Competitive and cooperative games: a study in the Cascavel municipal schools

Abstract

This study is concerned to the games prearranged by teachers for the Physical Education classes in the 3rd and 4th initial years from nine public schools, located in the south region of the Cascavel/PR city. The main objective is to analyze whether the games and tricks given by the teachers for the Physical Education classes in the nine public schools are competitive, transitional or cooperative. Moreover, it is verified the formation of these teachers and the knowledge about the cooperative games. The instruments used for collecting the data were the classes’ observation/description and a semi-structuralized interview with questions concerned to the issue. In the thirty observed lessons, only two teachers used cooperative game. None used transition games and the others used competitive games, it is known that from the 65 observed activities 52 (80%) were competitive, showing the values that are being taught to the children. It is important for the teachers to understand the games strength in the social relationship construction through the leadership and cooperation experiences, when thinking for the team and when searching for strategies to reach common objectives, setting apart the issue that to be successful is the most important.