Author(s): JUNG, H., Institution: SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY , Country: KOREA, SOUTH, Abstract-ID: 935

Background
Since the early 2000s, school physical education (PE) in South Korea has shifted from a curriculum-based subject to a national policy platform addressing social issues such as student health, declining physical fitness, school violence, and the rights of student-athletes. As these issues gained political urgency, school PE became increasingly intertwined with health, welfare, and sport policy agendas. While this shift enhanced the visibility of PE, it also reshaped its educational meaning through competing pedagogic discourses of health, citizenship, performance, and rights, raising concerns about misalignment between policy intentions and pedagogical realities.

Purpose
This study examines how Korean school PE policy has been socially constructed as a pedagogic discourse since the early 2000s and explores the implications of this process for teaching and learning. Rather than evaluating policy effectiveness, it focuses on how policy discourses define problems, legitimise interventions, and reconfigure teachers’ professional roles and students’ learning experiences.

Methods
A qualitative research design grounded in discourse analysis was employed. Data included national policy documents, implementation guidelines, and evaluation frameworks related to school PE and school sport from 2000 to the present. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with policy decision-makers, policy intermediaries, school PE teachers, and researchers. The analysis examined dominant discourses, shifts in problem definitions, and discursive technologies across three policy phases: the Introduction Period (2000–2010), the Diffusion Period (2011–2020), and the Transformation Period (2021–present).

Results
The findings show that Korean school PE policy has evolved through three overlapping discursive phases. In the Introduction Period, crisis-driven discourses related to public health and student-athlete rights justified strong state intervention. The Diffusion Period involved large-scale policy expansion through school sport clubs, national leagues, and fitness testing, supported by discourses emphasising participation and measurable outcomes. In the Transformation Period, accelerated by COVID-19, health risk management and surveillance-oriented discourses became dominant, positioning fitness data and monitoring as central policy mechanisms. Although these reforms expanded participation, they also produced unintended consequences, including fragmented implementation, increased administrative burdens on teachers, and the marginalisation of inclusive, student-centred pedagogy.

Conclusion
This study argues that the future of school PE in Korea depends on a shift from policy-driven control toward pedagogy-driven development. Reimagining school PE requires recognising teachers as central pedagogic agents, strengthening elementary PE, addressing inequalities in access, and fostering collaborative governance across education, health, and sport sectors.