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This paper reports the findings of a mixed-methods study which investigates the socio-cultural impacts of UK gendered school sport uniform and the role uniform plays in shaping female school sport experiences. Drawing on an extensive analytical survey with over 400 women of all-ages and 8 interviews with women aged 18–24, it explores how school sport uniform directly impacts female sporting experiences and participation in physical activity, and how uniform policy could be changed to promote greater female sport participation. Gendered school sport uniform continues to operate as a socio-spatial mechanism that names, frames and positions young people in heteronormative school sport spaces. This paper assesses how gendered school sport uniform contributes to the disciplining of the 'ideal feminine body' in schoolgirls and the construction of behavioural gender binaries in sport. The data reveal gendered sport uniform influences the development of a 'fear of masculinisation' in sport and common athletic-feminine identity tensions in teenage girls. The research finds gendered school sport uniform plays a major role in the high drop-out rates of teenage girls in school sport and offers practical insight into how policy could be changed to promote inclusivity, comfort and greater female sport participation. This paper proposes redesigning traditional gendered school sport policy to focus on 'enabling' participation has huge potential to transform female embodied and psychological experiences of school sport and increase school sport participation and enjoyment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea for this Special Issue, ‘Gender, Physical Education and Active Lifestyles: Contemporary Challenges and New Directions’ developed from the interest generated by a one day conference held at Leeds Beckett University in September 2017. The conference marked 25 years since the publication of Sheila Scraton’s ground breaking, feminist analysis of Physical Education. As a pivotal text that has contributed to the growth of gender research within the UK and more broadly, it seemed fitting to mark this occasion. The reach of Sheila’s work was perhaps realised through the delegate body. Early career researchers mingled with established scholars from America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the UK. Building on this conference and a wider call for papers, we are delighted to offer two Special Issues of Sport, Education and Society. The first issue engages explicitly with the challenge of theorising and understanding gendered subjectivities and embodiment across a range of contexts. These papers reflect the diversity of theoretical approaches being employed with some drawing on feminist perspectives, and others using Bourdieu, intersectionality, critical whiteness studies, and masculinity studies. The collection of papers in the second issue seek to examine the different ways in which gender becomes implicated in pedagogical relations and practice. These range from accounts of teachers’ struggles to use critical pedagogies to address gender inequities in PE classes, to analyses of the wider pedagogical ‘work’ of the media in constructing understandings about gender, with several papers exploring these two aspects in combination. We hope you enjoy reading the papers across these two Special Issues as much as we have enjoyed the journey as the editorial team. Collectively the papers raise alternative questions and provide new insights into gender and active lifestyles, and importantly, all seek to make a difference in moving towards more equitable physical activity experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst other sporting narratives of girls and women from the Global North have been well explored, there is limited research about girls from a Fijian background. Furthermore, within this ethnic/cultural group, their diverse voices are not well understood. Indo-Fijian girls who are of a South Asian background, and were born and reside in Fiji, are marginalised to a triple degree in the country's sporting platforms: they face gender inequalities emanating from a patriarchal society; secondly, they are marginalised in terms of race and ethnicity, thus not having access to the same sporting opportunities that their iTaukei (Fijian natives) counterparts do, especially in mixed-race team sports. Finally, Indo-Fijian girls are economically disenfranchised, living in the peripheries of the Global South, where they struggle with a lack of funding, inequitable policies and an unstable political climate. This triple layer of marginalisation deprives Indo-Fijian girls/young women of real opportunities and rights in the sporting fields to play sports for better health and fitness as equal Fijian citizens. This study reports on a one-year ethnographic research and presents sporting narratives of young Indo-Fijian women aged between 16 and 25 years from the capital city of Fiji. The data was collected employing photo-elicitation interviews aiming to illuminate the experiences and trajectories within formal and recreational sport and physical activity of Indo-Fijian girls. The paper draws upon critical, intersectional and poststructuralist theories to thematically analyse the data. The young women's narratives reveal that many times their athletic pursuits and passion disrupt the Fijian gender, racial and class orders as they consistently exercise their daily and sporting agency; sometimes these girls also find themselves complying with the hegemonic gender/racial order. This study amplifies local and marginalised voices of Indo-Fijian girls and emphasises the urgent need for inclusive and innovative educational pathways for Indo-Fijian girls in Fiji's schools, thus fulfilling the country's ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there are only a few studies analysing the experiences of lesbian coaches in sport worldwide, there is a lack of social scientific knowledge about the experiences of lesbian coaches in Spain. This paper explores a novel conceptual framework that combines stigma and agency to analyse the experiences of lesbian coaches, and the extent to which they reproduce stigma and/or build agency to challenge the status quo and foster social change. Drawing on sixteen semi-structured interviews with lesbian coaches in Spain, four central themes were identified. These are (1) double discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation, (2) feelings of fear, (3) dealing with stigma, and (4) agentic responses and the potential for positive social change. The research highlights a continuum of experiences of lesbian coaches that are multifaceted and complex in nature, and often coexist between the reproduction of stigma and/or transformation through agency. Our research provides new insights into the nature and prevalence of discrimination regarding sexual orientation that aims to help sport organizations develop specific strategies and programmes to foster inclusivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sport is often described as a field containing competitive and hierarchy shaping activities. However, in Sweden and elsewhere, this field is also permeated by democratic principles where, for example, everybody has the right to participate in children’s and youth sports regardless of gender, ethnicity or physical ability. In Sweden, there are distinct objectives for gender equality, where women/girls and men/boys should ideally be treated and recognised equally. The aim of this paper is twofold: to examine how gender is enacted in the textbooks used in Swedish sports coaching and educational programmes and to identify whether any of the enactments reflect a hegemonic masculinity. The textbooks used in two of the most extensive courses arranged by the Swedish Sports Confederation, ‘The Platform’ [Plattformen] and ‘Basic Coach Education’ [Grundtränarutbildning] are in focus. The theoretical framework and methodological approach are inspired by research on sport, gender and the hegemonic masculinity thesis. In the process of analysis, the hegemonic perspective is central. During the analysis, four themes are identified as expressions of a hegemonic masculinity and, thus, as obstacles to gender equality. Firstly, the binary sex norm poses a real challenge for the implementation of gender equality because it helps to shape a hierarchy that privileges men and masculinities. Secondly and thirdly, the themes ‘puberty’ and ‘the coach’ appear to be important, in that they support and contest a gendered hierarchy. Finally, there are examples of men, like sport coaches, appearing as genderless, which is interpreted as a hegemonic acceptance of the category of men (as universal and genderless subjects). By critically illuminating these themes, the paper adds to the wider research field of sport, coaching and education programmes and the complexity of gender mainstreaming in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in sport and Physical Education (PE) has historically been heavily gendered, and the glorification of masculinity and sporting prowess is viewed as a potentially negative influence on participation for both males and females. This paper explores male and female experiences of sport and PE to grasp how the field of physical culture represents a space for the development and enactment of gendered behaviours and norms within an active identity. Fifty-one individual or paired semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 young men and 37 young women in Year 11 (aged 15-16) at three demographically varied schools in North East England. Using Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, capital and doxa, this paper demonstrates that these young people identify feeling trapped in gendered norms and beliefs which recreate rigid notions of acceptable behaviours for young men and women. Interviewees often described gender in biological terms through a belief that masculinity is associated with maleness and femininity with femaleness. Through encouraging reflexivity as part of the interview process, young people were able to identify the (usually) non-conscious elements of their gendered habitus, which represent the taken-for-granted assumptions about masculinity and femininity which direct practice. Perceived gender pressures lead to self- and peer-surveillance within PE environments, whereby capital is allocated to gender- and sport-appropriate bodies. These findings suggest that PE and school structures regulate adolescent bodies, affecting participation in sport and physical activity in heavily gendered ways. Therefore, limited opportunities are available for young people to transgress the restrictive social norms which normalise the role of sport and PE for a successful male identity whilst simultaneously undermining the presence of an athletic female. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The differences in strength development processes and maximum strength levels between cisgender men and women – i.e. the ‘strength gap’ – are considerably fraught topics, with significant implications for our broader understandings of sex and gender. The polarization of exercise science and sociocultural research about the relationships between strength, gender, and sex adds further challenges. As a result of their highly diverging conclusions on the strength gap as well as the general absence of communication between the two fields, it becomes nearly impossible to have meaningful discussions that acknowledge the not-just-biological, not-just-cultural complexities of strength development and maximal strength levels. To aid in connecting these seemingly disparate academic fields, this paper engages a biocultural reading of research on the strength training body. By framing the body as the ever-developing result of inextricably intertwined biological and cultural influences, this critical reading outlines the limitations of our current understandings of strength, illuminates areas of complexity and contradiction, demonstrates shared concepts, and suggests possible topics for boundary-crossing inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the conceptual frameworks of Bourdieu and postfeminism, this article analyses extant tensions between young women's gendered habitus and the health-related learning spaces of Physical Education (PE) and Instagram. We draw on data from a two-phase qualitative research project with thirty-seven young women (aged 15–17) from three secondary schools in Spain who self-defined as physically active and engaging with exercise content on Instagram. Data obtained through focus groups and semi-structured interviews reveal how these young women's subjectivities are formed through negotiating the gender 'rules of the game' within these key pedagogical fields. Notably, most participants were critical of their learning in PE, which mainly remains a traditional masculine field. By contrast, they valued Instagram as an engaging space in which to learn about fitness to transform their bodies toward the feminine ideal. This involved a constant process of self-optimization, including the development of the 'right' mental dispositions, fitting strongly with their gendered habitus. Within this paper, we have developed the concept of 'postfeminist habitus' to explain the participants' engagements with health-related content on Instagram, which through language of choice and empowerment, disciplined the young women to achieve the normative body as a marker of success. We argue that while there are notably different patterns of engagement with PE and Instagram, in both spaces there is evidence of symbolic violence that reproduces the gender order. We conclude by suggesting changes that might make PE a more meaningful and hybrid learning space for young women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite clear messages from current physical education (PE) curricula about the importance of adopting socially critical perspectives, dominant discourses of gender relating to physical activity, bodies and health are being reproduced within this school subject. By drawing on interview data from a larger ethnographic account of boys' PE, this paper aims to contribute to our understanding of boys' experiences of gendered discourses in PE, particularly by acknowledging boys not only as docile or disciplined bodies but also as active subjects in negotiating power relations. In the analysis of the data, particular emphasis is placed on whether the boys recognise the influence of gendered discourses and power relations in PE, how they act upon this knowledge and how they understand themselves as gendered subjects through these particular discourses/power relations. Using Foucault's (1985. The use of pleasure: The history of sexuality, vol. 2. London: Penguin Books) framework related to the 'modes of subjectivation', this paper explores boys' problematisation of dominant discourses of gender and power relations in PE. In summary, these boys perform gendered selves within the context of PE, via negotiation of gendered discourses and power relations that contribute to an alternative discourse of PE which creates spaces and opportunities for the production of more ethical and diverse masculinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the physical activity experiences of a group of women based in England, and who are over the age of 30. This particular age group represent a 'forgotten' age, that is, they are largely ignored in academic scholarship, policy and physical activity provision. The paper explores how this group of women 're/engaged' in physical activity after a sustained period of inactivity. The study is situated in a weekly football initiative (Monday Night Footy) based in the north of England, managed and organised by a group of women for women to train and play five-a-side football. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews and the use of photo-biographical boards with 11 women, all of whom are regular participants to the football sessions. We use a middle ground feminist lens and Archer's notion of 'fr/agility' to help make sense of the women's experiences. From these women's stories three key findings emerge: (a) Biographies of (in)activity – the ways in which relationships with physical activity can be characterised by fractures and fissures despite seemingly positive early physical activity experiences; (b) Pathways of re/engagement – the motives and enablers to these women once again participating in physical activity after a sustained absence; and (c) Monday Night Footy as a space for re/engagement – the ways in which this context contributes to these women's continued involvement in football and broader physical activity. The paper concludes by offering policy makers and physical activity providers with some recommendations alongside considerations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this qualitative case study is to examine the phenomenon of female students’ disproportionate representation in senior level Physical Health Education (PHE) classes. The subject for this teacher’s Masters level project arose from the first author’s personal observations while teaching across several schools in British Columbia, Canada. Through semi-structured interviews with self-identified female participants, we explore female subject choice and if, along with possible reasons why, females may avoid participation in senior level (grade 11-12) mixed gender PHE activity courses. This discussion asserts that females mostly make conscious choices to avoid mixed gender courses at the senior level for several key reasons; females feel silenced by their male peers, PHE is not an inclusive environment, and females perceive their male counterparts assert dominance over them in PHE class. This paper continues with a discussion regarding reinforced gendered norms and their effect on perceived barriers to female participation in schools, and concludes with suggestions for how schools and educators might support female students’ participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students' perceived learning in physical education (PE) is an important yet neglected area of research. Increased knowledge about students' perceived learning can provide teachers with useful information to promote meaningful learning experiences in PE. Moreover, perceived learning can potentially be an alternative measurement to school grades when analyzing equality of outcome. Given that gender and migration background are associated with equality issues in PE, these groups are of particular focus in this study. With this background, the aim of this paper is threefold: (a) to explore students' perceived learning in PE in Sweden, (b) to analyze what perceptions of PE are most prominent, and (c) present a way to quantitatively illustrate how perceptions about PE vary across gender and migration background. The analysis was based on a question about students' perceived learning and was conducted in two steps. First, the students' answers were categorized using qualitative content analysis. The analysis shows that the perceived learning in PE can be categorized into the following categories: 'Physical doing', 'Emotional experiences', 'Health', 'Do not learn', 'Outdoor Education' and 'Social interaction'. Second, by quantitatively illustrate all answers in relation to the six categories, the result showed that the category of 'Physical doing' (36%) was the most prominent, and thereafter, in descending order are the categories of 'Emotional experiences' (22%), 'Health' (18%), 'Do not learn' (10%), 'Outdoor Education' (10%) and 'Social interaction' (4%). The results also showed that regardless of gender and migration background, students have somewhat similar perceptions of what they learn in PE. In this study we: (i) present a categorization of students' perceived learning in PE, (ii) show that physical doing is a prominent aspect in students answers, lastly (iii) by quantitatively illustrate students' perceived learning in PE, this study also suggest an alternative measurement to analyze equality in PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research continues to highlight how gender is reproduced through pedagogical practice in Physical Education (PE), but there has been much less focus on how it might be challenged. This paper reports on an intervention that used cooperative learning and critical reflection to challenge gender relations in PE, using football, in a school in Valencia, Spain. The intervention was specifically constructed as a form of critical pedagogy to create an inclusive learning environment, a safe space talk about sexism, and help students question and move beyond traditional notions of gendered embodiment. The paper responds to the call for research on the use of models based pedagogy for challenging sexism in PE. Through a critical ethnography, research findings showed how the explicit inclusion of critical pretexts engaging students in reflecting on gender was important to the success of the intervention, particularly the provision of a space for girls to reflect on their experiences of football and sexism in PE, and for boys to listen and hear this. The change to cooperative learning led to a shift in the class climate between students, with most of the girls reporting feeling more valued and included. The improved class climate resulted in better engagement in the classes from students. While some of the boys exhibited more positive attitudes towards girls and their football abilities, some of the more able boys were critical of the approach for its relative lack of engagement with the development of football, beyond skills and techniques. These findings point to both the possibilities and ongoing work necessary to challenge gender relations through a critical pedagogy in PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media are influential sociocultural forces that construct and transmit information about gender, health and bodies to young people in the digital age. In health and physical activity, Chinese people are often represented and positioned differently to other (minority) ethnic groups. For example, Black young people are often understood as having low academic motivations and aspirations but as ‘natural’ athletes; in contrast, Chinese young people, seen as the ‘model minority’ who excel in STEM subjects, are fragile, reserved and disinterested in physical movements. These public forms of representation may sit in opposition to the young people’s embodied identity. When these misrepresentations are internalised, issues such as micro-aggression and racism may have an impact on Chinese young people’s health and wellbeing. This paper aims to examine how Chinese bodies are gendered and racialised in contemporary social media sites (e.g. Google News, LiveJournal, Medium, Wordpress). Drawing on critical discourse analysis and Foucault’s concepts of normalisation and discursive practice, the paper will problematise the often taken-for-granted gendered and racialised stereotypes related to Chinese physicality and health on social media sites. Implications for developing future research and teaching resources in critical media health literacy for young people on issues related to gender and equity will be provided. The results affect how we understand, represent, and discuss Chinese (young) people on social media sites, thereby how Chinese young people engage, construct, and perform their embodied identities in Western, English speaking societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scraton [(1992). Shaping up to womanhood: Gender and girls’ physical education. Buckingham: Open University Press)] asserts in her conclusion to ‘Shaping up to Womanhood’ that feminist analysis of PE (and sport and leisure more broadly) needs to engage more directly with masculinity as a means to understanding the ‘dynamics of gender’. Focusing on young people’s involvement in recreational dance, this paper demonstrates how some of those dynamics of gender are played out, reproduced and resisted by both boys and girls who participate at community-based dance organisations. Selective data in the form of research frames are incorporated to illustrate how gender is constructed, enacted and embodied by young people engaged in recreational dance. Masculine and feminine hegemonies are highlighted and demonstrate that gender is both relational and intersectional. This contributes to ongoing analysis of masculinities and femininities as practices and processes imbued with complex power relations for young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time the role and lived experiences of the body in cognition and everyday life, let alone learning, has been problematised making the moving body a site of contestation. When tethered to the movement experiences of young women this contest takes on social justice imperatives destined to problematise power relations. In physical education (PE) this presents disciplinary challenges and invites critical contestations alongside opportunities for rethinking the role, impact, effect and affect of the female body in learning to move and associated pedagogies that might facilitate ‘embodied learning’. This paper seeks to extend recent discussions around ‘embodied learning’ and ‘valuing movement’ in PE by exploring the educative potential of ‘in’ movement experiences of a group of young women (n = 39) who attended one of three fire-fighting camps for girls in North America. By using ethnographic methods the paper explores the sensory nature of ‘embodied learning’ in movement moments at the camps in order to inform ‘embodied pedagogies’ with the potential to re-inspire and re-engage young women in PE. Findings suggest that young women conceive of their bodies as a conscious collective organism that simultaneously pays cognitive, physical, and social attention to its environment and the other material and non-material objects in it. This attentiveness occurs by thinking, feeling, sensing and deriving pleasure ‘in’ movement with blurred boundaries between mind-body. In highlighting what ‘embodied learning’ for young women might feel like the paper offers ideas for ‘embodied pedagogies’ and encourages PE practitioners to look outside classrooms for pedagogical inspiration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At an embodied and personal level this paper plays with what Evans, J., & Davies, B. (2011. New directions, new questions? Social theory, education and embodiment. Sport, Education & Society, 16(3), 263-278) suggests are ‘the complexity and nuances of biology in culture and the influence of body pedagogies in the production of social inequalities and hierarchies.’ (p. 263). Despite extensive attention to gender order, sexualization, sexual subjectification, sexual and gender representation in physical culture (sport, active lifestyles and health and physical education), research/scholarship has paid little attention to the positioning of and constitution of practices by body parts, such as breasts specifically. Given that gendered cultural pedagogies teach humans how to understand their selves, physical culture has potentially extensive affordances for learning the self. Drawing on narrative inquiry and content analysis, six diverse participants’ breastories are examined for breast pedagogies and how the materiality of breasts constructs and position humans and their gendered representations in physical culture. This paper suggests the recognition of breastism and employment of breastwork to work towards gender justice and dismantling some of the oppressions of gender. While others argue that productions of the gendered body lead to discipline and control of body parts, actions, and gender presentation, I consider instead the material and symbolic role of body parts, their actions and the gendered construction of those parts and how these gendered constructions act to discipline and control body pedagogies and engagement for more equitable futures in physical cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the physical education (PE) and physical activity experiences of a group of South Asian, Muslim girls, a group typically marginalised in PE and physical activity research. The study responds to ongoing calls for research to explore across different spaces in young people's lives. Specifically, I draw on a ‘middle-ground’ approach, using Hill Collins' matrix of domination and the notion of intersectionality. These concepts offer the possibility to explore the kinds of settings (physical, social and cultural) in which girls undertake PE and physical activity, how these spaces influence experience and how the girls navigate these spaces. The study is based in a large, urban, co-educational, secondary school in Yorkshire, England (95% of the students are from minority ethnic communities, 91% are Muslim and 63% live in the top 10% most deprived neighbourhoods in the country). Data generation involved three phases: observations, creating research artefacts in focus groups and in-depth interviews. The findings reveal the diverse ways the girls are physically active. They also demonstrate a complexity to their involvement which is contingent upon space, discourses and people. For example, discourses of competition, ability and peers are more significant within PE; whilst family, religion and culture feature beyond this context. The paper concludes by acknowledging the girls' heterogeneity and agency in the ways they strategically navigate spaces in their quest to be physically active on their terms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on ethnographic data collected over 12 months of field research, this paper contributes to the growing body of literature on sport for development (SFD) by giving voice to alternative constructions of the educative potential of SFD. It does this by exploring the social attitudes of youth, educators, community leaders and government officials in the Pacific island nation of Sāmoa towards sport, education and development. Imagining sport to be like ‘school outside’, my Samoan interlocutors construct sport as an educative platform that prepares young ‘academically unfit’ men to engage an increasingly global political economy in ways classroom education cannot. Viewing international sport as a form of ‘development education’, my interlocutors perceive the educative value of SFD as being rooted in the potential for sport to help move underperforming boys into transnational flows of remittances to the family. In this way, Samoans perceive sport as enabling ‘at risk’ youth to serve their families, to learn English and to become globally minded, ultimately equipping them with the skills needed to achieve transnational futures once beyond their reach. In allowing a grassroots understanding of SFD to emerge, the paper challenges the assumption that the institutions of sport and education are compatible, mutually reinforcing and complementary. Specifically, viewing sport as an alternative to schooling may serve to reintegrate underperforming young men back into an education-to-employment pipeline, but it also carries important implications for the de-skilling of youth and the perpetuation of their positions of marginality. The paper calls into question the role of education and sport in and for development, highlighting important questions that SFD stakeholders should consider. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws on research that aimed to explore the construction of gender relations in sport and physical education (PE) through a national study of Spanish university degree curricula. Spain is a useful case study through which to explore gender knowledge within sport and PE degrees, because, unlike many other countries, it has a common, national curriculum framework for its Physical Activity and Sport Science (PASS) degrees. In addition, it has recently passed a new law concerning the introduction of gender knowledge in higher education (HE). Drawing on Bernstein’s (1990) framework of the pedagogic device, this paper examines how this HE gender policy becomes recontextualised as universities and lecturers interpret and translate this into the pedagogical texts that make up the PASS curricula. Purposive sampling was used to select 16 of the 37 universities offering PASS degrees in 2012/2013. The research analysed 16 PASS documents at the degree level and 763 individual subject handbooks. Using discourse analysis, the results showed where and how gender knowledge was incorporated and the extent to which the topic was presented coherently throughout the documents. The analysis revealed five categories of the (in)visibility of gender knowledge within the universities’ instructional discourse. Gender knowledge is largely ignored in PASS curricular documentation, appearing, at best, in highly superficial ways. Despite a national policy requirement on universities to incorporate gender knowledge, this study shows how recontextualisation processes within specific universities’ pedagogic devices operate to marginalise such perspectives within PASS curricula. The research also revealed the significance of individual agents committed to gender equity being situated, and having influence, throughout the pedagogic device. The paper concludes that without a much wider, critical engagement in knowledge about gender equity, PASS degrees will continue to reproduce rather than disrupt the gender relations that have traditionally characterised the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explore how female players of Basque pelota (pelotaris) construct their gender identity in a traditionally masculine sport. The theory of performativity is used to understand how females negotiate, resist or challenge the dominant gender discourse. Data were collected through 10 in-depth interviews with players. Through inductive analysis we found that the sociocultural context surrounding Basque pelota reinforces the binary system of gender embodiment, which includes hegemonic masculinities and idealised femininities. However, our findings also suggest that whilst some players adhere to this dominant discourse, others actively resist and transgress it through the embodiment of alternative identities. In doing this, these players create new and inclusive identities, therefore escaping a simplistic binary and embracing a multiplicity of gender identities. As a result, they can become active agents in the promotion of equity in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explore male youth sport coaches' use of humour in relation to the reconstruction of masculinities, contributing to an emergent body of literature on the role of humour in coaching. Three creative non-fiction stories developed from my own coaching experiences in a competitive youth football (soccer) academy are used to examine: (1) coaches' reconstruction of hegemonic/esteemed masculinities; (2) coaches' use of humour to encourage re-alignment with hegemonic masculinities, and; (3) coaches' use of (counter-)humour to disrupt hegemonic representations of masculinities. The stories offer sport coaches and educators with a resource to reflect on masculinities, gender relations, and the everyday use of humour within their own contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a set of two, semi-structured, individual interviews with 21 Japanese men aged between 25 and 57, from Tokyo and Osaka, this paper explores the rationale underneath their eating habits and engagement in physical exercise. Ten and 11 of the men identified themselves as 'beefy' and 'slim-muscular man', respectively. The analysis of interview is grounded in symbolic interactionism and the construct of the somatic self. 'Biopedagogy', gender and emotion are three axes to grasp the participants' embodied experiences [Harwood, V. (2009). Theorizing biopedagogies. In J. Wright & V. Harwood (Eds.), Biopolitics and the 'obesity epidemic': Governing bodies (pp. 15–30). London: Routledge]. Biopedagogy is underpinned by the concepts of Body Fat Index and 'healthism', as well as the viewpoint that dieting + exercise = bodyweight control [Crawford, R. (1980). Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life. International Journal of Health Services, 10(3), 365–388]. The men champion the understanding of 'full-fledge man' to convey a form of 'hegemonic masculinity' [Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press]. Embodied emotionality for these men could be referred to by the construct of the 'male looking glass body' which mostly entails homosocial synergy at a 'bodybuilding habitus' [Monaghan, L. F. (2001). Bodybuilding, drugs and risk. London: Taylor and Francis]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The School Sport Partnership Programme (SSPP) is one strand of the national strategy for physical education and school sport in England, the physical education and school sport Club Links Strategy (PESSCL). The SSPP aims to make links between school physical education (PE) and out of school sports participation, and has a particular remit to raise the participation levels of several identified under-represented groups, of which girls and young women are one. National evaluations of the SSPP show that it is beginning to have positive impacts on young people's activity levels by increasing the range and provision of extra curricular activities (Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), 2003, 2004, 2005; Loughborough Partnership, 2005, 2006). This paper contributes to the developing picture of the phased implementation of the programme by providing qualitative insights into the work of one school sport partnership with a particular focus on gender equity. The paper explores the ways in which gender equity issues have been explicitly addressed within the 'official texts' of the SSPP; how these have shifted over time and how teachers are responding to and making sense of these in their daily practice. Using participation observation, interview and questionnaire data, the paper explores how the coordinators are addressing the challenge of increasing the participation of girls and young women. The paper draws on Walby's (2000) conceptualisation of different kinds of feminist praxis to highlight the limitations of the coordinators' work. Two key themes from the data and their implications are addressed: the dominance of competitive sport practices and the PE professionals' views of targeting as a strategy for increasing the participation of under-represented groups. The paper concludes that coordinators work within an equality or difference discourse with little evidence of the transformative praxis needed for the programme to be truly inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korfball was invented in a mixed Primary School in Amsterdam in the early 1900s [IKF (2006). Korfball in the Mixed Zone. KNKV; Summerfield and White (1989). Korfball: A Model of Egalitarianism. Sociology of Sport Journal, 6, 144–151]. The main catalyst for the development of korfball was a need for a competitive mixed sport that relied on cooperation and meant boys and girls could participate on a level playing field [Summerfield and White (1989). Korfball: A Model of Egalitarianism. Sociology of Sport Journal, 6, 144–151]. Previous research into gender in physical education (PE) has found that young people gain gender-related understandings through PE [Azzarito (2009). The Panopticon of PE: pretty, active and ideally white. Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 14(1), 19–39; Azzarito and Solomon (2009). An Investigation of Students' Embodied Discourses in PE: A gender project. Journal of Teaching in PE, 28, 173–191; Azzarito and Solomon (2010). A Reconceptualization of PE: The intersection of gender/race/social class. Sport, Education and Society, 10(1), 25–47; Chalabaev et al. (2013). The Influence of Sex Stereotypes and Gender Roles on Participation and Performance in Sport and Exercise: Review and future directions. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 136–144; Wright (1995). A Feminist Poststructuralist Methodology for the Study of Gender Construction in PE: Description of a Study. Journal of Teaching in PE, 15, 1–24]. [Thorne (1993). Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. Rutgers University Press] argues that to remove binary thinking and notions of hegemonic masculinity and femininity, PE lessons should promote equality between girls and boys, reflect cooperation and teamwork between all, and demonstrate to students that gender inclusivity is achievable. This paper will consider findings from a larger ethnographic study, in order to discuss how junior korfball players understand gender within their individual PE settings. It will also seek to discover whether players believe gender discourses can be negotiated in PE through the use of korfball. Players frequently referred to the limitations of their current PE experiences and suggested that the mixed element of korfball could provide opportunities for boys and girls to come together in PE. Players described how the structure of the korfball game reflects a need to use both sexes, which could improve mixed PE lessons. Players also discussed preconceived ideas about boys' games and girls' games, which led to problematic actions and interactions in current mixed PE settings. Findings suggest that embodied practices which demonstrate the abilities of girls, as well as boys, could lead to resistance of dominant discourses which reinforce gender difference and the physical inferiority of girls. They might provide a space which alters dominant discourse often reproduced in PE and sporting environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers girls' participation in running and other outdoor physical activities in their local areas in London, UK. The paper is concerned with the operation of risk discourses in and around this participation and looks at the way that such discourses impacted on girls' opportunities to take part in physical activities that required outdoor space. Drawing on data from longitudinal research into girls' participation in sport and physical activity, the findings suggested that girls, in particular, were subject to risk discourses around their participation in physical activities which constructed the girls as ‘weak’, and ‘vulnerable’. I look at the ways in which girls understood these messages and how they came to define certain spaces and activities as either ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’. I look in particular at how girls were able to resist certain constructions of their embodied physical capacities and also at the ways in which this was constrained by specific incidences of sexual harassment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study that explored black and minority ethnic (BME) students' experiences of physical education teacher education (PETE) in England. Widening the ethnic diversity of those choosing to enter the teaching profession has been a key policy objective of the Training and Development Agency—the government agency responsible for teacher education—for some years. However PETE programmes, designed to produce specialist physical education (PE) teachers to work with secondary age (11–18 years) pupils, reveal significant and enduring levels of under-representation of BME candidates, compared to other subject specialisms. The study reported here used semi-structured interviews and questionnaires with 25 BME participants from five universities involved in PETE in England. The findings show that BME PETE students share many of the characteristics with their White counterparts, being young, sporty and with a desire to improve PE experiences for future generations. However, in other ways, their experiences reveal the significance of ‘race’ ethnicity, and religion and how these are interwoven with gender to position them as ‘other’ in PETE spaces and within schools. Skin colour and religious dress were significant to stereotyping and everyday interactions that served to position them as ‘out of place’, particularly evident in practical activity sessions and on teaching placements. ‘Race’ and ethnicity as part of their professional education was at best a marginalised discourse, at worse, reproduced a deficit perspective of BME pupils’ and their schooling. The paper concludes by arguing for a critical analysis of the construction of Whiteness through PETE. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The three British Sports Councils are instrumental in developing the policy landscape for sport and physical education (PE). They aspire to equality between the sexes in ‘sport and physical recreation’ (SPR), in keeping with their Royal Charters [Sport England. (1996/2009). Royal Charter of English Sports Council (Sport England). Retrieved from https://www.sportengland.org/media/10309/consolidated-royal-charter.pdf; Sport Scotland. (1996). The Royal Charter for the Scottish Sports Council. Retrieved from http://www.sportscotland.org.uk/sportscotland/Documents/Resources/sportscotlandRoyalCharter.pdf; Sport Wales. (1997). The Royal Charter of the Sports Council for Wales. Retrieved from http://sport.wales/media/128780/royal%20charter.doc] and the Equality Act [HM Government. (2010). Equality Act 2010. London: TSO. Retrieved from http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/pdfs/ukpga_20100015_en.pdf]. As public bodies they are committed to eliminating direct and indirect discrimination in provision, and advancing equality. One of their main functions is the distribution of public money, and all collect participation data detailing the different SPR choices of the sexes. These are primary planning tools in the three home countries. This paper investigates whether equality in relation to sex is considered a ‘first-order’ question of distributive justice for the Councils. Therefore, the funding awarded to the top SPR preferences by sex for each Country is presented. Defining SPR determines eligibility for funding and the boundaries of the SPR infrastructure which influences and interfaces with sport, school sport and PE. Consequently, critical feminist political and economic theory is used to evaluate the Councils’ framing of SPR and equality in relation to sex. Male preferences are disproportionately grant-aided leaving those of females significantly under-funded. Although the remit of the Councils is ‘sport and physical recreation’ this is usually reframed by them as ‘sport’. Equality is generally considered a second-order question of justice, and outsourced to national governing bodies of sport. Further dance, one of the most popular female SPR activities for girls, has not, until 2016, been designated as SPR in England and has been ineligible for funding. These policies suggest indirect discrimination against women and girls who disproportionately prefer physical recreation and dance to competitive sport. Therefore, the Sports Councils and/or overarching government departments may not be fulfilling their legal requirements under the Equality Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sports media are significant to the construction and representation of sports cultures and sporting bodies. They function as public pedagogies that frame knowledge and learning negotiated within and beyond physical education (PE) lessons. In this capacity public pedagogies of sports media inform young people’s understandings of themselves and others, including in terms of the intersectionality of gender, ‘whiteness’, and race amongst other social/cultural relationships. Within the (post)-colonial Australian context, we are interested in ways online sports media construct understandings about females, ‘race’ and ‘whiteness’. ‘White’ male athletes occupy under-examined positions of privilege within discourses of sport. As the norm ‘white’ male athletes require no definition, whilst female and/or non-white athletes are constituted through discourses of sport. In this paper we draw on intersectionality and Foucault’s theorisation of subjectivity together with multimodal analysis to explore media coverage of three women’s sporting phenomena. Our cases include Australia’s Matildas football team, Australian Football League Women (AFLW) and Suncorp Super Netball. Our specific focus is how discourses together with visual images do pedagogical work. We conclude in challenging PE educators to work with their students in critically exploring public pedagogies of sports media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I reflect on the numerous contributions of feminist research in helping to frame critical analyses of contemporary health imperatives and their impact on girls’ experiences of their bodies and subjectivities. I then consider recent trends towards the digitisation of girl’s bodies across both formal and informal sites of learning. Digital technologies are increasingly being used in physical and health education to track and monitor young people’s ‘health behaviours’. Evidence is also emerging that digital health technologies, mobile apps, social media and wearable lifestyle technologies are growing in popularity amongst young people but can have potentially far-reaching effects on their health practices, identities and well-being. I argue that new digitised cultures of health and fitness are sites within which gendered pedagogies circulate and reflect a postfeminist sensibility of consumption, surveillance and self-actualisation. I then consider how the proliferation of these technologies and new forms of engagement with the body, inform or challenge gender inequalities. As the title suggests, in terms of gendered norms, digital health technologies can be used to govern bodies and subjectivities but also provide opportunities for resistance; reflecting a postfeminist sensibility but also providing pedagogical possibilities for resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we focus on the use of digital video technology for instruction in physical education (PE). Physical educators can produce PE instruction videos (PIVs) as educational resources and often use them to enable independent learning situations. Little research has focused on the criteria teachers use to select students for demonstration in such video practices, while such selections may impact the constructions of (un) desirable bodies in PE. The purpose of this study therefore was to uncover discourses that guide teachers in their selection of students to demonstrate in instructional videos and to discuss the possible consequences these selections may have for the privileging and marginalizing of certain students. We recruited six physical educators who participated in a network of early adopters for ICT in PE and we used their own PIV's as instruments for individual stimulated recall interviews. We subsequently discussed issues raised in these interviews with four focus-groups. We analyzed the data inductively by using open, focused and selective coding, looking for themes in the explanations the teachers used about their selection of students. The results suggest that the selection of students to demonstrate was based on a degree of perceived competence to perform well in the video and a degree of perceived resilience to cope with public scrutiny of their bodies. The teachers constructed hierarchies of desirable bodies that were embedded in intersecting discourses of ability, gender and ethnicity. This resulted in the selection of students who primarily embodied practices associated with white, able-bodied masculinities while other bodies were made invisible. We reflect on how these discursive practices may privilege and marginalize certain students and the possible consequences of this and of the use of students in such videos in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite research over the past three decades that has examined links between masculinity, sport and Physical Education (PE), exclusionary practices and cultures that privilege some boys and masculinities at the expense of marginalised others are still commonly reported. With an historical legacy as a masculinity-making device, attempts to disrupt hegemonic and heteronormative cultures and pedagogies in PE that perpetuate gendered inequalities have had a modest influence, at best. This paper examines the use of visual methodologies to better understand the role of boys’ PE and sport in the construction of gender and sexuality. We argue that visual methodologies can capture social practices and spaces in ways that words alone cannot, hence enabling more nuanced interrogations and insights into gendered experiences in PE to be made. Data draws from video-stimulated reflections (VSR) of PE classes in two all-boys’ secondary schools in Australia and New Zealand. The Australian data examines VSR interviews with a female teacher involved in a Year 8 (aged 13-14 years) PE class. The New Zealand data is drawn from VSR interviews conducted during a year-long (visual) ethnography of two Year 10 (aged 14-15 years) PE classes with a male teacher. Drawing on Foucault (1980, Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977 (C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham & K. Soper, Trans.) New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1988, Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977 (C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham & K. Soper, Trans.) New York, NY: Pantheon Books), we consider how these methodologies work to expose and obscure practices and pedagogies that contribute to gendered experiences for students and teachers that both privilege and marginalise. Using the tools of discourse, power and technologies of the self, our findings illustrate how VSR can serve as a collaborative (re)production of the visual material through moments of embodied dissonance. We argue that this ‘uncomfortableness’ can facilitate productive learnings about gendered/sexualised bodies and power in PE through critical reflection and ethical self-work. This knowledge, we believe, is key in disrupting and transforming taken-for-granted practices that continue to perpetuate inequitable gendered experiences in PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the responses from adolescent girls to the use of an activist approach (Oliver, K. L., & Kirk, D. (2015). Girls, gender and physical education: An activist approach. London: Routledge) by their teachers over the course of one school year during their core physical education lessons. The study took place in four secondary schools in different areas of Glasgow city. Approximately 110 girls aged 13-14 participated in this study as part of their regular physical education classes. The themes arising from the data were: (1) through variety and choice the girls were opened up to a wider range of possibilities in physical education; (2) relationships between peers (pupil-pupil) and teachers-pupils were central to the girls’ engagement. We conclude that through the use of an activist approach, and in contrast to their experience of traditional, multi-activity physical education, girls responded positively to variety and choice as they co-constructed their physical education programme with their teachers, and the development of better relationships with their teacher and among themselves created a supportive learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how our understandings of gender and Physical Education (PE) have developed since the publication of Shaping Up to Womanhood in 1992. I reflect back on my research which, using qualitative methodology and a socialist feminist lens, explored dominant gender relations in the teaching of girls’ PE in English secondary schools. The analysis of my data revealed how PE teachers had clear ideas about ‘appropriate’ activities and behaviours based on notions of acceptable femininity relating to physical ability and capacity; female sexuality and expectations of motherhood and domesticity. I consider how my conclusions have been taken forward in international feminist PE research over the past 25 years as theory has shifted from structural to poststructural analyses. I conclude that we now have far more micro analyses of teachers’ and students’ subjectivities, identities and differences and more complex understandings of power. I argue we need to re-align subjectivities with the social, political and economic landscape of education. The paper considers the cultural backlash against feminism underpinned by postfeminist, neoliberal discourse that emphasises individual self-determination evidenced by the ‘can do’ girl. This is set in contrast to recent evidence that concludes that gender expectations are still very evident in PE for girls in schools. Finally, I consider the 4th wave of feminism that through digital platforms is re-asserting feminist activism and developing a ‘call out’ culture of sexism and inequalities. For a more equitable PE we need to bridge the gap between theoretical sophistication and school experience. There are both continuities and changes in relation to gender and PE but the need for critical feminist work in PE is as important today as it was as I concluded my research 25 years ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research within the area of the sociology of physical education (PE) recognises that it is a subject which reinforces dominant ideologies about gender. The gendered nature of PE appears to continue into General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinable PE, as the proportion of boys being examined in GCSE PE compared to girls is nearly 2:1. Given the recent drive and initiatives such as the Girl Active scheme, run jointly by Norwich Union and the Youth Sport Trust to get girls active, GCSE PE may have a role to play increasing girls' involvement in physical activity and healthy lifestyles. This paper seeks to explore, through qualitative focus group interviews with Year 10 girls, how girls' experiences of PE and GCSE PE are gendered. The findings of this paper suggest that GCSE PE does little to breakdown existing gender relations of PE and often reinforces ideas about the gendered body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to illustrate how embodied ways of knowing may enhance our theoretical understanding within the field of physical education teacher education (PETE). It seeks to illustrate how teacher educators' viewpoints and understanding of gender relations are inevitably linked to socially constructed webs of emotions, as much as to intellectual rationales. Indeed, the paper argues for the need for PETE research to transcend the dualistic divide of reason/emotion. It builds upon interview data from an investigation interested in illuminating the ways in which teacher educators develop their professional identities, using the lenses of gender equal opportunities and equity to examine the degree to which identities reflect 'managerial' or 'democratic' professional projects. In particular it analyses the way in which 'gender talk' seems to evoke strong emotional reactions, often 'negative' feelings, while at the same time, gender equity concerns remain on the periphery of the discipline, despite increasing research evidence which reveals damaging discriminatory learning environments. By using Hargreaves (2000) concept of 'emotional geographies' the paper contends that 'negative emotions' about gender issues are currently hegemonic on account of today's configurations of human relations in PETE, because the discipline's feeling rules construct 'negative feelings' as being reasonable. Acknowledging that professional identities are on-going projects, and that feeling rules can be re-configured, the paper also seeks to illustrate how competing emotions may in the future lead to gender equality assuming a new role in PETE's 'regimes of truths'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores three female swimmers’ relationships with their male coaches and the body practices they were exposed to within Australian swimming. Particular attention is given to how the relationships and practices might relate to gender. Additionally, the article examines how (if at all) the conduct contributed to the social construction of an accepted female swimmer body. Through narrative accounts, the three adolescent female athletes articulate hierarchical male coach–female athlete relationships and specific body encounters they were exposed to and/or engaged with. Their experiences reveal how a sexually maturing body (growing breasts, female body shape and menstruating) was deemed unsuitable for performance and the swimmers were thus encouraged to transform their bodies and behaviours towards that of the boys. Using a feminist Foucauldian perspective, these accounts points to how the three swimmers came to regulate their diet, training and appearance in order to fulfil expectations. This self-regulation is problematic in two ways: first, no scientific evidence shows that a boy like physique is essential for best performance. Second, the stress from being pressured to achieve a particular body, as well as the shame that resulted from being unable to achieve the idealised physique, eventually caused the swimmers to develop an unhealthy relationship with their developing bodies. We highlight how those immersed in sporting contexts should recognise the serious implications of gender practices and power relations underpinning the male coach–female athlete dynamic in competitive sport. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the origins of meaning in adventurous activities. Specifically, the paper reports on a study of 10 adventure climbers in the Scottish mountaineering community. The study explores how formative experiences have influenced engagement in adventure climbing. Work has been done on the phenomenology of adventure and how individuals interpret and find meaning in the activity—this paper goes a step further and asks where do these dispositions come from? Using Bourdieu’s ideas offield,habitusand forms ofcapitalto frame these experiences in the wider social environment, early experiences are identified that, for the subjects of this study, provide a framework for their later adoption of the ‘adventurehabitus’. Among these influences are mainstream education, adventure education in particular, as well as broader formative experiences relating to factors such as gender and class. In addition, the study suggests that accounts differ between males and females in terms of their attitudes and dispositions towards adventure. This may relate to their respective experiences as well as expanding opportunities for both males and females. However, while the ‘adventurefield’ provides a context where women can develop transformative identities, these are nearly always subject to male validation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

School grades are among the most common measurements used to analyze equality of outcome in education. Large or increasing 'gaps' in school grades between boys and girls and between students with different migration background are considered strong indicators of inequality. Based on students' school grades, several studies have shown that equality in Swedish schools has decreased during the last two decades. Although equality has been described as one of the most important goals in physical education (PE), studies that focus on equality of outcome are lacking. Moreover, there have been no studies that focus on equality of outcome since the 2011 implementation of a new school grading system in Sweden. Therefore, the aim of this study is to contribute with new knowledge on equality in PE in Sweden – in regard to gender and migration background. The study is based on register data for all students enrolled in Swedish schools during the years 2012–2016 from Grades 6 and 9 and Year 1 in upper secondary school (N = 1,294,990). Based on a cross-sectional approach, analyses were conducted to explore general trends in students' school grades in PE in the study period 2012–2016, and to calculate the percentage difference in PE grades between students with a Swedish background and both students with a foreign background and foreign-born students. After controlling for grade inflation, regression analyses with Wald tests were used to analyze how gender has moderated the relationship between migration background and school grades in PE in Sweden between 2012 and 2016. The results from this study suggest that (a) the intersection of gender and migration background is related to unequal school grades in PE, (b) there are gender equality issues in relation to students' school grades in PE and, (c) the most prominent equality issues concern the group foreign-born girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to calls about the need to ‘give voice’ to groups previously marginalized in research and to challenge meta-narratives about men in sports this paper explores the use of a narrative approach to illuminate men's experiences—and the doing of gender—within equestrian sports, a sport dominated by women in Sweden. Adopting the position of a storyteller three literary short-stories were constructed from interviews with men active in equestrianism. (Re)presenting research findings in this way evoke a lot of questions in academic circles. We have often been askedhowthe stories were constructed and how one judges whether they are representative and trustworthy. These are legitimate questions, no doubt. But questions that are of importance to all qualitative research. It is as if the writing of stories is some kind of mysterious abracadabra activity and not a deliberate and theoretically informed creative process. While reading critique of narrative ways to (re)present research findings, where some researchers suggest that narrative inquiry is a retreat from the difficult academic work of generating new and important ideas, our assumption is that it stems from this misunderstanding about story writing. And maybe the construction of stories has not been given enough attention in narrative research. The purpose of this article is therefore to illustrate the difficult but inspiring activity of transforming 19 interviews into literary short-stories and to highlight methodological concerns relating to presenting these stories. We also demonstrate that creative analytical writing is not just a way of presenting research findings but also a method of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent years have seen an increase in scholarly attention to minority pupils and their experience of physical education (PE). UK research identifies specific challenges related to Muslim pupils' participation in PE. In Norway, little research has been undertaken on Muslim pupils' experiences in PE, something this paper hopes to redress in part. In particular, it addresses the role and significance of religiosity to their experience of PE. The work is positioned within third-wave feminism; as such it aims to be sensitive to issues of cultural and religious diversity. The study is based on life-history interviews with 21 Muslim girls aged between 16 and 25. All the girls had attended PE lessons at school, mostly in mixed-gender classes, but with some gender-segregated PE as well. In terms of religious affiliation, the girls describe themselves as Muslim, though their degree of religiosity varies. Five wear the hijab. The general picture drawn by the data shows that the Muslim girls enjoy their PE lessons and the majority preferred gender-mixed PE. Religiosity seems to have little influence on Muslim girls' experience of PE, with the exception of swimming lessons and showering facilities. We can understand the objections of some of the girls to gender-mixed PE by looking at the dominance of the male gender, and, as such, their experiences are similar to those of non-Muslim girls. However, objections to gender-mixed swimming classes are best explained by the girls' gendered religious identities and embodied faith. In term of intersectionality, the study shows that different categories dominate in different PE contexts. As such, what Muslim girls make of PE is not always dictated by religiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite shifts towards inclusivity, physical education (PE) is still perceived as unwelcoming towards students who identify as sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQ+). A systematic scoping review was conducted to garner an enhanced understanding of the empirical literature exploring LGBTQ+ student experiences within PE. Studies were identified by searching eight electronic databases which produced 962 abstracts from which eight articles were eligible for inclusion. Data were then extracted, summarized, and thematically synthesized into a conceptual map. The majority of the articles reviewed relied on samples that were predominantly comprised of able-bodied white cisgender individuals, with only half of the articles involving adolescent participants. Across studies, the omnipresence of cis-heteronormativity in PE adversely influenced LGBTQ+ experiences through homophobic and transphobic practices. The qualitative studies included in this review highlighted the implicit and explicit gendering processes that work to gender students as well as physical activities. Although cis-heteronormativity and its resulting exclusive practices should continue to be challenged in policies, the experiences of current LGBTQ+ students within PE should be prioritized to inform and evaluate inclusive PE policies, curricula, and teacher training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on analyses of ideas about girls and boys in sports as they are presented in textbooks used in coaching education programmes in Sweden. Specifically, it explores gender in relation to descriptions of girls' and boys' bodies and bodily development during puberty. Texts construct gender differences. Masculinity is shaped around being an athlete with a functional, naturally athletic body. Femininities are shaped in relation to the female specific body and in contrast to the male athletic body. Descriptions of girls' bodies and physical development emphasize problems that girls are expected to experience during the pubescent period. Gender theory and discourse analysis are used in the study. Ideas about gender are exemplified as well as how these ideas are presented by the use of different discourse types, genres and styles in the texts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Given that the health of the nation is often interpreted in and through the health of the nation's youth, the threat of the ‘childhood obesity epidemic’ garners much attention and it is hardly surprising that physical education has been recruited in the ‘war on [childhood] obesity'. This paper explores how students aged 13–15 years, at a secondary school in Toronto, Canada, make sense of, negotiate and embody the health messages embedded within the obesity-informed Health and Physical Education (HPE) curricula. A post-structural analysis of student narratives reveals the ways in which notions of biocitizenry constitute a visibly ‘healthy’, gendered, engaged, normalized body. The ‘good’ HPE student negotiates health discourse in productive and responsive ways, constructing a virtuous subjectivity and alienating the unruly or undisciplined, unhealthy body in HPE. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When teaching in Sport Management programs professors are often forced to respond to the actions and teachings of professionals in the field. According to the study by Kincheloe & Steinberg many of these normalized and, indeed celebrated, behaviors are actions that are part and parcel of the ‘recovery movement’ which (re)inscribe new forms of colonization, sexism, racism, classism and so on. Given that these performances are often considered ‘good business practice’, it is now more important than ever to challenge these conventions in what has been termed the post-neoliberal moment. This paper, therefore, analyzes and explains how the mundane recycling of borrowed thought has seeped into America's collegiate educational system—particularly in sport management programs. It does so through a critical examination of Amber's educational and pre-professional experience as an intern for various sporting constituencies. Further, we examine the disguised precedence and obligatory requisites of the sporting industry, which use exploitative and manipulative marketing tactics to fabricate a hyperreal milieu of sporting production and consumption. Given this context, the project at present seeks to (re)evaluate just what we, as teachers, owe our students as they venture into an economy facing ‘hard times’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Physical education (PE) remains the subject in coeducational schools that is most likely to be delivered in gender segregated sessions. Decisions to offer single sex lessons are often underpinned by discourses and practices associated with doing gender that emphasise differences in boys' and girls' attitudes, behaviours, abilities and experiences. This investigation employs the concept of ‘undoing’ gender to explore the possibility for alternative interpretations of the issues emerging in coeducation. Examples of ‘undoing gender’ included evidence of girls' and boys' engaging positively during activities, girls' identification of positive aspects of mixed gender, examples of boys' and girls' similarities and shared experiences and awareness of girls' capabilities. The paper concludes that the emphasis on gender difference in explaining problems associated with coeducation such as teasing, harassment and exclusion can mask the ways that these practices are embedded within the structure and organisation of PE and provides recommendations for working towards gender integration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, I consider two interrelated problems. The first concerns the issues and difficulties involved in studying how children think about their bodies, in the schooling setting. The second involves an attempt to bring together a series of phenomena around which gendered media and social panics are being constructed in the UK and elsewhere. I discuss the problems concerned with the practicalities of studying children's bodies in a setting in which the body is effaced. I argue that the problems arising from this effacement are compounded by children's embarrassment about their bodies, particularly in a situation in which bodies are supposed to be invisible. Related to this, I argue that children's and young people's bodies that are made visible in schools and other public or semi-public arenas are rendered pathological by that very visibility. I suggest that we can see all these metaphorically pathological bodies in terms of a failure of or resistance to the disciplinary institutions of the school and the family, and that such an understanding of 'problematic' bodies can help us to see what they have in common. I conclude with suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on Bourdieu's notions of habitus, social field, and capital to provide a more complex examination of the place and meaning of physical education in Turkish young people's lives. Two secondary schools comprised of students from quite distinctive social, cultural, and geographical locations were involved in the study. Collected data from several focus group discussions, individual interviews, and class observations was analysed in relation to the themes of 'social class', 'gender', and 'students' positions within the social field of 'physical education'. The findings demonstrate how the national Turkish physical education (PE) curriculum became interpreted and deployed by each school in distinctive ways. Both schools promoted disciplinary and performance-based physical activities in the PE social field, even as they used different physical activities and had different reasons for privileging these types of activities. Physical education was used by the middle-upper-class school to reify and enhance the symbolic, cultural, and social capital of young people, who were regarded as future intellectual, business, and government leaders within Turkish society. In comparison, the school based in the poor suburb used physical activity as a means to create 'good' and 'productive' citizen-subjects. However, in using particular physical activities to create certain types of subjects with institutionally valued habitus (including physical 'abilities' and personal and social attributes), both schools ended up privileging only a few select young men and women whose physical capital was commensurate with the discursive requirements of the social field. From this perspective, we argue that both schools authorised certain individuals (mostly young men) who were able to take up ascendant positions because they could most easily convert their physical capital into social and cultural forms. These students were most able to determine acceptable forms of embodiment and could dictate patterns of use in the physical education classroom. In many instances, their dominance worked to prevent most of their peers from fully participating in PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educators have criticised vocational education in Australia and elsewhere for being gendered and classed, thereby not giving those students who choose to undertake this form of study the broadening of opportunities envisioned (e.g., Falk, 1999; Huws, 2000; Host & Michelson, 2001). Recently, the Queensland Studies Authority (formally the Queensland Board of Senior Secondary School Studies) implemented the subject Physical Recreation, a new stream of vocational education. The aim of this study was to examine how power operates in two Physical Recreation case study schools using Foucault's techniques of power. Qualitative data were collected using field notes from observations, interviews using partially constructed questions and supplementary materials. The data collected were clustered into key themes addressing masculinities (re)produced by the Physical Recreation teachers and students. The discourses within these themes that position both teachers and students in particular power relationships were deconstructed using Foucault's techniques of power. The paper concludes that Physical Recreation perpetuated a male hierarchy that favoured elite athletes and offered limited educative experiences to the majority of students.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore how ‘ability’ is currently conceptualised in physical education and with what effects for different groups of young people. We interrogate approaches to theorising ability in physical education that draw on sociological and phenomenological ‘foundations’ together with notions of ability as ‘physical’ and ‘cultural capital’ drawn from the work of Bourdieu. We also look to data we and others have collected across a number of empirical projects to ask: where do we find talk about what we might identify as ‘ability’ in the context of physical education and sport; how is it talked about? And in what ways might this further our thinking of the meaning of ‘ability’ in physical education and school based sport? Our findings suggest that physical ability is far from a neutral concept and that how it is understood has important consequences for young people in relation to gender, race and social class. We argue that ongoing discussions around what we mean by ability, how we use it, and in relation to whom, are crucial in physical education where organised sport, recreation and exercise remain privileged over other constituents of physical culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]