The Ethos of Sport – Physical Culture in a Finnish Sports Organisation and Physical Education in Schools in the 1950s

This article focuses on the physical culture of the 1950s and it draws on the documents of a Finnish sports organisation and the curricula of physical education in schools to examine, first, what kind of physical culture was constituted inside the national frames of Finnish society and what aims it served in the 1950s. Additionally, it explores how the multi-layered emotional regimes and ethos of sport were constituted in the physical culture of the 1950s. The analysis of primary source materials reveals three major findings. First, there was a notable emphasis not only on corporeality but on moral values in PE and sport. Second, the aims of PE and sport were targeted towards equality, encompassing gender, age and upper middle-class status. Third, PE and sport offered symbolic elements and spaces where emotional regimes were both experienced and constituted.