The Whole Person in Physical Education Scholarship: Toward Integration

Abstract

This essay focuses on the effects of the recent subdisciplinary research emphasis in physical education scholarship on whole-person issues such as personal and social development in school- and agency-based physical education programs. It is argued, first, that recent social problems have accelerated the need for scholarly attention to the whole person in physical education and, second, that this research emphasis has responded by beginning to clarify and validate various personal and social development approaches in physical education. However, these results are not, for the most part, finding their way into practice; a different approach to scholarship is required to augment current lines of research. This approach, which emphasizes the interplay of theory/research and practice, is more likely to bridge the gap between theory and practice and to encourage integration among the subdisciplines. In the process, pressing social problems that now constitute much of the context for practice will be addressed.