The Image of Physical Education Teachers and Their Class as Seen by Teachers of Other Disciplines

The image of a given professional group is the way they are perceived by members of another group, which translates directly into relations as well as attitudes towards them. How teachers and the discipline they teach are perceived is a significant factor that influences relations and atmosphere in the small school community.  In the case of Physical Education (PE) teachers in Cypriot secondary schools, things might be different since they are dressed differently, they spend most of the time in the schoolyard or in the gym, they never carry books or homework, and so on. Various opinions are expressed, from time to time, about themselves and their class by teachers of other disciplines. These opinions vary from negative on one end to positive on the other. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the image of PE teachers and their classes in Cypriot secondary schools, as seen by teachers of other disciplines. For that purpose, 132 secondary school teachers (78 women and 54 men) of various disciplines were randomly selected to participate in this study. Teachers were recruited from secondary schools from all over Cyprus and were interviewed in their school settings during their free time. For the conduct of the interviews, a questionnaire was prepared with open-closed type questions, which consisted of 2 parts: The first part concerned the teacher, and the second concerned the physical education class. The duration of each interview was approximately 30 minutes. In the first part, teachers were asked about their relationships with the PE teacher, how they see him/her as a professional, how easy he/she is in his/her relationship with them, etc., while in the second part, they were asked about the importance of physical education, whether they believed that the class was as important as other disciplines in students’ education and others. The data were analyzed using the method of continuous comparison and analytical induction and showed that three different views prevail about PE teachers and their class: 1) They are colleagues who have no difficulties in their work, are somewhat distant from other colleagues and their class does not have much to offer, 2) They are colleagues who easily develop good relationships with colleagues of other disciplines. However, their contribution to students’ education through their class is not like that of other disciplines, and 3) They are well-intentioned colleagues, always available, easy to work with, who contribute significantly through their class like any other colleague, but with different duties, due to the nature of their class. Teachers of other disciplines are often influenced either by personal experiences of the past, forming a positive or negative image, or by individual cases in their school. Although PE teachers do not have anything to prove at school, since they have to be transferred to a different school every eight years, according to the Cypriot Education System and colleagues of other disciplines do not know them as professionals, many times they have to prove themselves in other colleagues’ eyes through their work, in order to allow them to form positive perceptions of themselves as professionals and the contribution of their class to the overall student education.