Philosophical profiles in physical education. A comparison between Albania and Italy

Critical thinking and reflexivity are two important concepts through which Physical Education (PE) teachers can develop their abilities. Nowadays, there are a few possibilities for them to do so. The Philosophy of sport as an educational and sport science can be an important field whenever PE teachers want to develop the conceptual framework for sport pedagogy. The purpose of this study is to identify and compare the philosophical paradigms of PE teachers from two countries. The purpose of our study is to help PE teachers understand their world and seek the truth about facts and actions by asking themselves why and for what purpose they teach their subject. By starting from this point of view, we selected two groups of PE teachers, one from Tirana, Albania and one from Rome, Italy. We identified their educational orientations by a validated questionnaire aimed to detect their profiles on the basis of the five paradigms. The results of our study have shown that between the two groups of teachers there exist remarkable differences relating to so-called Socio-critical, Idealist and Positivist profile. The Albanian PE teachers are more Socio-critical (the highest score); instead, Italian teachers are more Pragmatistic, and the difference between the two groups can be related to many reasons, such as country development of, culture, lifestyle, etc. Albanian PE teachers are more devoted to the task and are educated through a curriculum focused on a more technical approach to the subject they teach.In our opinion, this does not allow them to develop a deeply critical view and perspective on their practice. Italian teachers are, instead, more focused on the theory of learning through practice and motivation.