The aim of this study was to investigate, at first, why students in upper secondary school in Sweden participate or not in Physical education and health (PEH) and also find out what changes the subject need that can affect their participation. To get answers out of the in-vestigation, we formulated questions about what preconceptions the students of an specific group have about participation and non-participation in PEH and what changes the subject need, according to the students, to become a subject for all students. The study was based on a qualitative method, by using interviews of ten students from Swedish upper secondary school. The students were from two schools in a mediumsized region and from different programmes.

The results of the study shows clearly that the content and the grades in PEH affects the student’s participation, which was crucial to whether they felt they wanted to participate actively in the lessons or not. The grades were considered as important and affected the participation even though some of the students were not interested in the content, but they still did the things that the teacher demanded. Despite this, the attitudes towards the subject were positive among the interviewed students. The factors the students think can change the participation to more actively is implement more activities as dance, individual training but also, delimit ballsports. It seems like the interviewed students are searching for meaningfulness in the lessons of the subject with a link between the curriculum and grading criteria.