It has been claimed that issues of assessment in school and education is of particular interest in contemporary society with many conflicting demands, theories and practices (McDowell 2010). In the field of Physical Education (PE), assessment issues, grading and examination practices has received attention on the school level during the last decade (MacPhail & Halbert 2010, Penney 2009, Lopez-Pastor et.al 2013, Redelius & Hay 2009). However, on the level of PE teacher education (PETE), the knowledge base of these issues is not as significant. Based on the relative reduction of movement practices in PETE following the academisation of teacher education in general (Kirk 2010), there are reasons to investigate the what- and the how-question regarding examination in movement practices in PETE.
The aim with this paper is to analyse and discuss what is assigned value in the formulation of tasks for examination of movement in subject courses on seven Swedish PETE departments. Inspired by Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992) and its use in PE research (Backman 2008, Brown 2005, Redelius et.al. 2009), a preliminary analysis of formulations in curricula documents has showed that the examination of movement practices is a silent, constant and ongoing process, rather than out-spoken and performed at specific occasions during a course. The analysis has also shown that the ability to perform movements is, within examination tasks, formulated separate from the ability to teach, rather than integrated with one another. Illuminating these issues, not only on the level of school PE but also on the PETE level, might develop and strengthen assessment practices not only in PE but also in PETE.