The master’s thesis examined the educational and social impacts of the hidden curriculum in physical education within the school subject Physical Education in basic education. The main purpose of the thesis was to critically analyse how curricular documents shape implicit messages about the body, movement, health, achievement, responsibility, gender, cooperation and social relations. The thesis was designed as a monographic master’s thesis. In the first part, a traditional review of Slovene and foreign professional and scientific literature in the fields of curriculum theory, the hidden curriculum and physical education was conducted. In the second part, a hermeneutic analysis of the current physical education curriculum from 2011 and the new physical education curriculum from 2025 was carried out, with the analysis limited to the third educational cycle of basic education.
The findings showed that the hidden curriculum in physical education is not formed only through direct pedagogical practice, but also through language, objectives, standards of knowledge, didactic recommendations and ways of understanding the student’s body, movement and responsibility. The comparison of the two curricula showed that the new curriculum places greater emphasis on physical literacy, cooperation, responsible behaviour, student participation and holistic development. Nevertheless, emphases on measurement, efficiency, self-regulation and individual responsibility for a healthy lifestyle remain present. The thesis showed that the hidden curriculum in the subject physical education represents an important analytical framework for understanding the broader educational, social and ideological dimensions of the school environment.
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