This paper uses qualitative methods to analyze physical education teachers' beliefs with regards to the social role that the discipline should perform. It identifies personal, professional and institutional barriers to achieving this social role and considers proposals from the teachers to overcome these barriers. Three focus groups were created and 12 in-depth interviews were carried out. The methods of analysis employed were anchored in the perspectives of fragmentation and articulation, as expressed in "grounded theory". The paper concludes that, for some teachers, a dichotomic relationship exists between a physical education that reproduces a traditional approach (linked to sports and physical condition) and some specific social stereotypes, while for other teachers this relationship is a complementary one. There is another perspective that suggests that physical education can help develop the ability among students to comprehend and transform social inequalities.