Géneros y sexualidades en el área de la Educación Física escolar: Aproximaciones a un estudio curricular comparado entre Canadá y la Argentina

physical education is a rich field in gender meanings and principles. within school practices, it is thus positioned as one of the spaces for the strongest identity building as regards gender and sexuality. these meanings and principles, understood as a result of social and historical practices, classify and order the world and experiences of girls and boys in a segmented, fragmented way. based on the relevance of a broad notion of curriculum as an articulating mechanism of some knowledge-power relations at school, this paper provides a comparative approach in physical education, from the standpoint of gender and the production of sexual difference. by curriculum we understand not only the prescriptive framework featured in the "written" curriculum, but also the "hidden" curriculum, i.e., those social mandates that regulate schooling practices. our analysis is focused on the physical education curricula in canada and argentina. first, we look at the curricular issue as seen on the written text, focusing on health and physical education curricula in the province of ontario, canada, and the area of physical education in argentina's introductory courses at the university of buenos aires, argentina. then we analyze some aspects of the hidden curriculm.