Physical education and citizenship: a critical interpretive review

This article presents an interpretative review of the relationship between the subject of Physical Education and the devel-opment of citizenship in a school context. To do this, a search was conducted in the Scopus and Web of Science databases. The following inclusion criteria were used: works that relate Physical Education to citizenship in the period 2018-2022, various types of publications, and works that include qualitative, quantitative, or mixed approaches. Through the text search analysis technique, five interpretive codes were established: the conception of Physical Education, Citizenship and Physical Education, teaching practice, citizenship and curriculum, citizenship and teacher training. The results reveal a critique of Physical Education, as despite its potential to contribute to the development of citizenship in the student population, teachers tend to maintain directive strategies that hinder the acquisition of civic education and reduce it to a mere sense of obedience. However, various proposals were also found, especially related to sports activities, that effectively contribute to civic education in Physical Education classes. Finally, it is worth noting the approaches to critical pedagogy within Physical Education, which play a significant role in various aspects of citizenship, especially highlighting the digital dimension and the environment.