These are issues which PE teacher education programme wrestles with both in Swedena nd abroad. One such, is the PE teacher education programme’s inability to challenge the students' conceptions about the education and PE in school, that the students' experiences of their own sporting activities are more important than the education programme for what knowledge is considered valuable. Research shows that content of the PE teacher education programme is strongly linked to competitive sports, and it seems that a background as an active sportsman or sportswoman is a must for a PE teacher. Although the PE teacher education programme has become successively more academic, and what a teacher should know has changed, the PE teacher education programme has not been able to challenge the students' conceptions to a sufficiently high degree and in this way has been conserving and reproducing (MacDonald et al., 2002; Matanin & Collier, 2003; Brown, 2005; Tsangaridou, 2008). 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. The research questions are i) what do the students bring to the programme in the form of conceptions, values and experiences? ii) What happens in the students' encounter with the programme and what is the result in respect to their opinion of the education and their future profession? Data has been collected using essays written by 31 PE student teachers during the first week in their physical education specialisation, and at the end of the third term of this specialisation. The study has a cultural-sociological and gender theoretical perspective. The analysis has been done with the help of Pierre Bourdieu's concepts as the tools of analysis. Bourdieu’s work remains an important springboard in investigating how knowledge, norms and values are originated and reproduced in a social context, where having the interpretative prerogative means having the power to define knowledge (Bourdieu, 1990). Analyses from such a perspective make it possible to understand reproduction and change within education in relation to those who are involved in it. The analysis shows that these students have had a great interest in sport since their childhood. It is an interest which the whole family has shared, and the students have formed a sports habitus while they were growing up which has meant that they will continue to participate in sports, and they see that both the education and the job will give them the opportunity to do this. The students take for granted that “sport is good”; they have been successful themselves, both as active participants and as pupils in physical education at school. 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. It can be said that being interested in sport and having a background as an active sportsman or sportswoman seem to be part of the ”rules of the game”; it is taken for granted that it is a prerequisite for choosing the PE teacher education programme. It is sporting prowess, above all, that is assigned value, and even if the course is a specialisation within the teacher education programme and takes place at an institute of higher education, there is still an emphasis on belonging to the world of competitive sport. The symbolic capital for a PE teacher is to be good at many different sports and have in-depth knowledge of human biology. 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.