From Teaching to Research: Methodological Designs and the Institutionalization of Physical Education at the UNLP (1994–2008)

Abstract

The Research Incentive Program (Programa de Incentivos a la Investigación, PI), created within the Secretariat of University Policies of the Argentine Ministry of Education and launched in 1993, contributed to the formalization of research practices that university faculty had already been developing. In the Department of Physical Education of the Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences at the National University of La Plata, the first Research and Development Project (RDP) dates back to 1994 and marks the beginning of systematic research in the field. This article analyzes the role of methodological strategies in the institutional hierarchization of research in Physical Education between 1994 and 2008. A qualitative approach was adopted, combining documentary analysis of thirty RDPs, content analysis, and semi-structured interviews with members of research teams. The findings reveal a predominance of non-standard qualitative and ethnographic approaches, together with heterogeneous positions among actors, including critical assessments and ritualized uses of methodological strategies. It is concluded that methodological strategies operated both as technical instruments and as symbolic resources, contributing to the legitimation of projects, the consolidation of research groups, and the strengthening of the institutionalization process of the discipline. Keywords: Methodological Strategies, University Science Policy,