Can life skill through structured physical education help establish social cohesion and peace? An exploratory study from India

• In Event: Building Peace in Primary Schools: Life Skills, Stakeholder Engagement, and AI-Supported Education Across Global Contexts

Proposal

Can physical education (PE) lead to establishment of peace and social cohesion in the long run? In other words, does a structured PE curriculum teaching fundamental life skills to school-going children ensure inculcation of those individual traits important for social cohesion and peace? The present study tries to understand this question in-depth. It is done through a combination of in-depth interviews, case-stories and two perception studies from 2300 government schools across 4 states in India where such a structured PE program has run up to 3 years.
The benefits of physical activities for physical as well as mental well-being of individuals have been well-documented; especially the impact of structured physical education on some critical life skills have been at the centre of research across the world. The life skills which may get affected positively vary from- goal setting and planning (Goudas et al.; 2006, Bean, Kendellen & Forneris; 2016), to confidence and emotional regulation (Goudas et al.; 2006, Goudas & Giannoudis; 2008, Bean, Kendellen & Forneris; 2016), to social skills and interpersonal skills like respect (Kendellen & Forneris; 2016)
The existing research also shows some ties between these life skills, especially those relating to children being able to make friends easily like: social skills, confidence and conflict resolution; and long term social cohesion and peace (Eisenberg, 2010; Stringer et al., 2009; Davies, Tropp, Aron, Pettigrew and Wright, 2011; White et al. 2021).
The present study tries to understand this link. It tries to do so by asking two related questions:
Does a structured PE program inculcate critical life skills in children?
Do these life skills help improve conditions for social cohesion and peace?
Both of these questions have been attempted to be understood separately. For the first question, a mixed-method approach has been taken. A series of FGDs with the different stakeholders and the beneficiaries of the program revealed the indicators related to the life skills which are most commonly seen and understood from the fields. Based on these understandings, 2 separate perception surveys were done- the 1st one in Jharkhand, and the 2nd one across the 4 states where this program was running- Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. In both of these- randomly selected students and principals from randomly selected schools participated.
For the second question, one case story of a juvenile rehabilitation centre has been analyzed in-depth. One of the sites of the program, Muzaffarpur district in Bihar saw a juvenile correctional facility inviting the program implementers to have the program there- presumably to establish peace in the centre, which was proving to be challenging. We try to understand whether this improved the situation for the centre, and if yes then by what mechanism. This is done through a qualitative approach. Analysis of the case story has been done through in-depth one-on-one interviews with the key stakeholders as well as program implementers.
Physical activity has a separate role in individual well-being, which has been studied for long. However, it can be a crucial driver for social change in different aspects as well. Physical education becomes especially crucial in this matter because it needs a structured approach to extract the relevant and important learnings from physical activities (Petitpas, Cornelius, Van Raalte, and Jones; 2005). India currently lags behind many countries in terms of both physical activities (Bhawra et al., 2023; NCF-SE, 2022), as well as a consorted effort to establish physical education in schools (ASER, 2022, 2024; Prajapati et al., 2021). The challenges in this respect are manifold and multi-dimensional- from lack of teachers and infrastructure to safety concerns for children, and social norms. The recent NEP 2020, and the NCF-SE 2022 has put a special focus on physical education and urges the education system to take up physical education in a big way in the coming few years. The evidence showcasing the benefits- beyond the immediate impact on individual health and mental well-being, to long run social benefit- will only contribute towards strengthening the voice to establish a culture of string PE in India.

Authors

• Kingshuk Roy, Dani Sports Foundation

• Kshitij Patil, Dani Sports Foundation