Researcher Erik Aasland at the University of Agder believes that Norwegian physical education is characterised by “white Norwegian body culture”. Outdoor life, ball games, strength training, and requirements regarding gym clothing are interpreted as expressions of whiteness. He is now facing strong opposition.
A physical education teacher recounts that a long dress can become caught in the pedal of an ergometer bicycle. Another reports that pupils arrive for excursions without suitable footwear or clothing. A third observes that some girls are passive in class and contribute little to group work.
For most, these are recognisable, practical challenges from Norwegian schools. For researcher Erik Aasland at the University of Agder, they are something else: structural discrimination, driven by “white Norwegian body culture”.
In a new study published in the journal Sport, Education and Society, Aasland, together with co-researchers Emilie Strand (UiA), Ingfrid Mattingsdal Thorjussen (NLA Høgskolen) and Kristin Walseth (OsloMet), has interviewed five physical education teachers at upper secondary schools in South-Eastern Norway.
The study’s title is “Teachers’ constructions of female Students of Color as ‘the other’ in physical education”.
The conclusion is that the teachers unconsciously take white Norwegian body culture for granted as a natural standard, and thereby engage in structural discrimination against minority girls.
“These girls are seen as a problem by the teachers: they wear the wrong clothes, they have no experience with sport and training, and they are passive in lessons. The teachers do not do this with ill intent, but they contribute to reproducing a form of structural discrimination,” Aasland tells forskning.no.
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“Students of Color” in Norwegian schools
The study consistently employs the American racial concept “Students of Color” to refer to Norwegian pupils. It is grounded in so-called “whiteness” research and “critical race theory”, theoretical frameworks developed to understand an American reality shaped by slavery and institutionalised racial segregation.
Through this lens, everyday observations from Norwegian classrooms become evidence of racial discrimination. When a teacher states that minority girls are “passive, uninterested and somewhat shy” and “contribute little to group work”, Aasland and his co-authors interpret this as teachers “constructing” minority girls as “the other” against a backdrop of white, Western norms. That the teachers may be describing what they actually observe is not treated as a relevant interpretation.
When a teacher says that certain pupils are not “accustomed to going on hikes as we are in Norway”, this is interpreted as the teacher taking white Norwegian outdoor culture for granted as a universal standard. That the statement may reflect actual differences in experience with outdoor life is not discussed.
White Norwegian girls were described by the teachers as “experienced with sport from upbringing”. Boys with minority backgrounds were described as “almost too active”. Minority girls were described as passive. The researchers view this as racial constructions, not as observations that may have roots in reality.
Everything is whiteness
The study forms part of a larger research project in which Aasland has published several articles with the same perspective. In an earlier study from 2021, published in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, he went even further.
There, a teacher who provided pupils with strength training and encouraged the girls to push themselves was interpreted as engaging in “infantilising communication”. That the teacher stated that being “smart” means pushing oneself was criticised because he “did not wait to hear the girls’ response”. That the teaching was organised around strength training and weightlifting was interpreted as a “normalisation of strenuous exercises” that favours certain bodies.
The pattern is the same in both studies: concrete, practical teaching situations are systematically redefined as expressions of whiteness and structural discrimination. Outdoor life is whiteness. Ball games are whiteness. Strength training is whiteness. Expecting appropriate clothing for excursions is whiteness. Asking pupils to push themselves is infantilisation. Observing that some pupils are passive is to construct “the other”.
Guilty regardless
Perhaps the most striking aspect is that Aasland himself acknowledges that the teachers do not act with ill intent, yet nevertheless concludes that they engage in structural discrimination. The teachers are thus guilty regardless. They are caught within an analytical framework in which any observation of difference between groups of pupils is by definition racism.
And all of this rests on interviews with five teachers.
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“The whiteness hysteria”
Aasland is now facing strong opposition. In an opinion piece on forskning.no under the headline “The whiteness hysteria has reached the gym lesson”, Almir Martin, deputy leader of the organisation LIM (Likestilling, integrering, mangfold), and Anders Frimann Hansen, a physical education teacher, deliver a sharp critique.
“When teachers describe practical challenges, these are to a large extent interpreted as expressions of majority norms and whiteness,” they write.
The critics’ main point is that the study consistently disregards the explanations that lie closest at hand: that some pupils have less experience with physical activity; that some girls have grown up with strict gender expectations that limit participation; that social control and cultural norms from home may make physical activity difficult; that a dress in a bicycle pedal is a safety issue, not a question of identity politics.
“Expecting appropriate clothing is not in itself an expression of exclusion. It is part of the school’s ordinary requirements for participation and safety,” write Martin and Hansen. They point out that ethnically Norwegian pupils also regularly arrive unprepared for excursions and activities.
They also call for a clear definition of the central concept “white Norwegian body culture”.
“Is it outdoor life? Is it co-education? Is it the expectation of participation? Is it gym clothing? Is it that girls and boys should meet the same requirements?” they ask, arguing that the concept creates “more fog than clarity”.
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Imported from the USA
A central objection is that Aasland and his co-authors transfer American racial categories to the Norwegian reality. Martin and Hansen argue that the real challenges in Norwegian schools concern something entirely different from “whiteness”.
“Norwegian schools cannot be understood uncritically through theories developed for an American reality shaped by slavery, Jim Crow segregation and institutionalised racial separation,” they write.
According to the critics, the most difficult questions in Norwegian schools concern integration, equality values, and cultural conflicts related to gender. When the study downplays such conditions in favour of analyses of “whiteness”, the picture becomes distorted.
“One then risks explaining too much through the school’s gaze and too little through the actual norm conflicts some pupils face,” they write.
Martin and Hansen emphasise that they agree that physical education should be inclusive. However, they argue that the debate goes astray when researchers import American racial categories to explain why some pupils attend gym lessons wearing a dress.
“If we are to take minority girls seriously, we must also dare to discuss what may in fact limit them, not only how the majority is perceived,” they conclude.