Gender gap in the participation of physical education motor tasks

Objective: To compare by gender the participation in moderate to vigorous physical activity in physical education motor tasks of sixth grade students. Method: The research design was comparative descriptive, with convenience sampling, 268 primary school students with an average age of 11.3 +/- 0.4 years enrolled in sixth grade participated, the System was used as an evaluation instrument to observe the instruction time of physical activity (SOFIT), to determine the moderate to vigorous physical activity of 67 physical education classes. Results: The equality of the variance was calculated using the t-Student test for independent samples, resulting by sex less than a <= 0.05; finding significant differences in participation in moderately vigorous physical activity lower in women than in men during physical education class (p<0.01) and a percentage difference of 30.5 (Delta%) between men and women. Conclusion: When identifying this gender gap in the participation of physical education motor tasks, it is recommended to take peda-gogical actions with cooperative and simultaneous participation of students in moderate to vigorous physical activity for at least 50% of class time, and guide educational content to involve students of both genders in movement, as established by UNESCO to provide quality physical education.