Introduction: Physical Education and Physical Culture Matters

Physical education and physical culture were part of the colonization process in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Africa. This happened in environments of militarism, industrialization, and urbanization. Such environments were racist, gender-biased, and class-based. Underlying and underpinning these features were Muscular Christianity, Social Darwinsm, Eugenics, and the Club Movement. Physical education was formally introduced to black children at mission schools that lacked decent facilities. Further, they were subjected to different curricula, preparing them for subservient roles in society. In the Western Cape, they were confined to five missionary teacher training schools until 1966. Two of them offered specialist training. Outside the formal curriculum, two contesting teacher organizations, the Teachers’ League of South Africa and Teachers’ Educational Professional Association, offered participation opportunities. Although different in ideological content, these two organizations offered the same physical education programmes. Many physical education teachers also involved themselves in the environmental programmes that emerged, particularly after the Second World War. They also involved themselves in the physical culture club movement that emerged especially after the First World War.