On bullying, discipline, and power in school and beyond. What does it mean to be a bully? What does it feel like to be bullied-to be a victim, a pariah, a scapegoat? What are the techniques, patterns, and languages of bullying? Intermingling memoir with literary criticism, philosophy, and sociology, A Physical Education attempts to answer these questions.

A highly original examination of the uses and abuses of power in the education system, it explores how bullying and discipline function, how they differ from each other, and how they all too often overlap.

Taylor interweaves his own experiences with reflections on well-known literary representations of bullying and school discipline, alongside sociological, psychological, and philosophical theories of power.