Puhány zsidók vagy részrehajló tornatanárok?
Soft Jews or P.E. Teachers’ Bias? The Physical Weakness of Jews in Hungary at the Turn of the Century

Summary/Abstract: Between the birth of the anti-Semitic political movement and the Holocaust, the discourse about Jews mostly concentrated on their successes. The disad- vantages of Jews in physical competitions or in games associated with the body received less attention. The present study examines what produced the impres- sion of the overall failure of Jewish students in high school physical education: did their actual substandard performance cause Jewish students’ grades to be lower or did their teachers underrate their performance under the influence of the myth of inferior Jewish physique? The comparative analysis of the so-called physical strength charts used at the turn of the century sheds light on the differ- ences between physical education grades of Jewish and non-Jewish students. The figures confirm that Jewish students compared to their non-Jewish peers were in fact better athletes than how they were perceived by their teachers: their low grades were a result of biased assessment.

• Details
• Contents