The starting point for the study are a number of issues concerning PE teacher education programme which have been of interest in recent years. Research shows that the PE teacher education programme has inadequate links to science, that it finds it difficult to challenge traditional gender patterns, and that the students' experiences of their own sporting activities are more important than the education programme for what knowledge is considered valuable.

The aim of the study is to investigate what happens when the experiences and conceptions of physical education (PE) student teachers encounter the value structures of a PE teacher education programme. Special interest is also paid to what conceptions of masculinity and femininity are expressed. The study is inspired of Pierre Bourdieu's theories and has a cultural-sociological and gender theoretical perspective. Bourdieu was not particularly interested in what knowledge is as such, but rather how it originates and is reproduced in a social context, where having the interpretative prerogative means having the power to define knowledge. Analyses from such a perspective make it possible to understand reproduction and change within education in relation to those who are involved in it. Data has been collected using essays written by PE student teachers and interviews with PE teacher educators.

 The findings paint a picture of a PE teacher education programme where the orthodox is seldom challenged. Today's education is characterised by many of the traditions and values which historically have been its distinguishing features. The symbolic capital for a PE teacher is to be good at many different sports and have in-depth knowledge of human biology and a background as an active sportsman/sportswoman is a must. The PE teacher education is in harmony with the students' habitus which make it difficult to challenge the ”order of things” and the education programme's underlying doxa. The students have formed a sports habitus while they were growing up and it was a deeper knowledge of sport which they expected from the programme, and that is what they feel that it has been about. However, they would have liked even more. They are less interested in pedagogical issues. Even if gender and social issues have been part of the education (a much too great a part, according to some students), the gender habitus which students have incorporated and embodied while they were growing up has changed very little during the programme.