives of Primary Education teacher students in two Spanish universities. The results show that symbolic violence is exercised through the inadequacy of those students’ physical identities to performance discourses, which, in turn, are legitimized by teachers and other successful students. This hidden violence is projected onto their physical and professional identities as future teachers.