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Employing a socio-didactic approach, this study seeks to determine how teacher intervention either increases or reduces social inequality in terms of access to knowledge. The study focuses on a particular teaching strategy used in PE – the “debate of ideas”. The strategy engages students in a “secondarisation” process, encouraging them to move on from practical proficiency in PE skills to a reflective, decontextualised and then recontextualised construction. We observed a PE teacher in seven short secondarisation sessions during a series of six basketball lessons in a disadvantaged environment (vocational secondary school). These sessions were selected, transcribed, and then studied in conjunction with an analysis of interviews conducted with the teacher. The results show that, contrary to expectations, the students take ownership of the strategy. In addition, students are encouraged to speak by the system put in place but are doubly prevented from doing so. Their opportunities to speak are limited by the facts that speaking time is largely taken up by the teacher and that the students are reluctant to get involved in this distanciation process.