A Study of Participation of Pakistani Female Students in Physical Activities

International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics

ISSN: 1940-6940 (Print) 1940-6959 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/risp20

Constraints to women’s participation in sports: a study of participation of Pakistani female students in physical activities

Rizwan Laar, Jianhua Zhang, Tianran Yu, Huanhuan Qi & Muhammad Azeem Ashraf

To cite this article: Rizwan Laar, Jianhua Zhang, Tianran Yu, Huanhuan Qi & Muhammad Azeem Ashraf (2019) Constraints to women’s participation in sports: a study of participation of Pakistani female students in physical activities, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 11:3, 385-397, DOI: 10.1080/19406940.2018.1481875 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2018.1481875

Published online: 20 Jul 2018.

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=risp20 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPORT POLICY AND POLITICS 2019, VOL. 11, NO. 3, 385–397 https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2018.1481875

ARTICLE Constraints to women’s participation in sports: a study of participation of Pakistani female students in physical activities

Rizwan Laar a, Jianhua Zhanga, Tianran Yua, Huanhuan Qia and Muhammad Azeem Ashraf b aCollege of Physical Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; bFaculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Historically, women’s participation in activities outside of the home, such Received 16 February 2017 as in sport, has been discouraged due to several reasons. This article aims Accepted 24 May 2018 to explore the barriers to women in sporting activities by addressing the KEYWORDS ratio of their participation in capitals of each province of Pakistan, using Women sports; lack of the feminist lens. With the help of stratified random sampling, women’s participation; constraints; colleges in four Pakistani provincial capital cities were surveyed, using a sporting activities; family questionnaire specifically designed for this study. M-plus was used to issues; religious and cultural eliminate the questions which had little or no influence on female limitations participation in sport. Independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA then post hoc test and follow-up results revealed that sub-dimensions of the constraints ‘Mass Media’ and ‘Religious and Cultural’ were the most significant factors, with mean up to 2.8 and 2.7, respectively. There are significant differences (p < 0.05) in constraints experienced by female students in big and small cities and in public and private institutions. The results provide preliminary evidence that alerting family members to the benefits of sport and providing facilities for women can enhance their participation.

1. Introduction A lifestyle that has sporting activity in the daily routine has become increasingly important in most developed societies. Sporting activities are related to many aspects of life, for instance: they have positive effects on health and mental development; can help develop social networks and enhance social connections and skills; maintain social structures in communities; influence the economy; help people to get jobs or work and give shape to cultural and national identities (Bloom et al. 2005). Participation in sports increases mental health and improves well-being (Milne et al. 2014). However, despite all these benefits of sport and physical exercise, most people do not participate on a regular basis, especially women and girls. Women and girls face many problems in sport participation; the economic status of their family is an important factor which plays a major role in their involvement in sport, especially for girls. Religion and culture are listed as second (Johnson et al. 2001, Shores et al. 2007, Walseth and Strandbu 2014). Insufficient economic status or a lack of sponsors can result in termination from participation in sports (Ahmad 2015). The Iranian female football team was banned from the 2012 Olympics because their uniform (including the hijab) violated FIFA’s Olympic rules. The Qatari women’s basketball team withdrew from the Asian Games in South Korea in 2014, in protest against FIBA’s rules which banned them from wearing Muslim headscarves in the competition.

Previous studies on elite constraints to participation in female sport (e.g. Coyle and Kinney 1990, Walker and Virden 2005, Dagkas and Benn 2006) mapped hindrances of female students in sports participation. It is important, however, to also compare constraints among female students in different cities and between public and private institutions of a Muslim country. In this article, our purpose is to investigate and examine barriers experienced by female college students to sport participation and how to tackle them, in order to enhance female sport participation in Pakistan. This study also focuses on the impact and intensity of these barriers to participation, as well as comparing them in four provincial capital cities of Pakistan and in public and private institutions. To construct perception of constraints, we first review the previous literature on constraints to participation in female sports and introduce our theoretical lens and then, before the findings, we describe the methodology.

2. Literature review Women face gender stereotypes and are considered to be weaker and submissive. Allowing women to participate in sport seemed as a challenge for male dominance (Messner 1988). Therefore, to ensure male superiority, women were not allowed to the stadium to view the Ancient Greek Olympics. Most modern day ideology regarding inequality stems from Ancient Greece. In most societies, women are responsible for the household chores and they have little or no responsibility for earning financial income (Deem 1986, Jackson and Henderson 1995). Moreover, women also experience religious and cultural limitations. For example, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei did not introduce women into their teams until the 2012 Olympic Games, because of Islamic dress codes. Kuwaiti women are influenced by their culture, which prevents them from participating in sport activities and leading a public life. Likewise, according to Confucius’ teachings, women were considered inferior to men, and were treated as though they were incapable of being educated, which is why they did not hold primary positions in society (Yu et al. 2004). In addition, Moradi et al.(2011) found that coverage of women’s sport by mass media (newspapers, TV, magazines and radio) was much smaller in extent than of men’s sport. In sport studies, feminist theory identifies the participation of male and female in sports within the hegemonic masculine system of society (Story and Markula 2017). Consequently, in this study, we examined how Muslim women are constrained, relative to their male counterparts, in their pursuit of active sports. Most feminist scholars declare that masculinity is preserved by a system of ideological framework. According to Markula (2009) and Birrell and Theberge (1994), ideologies are believed to be advantageous for everyone, in fact they only benefit some dominant groups. The ideology of patriarchy, mainly, is used to sustain sport’s inequality (Markula 2009, Birrell and McDonald 2000, Birrell 2000. While it no longer excludes women from participating, some critical feminist scholars have described the subtler methods it uses to sexualise, trivialise and marginalise women athletes. Constraints to women’s participation have been identified in previous studies such as: a lack of knowledge, a lack of time, overcrowding, family problems, lack of money and companions, and long distances to activity areas, to be the most significant constraints (Coyle and Kinney 1990, Wilkinson 1995, Kara and Demirci 2010, Scott and Mowen 2010, Stanis et al. 2010). Shaw (1994) concluded that gender differences in all aspects like work and other leisure activities, lack of energy and lack of time are the main constraints which are hindering female participation in sport. Some factors given below from previous literature have a stronger influence on female students’ participation in sport. However, some studies identified that level of income is above all other constraints on female sports participation, as it plays a more important role in participation of individuals in sporting activities than age, gender, educational level and race (Johnson et al. 2001, Shores et al. 2007). As Kara and Demirci (2010) and Scott and Munson (1994) observed in their studies, people with high incomes participated in sporting activities more frequently than those with low incomes. Sport has its specific socio-economic position, and it is controlled by renowned INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPORT POLICY AND POLITICS 387 persons in society. Economic status and power have a huge influence on the objectives and aims of sport organisations in society (Alan 2007, Bairner 2007). Rich resources are required to train any level of player (national or international). Some athletes may be able to receive sponsorship for training if they are lucky enough; others pay for it personally (Ellin 2008). Financial problems are mostly responsible for the lack of participation in sport, especially by women. On the other hand, people may believe that religion and culture have no effect on sport or the effect has reduced, but it is certain throughout history that religion has had considerable influence on sporting activities. It impacts the way sports are organised and seeks to diminish them, especially women’s sports (Peiser 2000). Religion has a strong influence on various aspects of the culture of any society. As far as hindrances created by religion and culture in sporting activities are concerned, history tells us Islam has more objections to the way sport is designed than other religions. Islam has very specific beliefs about the clothing that must be worn by women when they may be seen by men and avoids the intermingling of sexes (Coakley and Pike 2014). According to Klein (2007), many Muslims think that sport is Haram (forbidden) for women and girls. Dagkas and Benn (2006) reported that mixed gender sporting activities, religious and cultural constraints, dress codes for playing, limited resources and the general attitude of local people towards women’s sport were some other basic constraints to participation in sporting activities for women. Di-Capua (2005) concluded that because of intermingling of sexes and un-Islamic dressing for sport, Muslim scholars not only dislike the way Muslim females participate in such activities but they also strongly condemn their participation. Therefore, Moghissi (1999) rightly said that change in such values can only occur outside of the religious framework. As far as Christianity is concerned, according to Fitzgibbons (2015), it is believed in Catholicism that excessive participation in sports can cause some loss in family relations. Participation in such activities damages Catholic married life and disturbs the family’s personal time and combined activities (Fitzgibbons 2015). In many cases, an individual’s culture and/or religious beliefs can affect the sporting activities they may participate in regularly, for example, in rugby, a drinking culture is very common (so, non-drinkers may avoid joining) (Moran 2014); most female Muslims keep their bodies fully covered (which most sports events do not allow); Ramadan (at the time of fasting, it is hard to participate in sports); racism (due to bad experiences, minorities may not participate in sporting activities). Religion also may influence people’s participation in certain sporting activities. For instance: some sports’ dress codes contradict religions belief; this is the reason only three women from Muslim countries participated in events at the 2012 Olympics (Hanley 2013). In Pakistan, Islam is widespread, to the extent that Pakistan was declared an Islamic Republic in the 1956 constitution (Mumtaz and Shaheed 1987). Islam has a far more effective influence on most aspects of life in Pakistan than in many other Islamic countries (Wilber 1964). In Pakistan, many religious scholars do not encourage female participation in sporting activities, especially when events are in public or together with male participants. It is regarded as disgraceful and immodest if a female participant competes publicly with male participants in any sporting activity (Iqbal and Rajput 2008). However, Islam does not condemn such activities, as long as women are in proper attire and there is no intermingling of the sexes. In addition, a structure of society with inequalities in gender and education is a very disturbing phenomenon for females (Connell 2007). Research shows that parents prefer to spend money on their son rather than their daughter. Twice as much money is spent on male athletes compared to their female counterparts (Padgett 2002). Jackson and Henderson (1995) have studied constraints to participation in sporting activities from a gender perspective. They analysed secondary data (n = 9642) from surveys of Alberta, Canada. They concluded that of 15 specified constraint factors, 10 were different according to gender. These constraints show that, due to the nature of these constraints, female participation in sporting activities was significantly lower than that of males. The importance of any physical or sporting activity depends on peoples’ interest, the participation level of friends and social context. Female sport participation, in most cases, emphasises fun and enjoyment, instead of individual achievement and competition. While on other hand, sportsmen 388 R. LAAR ET AL. are considered self-earned and successful people of the sports world and they get fame in public (Henderson and Bialeschki 1994). This is also the reason why women face more constraints to sport participation in general. In this condition, only highly motivated females continue to participate in these activities (Henderson and Bialeschki 1993, Shaw 1994). The masculine structure of sporting institutions, including rules and regulations and policies, needs to change if females are really to be equal to males in sports (Markula 2009). Moreover, in this modern society, the mass media is considered a powerful institution. Peoples’ knowledge and attitudes are partly informed by written media (Boutilier and San Giovanni 1983). According to Miloch et al.(2005), sportswomen are ignored most of the time in the mass media; this is one reason why women’s sport is promoted less than men’s. Televised sport coverage of sportswomen has been going downward since 2004. In 2009, only 1.4% of ESPN’S news and reports are related to female sport, while, on other networks, only 1.6% of reports covered female sport (Messner et al. 2010). The governments of many Muslim countries control women’s sport coverage in the media, so that other Muslim females cannot watch or know that women of their country are participating in sporting activities. For example, Hargreaves and Vertinsky (2007) reported that in the Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004) Olympic Games, television networks of Muslim countries were instructed to avoid coverage of female games. According to Khalaf (2014), mass media has a major role in discouraging female participation in sporting activities, as the media only focuses on male participants, upgrading male sport and degrading female. The media mainly show beauty, looks and openly sexualised displays of sportswomen’s bodies, instead of their athletic ability (Story and Markula 2017). Constraints to women’s participation in Pakistan have hardly been touched in previous studies; however, there are many researches on women participation in sports in Western. Almost 90% of women and girls do not participate in sports or physical activities (Cailliau 2013). In Pakistan, to promote female participation in sport, a ‘Sport Works’ project is led by two international organisations: Insan Foundation Pakistan and Right to Play. They had trouble with community members and local leaders, who were not in favour of this project. On the other hand, a mini-marathon was arranged by the Joint Action Committee for People’s Rights and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan on 21 May 2005 in Pakistan. During the event, police forcefully stopped participants, and the first attempt of a mixed-sex race failed (United Nations Office of Sport for Development and Peace 2005). Apart from this, women in Pakistan face the issue of domestic violence. In Pakistan, the system of patriarchy is common, mainly (but not only) men consider it their right to control the outside and other activities of their wives and to threaten or use psychological violence as a remedial behaviour when a wife is realised to be disobedient. According to a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey, Pakistan is ranked as the third most unsafe country for women (Anderson 2011). In Pakistani society, men dominate all aspects of life, including sports. The male head of a family is renowned as the leader and superior. He makes the decisions in the home concerning both females and any other younger male family member (Nyrop et al. 1971). In Pakistan, women are born to take care of the house work and the children. They are treated as housewives and remain inside the four walls, rather than participating in sport or other social activities. In many areas, there are security issues; this is also the reason that women are not allowed to travel alone out of their locality or community. Personal security and other factors also limit the mobility of women and girls in many parts of Pakistan (Hakim and Aziz 1998). Apart from the economic and gender barriers, people of Pakistan also face problems, such as lack of facilities. Facilities are the laboratories for athletes. For excellent sports participation, these facilities are mostly required: supplies, equipment, financial support, supervision, maintenance, safety, accessibility and a good location (Olajide 2004). In Pakistan, these facilities are rarely available for people to utilise. If luckily there are some facilities, they are often outdated or in open grounds, in this case women feel embarrassed to participate in sport with men and decide not to use such facilities (Richards 2017). Family issues are also one of the barriers to sport participation in Pakistan, especially for women and girls. In the family, parents can have a significant negative or INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPORT POLICY AND POLITICS 389

positive influence on individuals’ participation, for instance by giving stress or support, respectively. Moreover, siblings can also affect the sport participation of a child, especially girls (Hay and Côté 1993). An environment in which children can easily take part in sporting activities and, with planning, achieve designed goals in such activities totally depends on family background (Csikszentmihalyi et al. 1997). On the other hand, educational barriers include inadequately skilled sports teachers, a shortage of government funding, lack of facilities and no physical education classes or extra-curriculum activities (United Nations Office of Sport for Development and Peace 2005). In Pakistan, most children do not take part in arranged sporting activities at school for many reasons, such as most students are afraid of injury, others may have body issues and most of them do not want to miss classes because, in most cases, the timing of physical education activity clashes with other, academic classes. All the aforementioned studies provide evidence that Pakistan has the system of a masculinist society; hence, women’s participation in sport is significantly low. In addition, the participation of female students in college is also reduced, due to such a social system. In our study, we mainly focus on female college students’ participation and constraints to it; as Jackson and Scott (1999) rightly said, investigating different population groups, especially students, helps us to understand the hindrances in sports participation more systematically. However, the review tells us research on sport and religion, especially in Muslim countries, is marginalised. Scholars who study religion hardly focus on studying sport, and vice versa. The literature on participation of female students, especially from Muslim countries, like Pakistan, is strikingly low (Coakley and Pike 2014). This gap in knowledge inspired us to conduct such a study, which can help point out the constraints faced by Pakistani female students in sports participation and contribute to the literature as well.

3. Method 3.1. Demographic proﬁle of female students and colleges The researchers obtained the demographic proﬁle, such as the nature of the cities and colleges, grade, gender, age, marital status and some sport-related information from the students. Capital cities of four provinces were selected, which are considered most populated cities of Pakistan. Further, the ratio of public and private educational institutions is also selected equally from each city. Students of grade 11 and 12 (college students) equally participated in the current study. As this study is mainly focused on elaborating the hindrances in female participation in sport, all the respondents participating in this study were females (Table 1). The results regarding the age of respondents showed that 38.1% of the respondents were 16–18 years old, whereas 46.6% and 15.3% were 19–21 and 22 or older, respectively. The marital status revealed that almost 97.3% of the respondents were single, while 2.8% were married.

3.2. Methodology This study employed a quantitative method to collect data from college female students, using designed questionnaire. We have designed our method based on following studies: Raymore et al. (1993); Young et al.(2003); Alexandris and Carroll (2000); Alfadhil (1996). Similar to study of Kara and Demirci (2010), this study was also held in the most populated and capital cities of four provinces of Pakistan i.e. Karachi (Sindh), Lahore (Punjab), Quetta (Baluchistan) and Peshawar (Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa). In the ﬁrst round, the researchers divided the total population into four groups (strata) by stratiﬁed random sampling. Two female colleges from each city were selected, one private and one public sector college. We selected 100 female students from each college, in total 8 colleges (n = 800) were selected. The sample distribution of four cities from all four districts using Strata approach and the equal ratio of public and private sector colleges fairly represent the total population (Young et al. 2003). 390 R. LAAR ET AL.

Table 1. Demographic proﬁle. Variables Frequency Per cent Cities Capital cities 4 100 Non-capital cities 0 0 College Public 4 50 Private 4 50 Grade 11th 400 50 12th 400 50 Gender Male 0 0 Female 800 100 Age 16–18 305 38 19–21 373 46 >22 122 15 Marital Status Single 778 97 Married 22 3

The self-administered questionnaire was developed with the help and suggestions of 10 professional experts in the fields of Physical Education, Sociology and Islamic studies and from the literature (Raymore et al. 1993, Alfadhil 1996). The researchers divided the questionnaire into three major parts, namely: demographic and sport-related information about the student; the nature of constraints; reasons for not participating in sporting activities. Based on previously investigated physical activity studies (Wilson and Spink 2006), the factors influencing sporting participation were designed. These factors include: ethos of college Physical Education (PE); facilities; religion and culture; family values; gender; economic and political factors; mass media. Each constraint has its own sub-dimensions. All the sub-dimensions of the individual constraints were rated on a Likert Scale (Witt and Goodale 1981, Jackson 1983, Henderson et al. 1988) ranging from 1 (none) to 5 (very high). There was no identifiable personal information on the questionnaire about the students or college. Participants were informed that they might be contacted again, in the future. The questionnaire was translated into the native languages of the students. Last, it was also passed through a pilot study and revised accordingly. For data collection, the researchers attended each selected college with the permission of the appropriate District Education Officer and Head Teacher of the college. Getting access to the appropriate individuals for data collection greatly helps research projects be successful (Amis 2005). Because of restricted access to women’s colleges, especially in Muslim countries, researchers received several refusals and moved on to the next college many times. With the permission of the teacher, after or before a class, the researchers went to class rooms to distribute the questionnaire and explained it for approximately 15 minutes to the female students. It took almost 20–30 minutes to fill in the questionnaire at each college. The response rate was 90%, we replaced students who did not want to participate or when problems occurred when returning the questionnaires. The data were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20 (IBM Corp., Released 2011, IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Versioin 20.0 Amonk, NY, USA). Data analysis includes making sense of the subjects’ choices in the questionnaire and then assigning patterns and connections to the tran- script. These patterns are then analysed, using feminist theory (Patton 2002). To ensure the high quality of our study, we used Structural Equation Modeling (M-plus (Version 7.11 Base Program and Combination Add-On (64-bit) Muthen & Muthen Copyright (C) 1998-2013), in order to eliminate the questions which had less/no influence on constraints to women’s participation in Pakistan. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPORT POLICY AND POLITICS 391

4. Results In order to find the most effective sub-dimensions of the constraints that prevent female students from participating in sport, the means and standard deviations were calculated to analyse the constraints which are the most important for the whole sample. This set of results gives some detail on the data and the actual questions asked to the sample. The maximum intensity-bearing sub- dimensions are related to the constraint ‘Mass Media’, which are labelled as ‘The coverage of mass media for female sport is too short’ and ‘Mass media most of the time affiliate/represent sportswomen with something bad’ with means of 2.80 and 2.79, respectively. Whereas the minimum intensity-bearing sub-dimension is also related to the problem ‘Mass Media’, which is labelled as ‘The reports of mass media about female sports and physical activities let females feel embarrassing in the Muslim society’. Overall, the means are very close between all sub-dimensions, ‘so generally all these sub-dimensions are more or less’ equally effecting the female sport participation (Table 2). To test the hypothesis that public and private school female students were associated with statically significant different means in facing such problems, an independent sample t-test was performed. Result shows the top most 12 significant differences between public and private institutions in sub-dimensions of constraints (Table 3). Although our data are ordinal, we did not use Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test because our samples are large enough and the median does not represent particularly well the centre of the distribution. The constraints with most significant differences (p < 0.05) between the responses of participants in the public and private are described in Table 3. ‘Mass Media’ is the constraint which stands out as most different between these both institutions with the 0.78 mean difference. On the other side, the constraint ‘Religion and Culture’ stands out with the lowest mean difference. Students of public institutions complained about barriers comparatively more than the students of private institutions. The mean and p value of each constraint as well as one-way ANOVA then post hoc test were applied in order to compare the constraints experienced by female students in these cities. As was hypothesised, there is a significant difference in each city in facing most of the constraints. As the Peshawar and Quetta are the smaller cities as compared to Karachi and Lahore, hence in the compared mean between the small and big cities, the most significant difference was found (p < 0.05) between these cities. Whereas, as hypothesised, the results about the comparison between small to small and big to big cities show less significant differences in most of the constraints (Table 4). The summary of female students influenced by constraints is given as under. The researchers calculated the percentage of students influenced by constraints and who stopped taking part in

Table 2. Most intensity-bearing sub-dimensions. Problem Sub-dimension Mean ±SD Ethos of college P.E Headmasters do not think P.E is much valuable for girls 2.75 1.700 Lack of female P.E Teachers 2.67 1.623 Gender-mixed P.E classes make me feel embarrassed and uncomfortable 2.70 1.614 Sports facility and Some sporting facilities are far from home, I worry about security on the way 2.71 1.750 equipment Religion and culture As Muslims, our Islamic culture prevents us from participating in gender-mixed sports 2.70 1.602 or events The role of Muslim females is as a mother and home keeper, keeps modesty, 2.70 1.602 participation in physical activities conﬂicts with this cultural identity It is extremely hot and uncomfortable to run/exercise strenuously wearing full hijab, 2.76 1.636 long dress with full sleeves Economic problem Low income of household 2.67 1.657 Mass media The coverage of mass media for female sport is too short 2.80 1.632 The reports of mass media about female sports and physical activities let females feel 2.65 1.636 embarrassing in the Muslim society Mass media most of the times aﬃliate/represent sportswomen with something bad 2.79 1.633 392 R. LAAR ET AL.

Table 3. Constraints in public and private institution distribution. School properties Sig. Public Private (two- Problem Sub-dimension Mean ±SD Mean ±SD t tailed) Ethos of college Headmasters do not think P.E is much valuable for girls 2.95 0 2.55 1.716 3.349 0.001 P.E Gender-mixed P.E classes make me feel embarrassed and 2.93 0 2.47 1.636 4.047 0.000 uncomfortable Religion and Muslim females who participate in physical activities are 2.86 0 2.41 1.574 3.869 0.000 culture alienated by their ethnic groups As Muslims, our Islamic culture prevents us from 2.81 0.03 2.59 1.595 1.990 0.047 participating in gender-mixed sports or events The role of Muslim females is as a mother and home 2.81 0.03 2.59 1.595 1.990 0.047 keeper, keeps modesty, participation in physical activities conflicts with this cultural identity (new) It is extremely hot and uncomfortable to run/exercise 2.89 0.01 2.62 1.638 2.319 0.021 strenuously wearing full hijab, long dress with full sleeves Family values Parents ask me to focus on study not to waste time in sport 2.79 0 2.33 1.571 4.067 0.000 about physical activities education Parents do not support me to participate in physical 2.64 0 2.32 1.6 2.776 0.006 activities wearing lighter t-shirts and shorts Economic Parents do not support financially 2.68 0.01 2.44 1.524 2.217 0.027 problem Mass media The coverage of mass media for female sport is too short 3.17 0 2.44 1.627 6.442 0.000 The reports of mass media about female sports and physical 3.04 0 2.26 1.582 6.987 0.000 activities let females feel embarrassing in the Muslim society Mass media most of the times affiliate/represent 3.06 0 2.53 1.63 4.603 0.000 sportswomen with something bad

Table 4. Multi-comparison of constraints with cities. Cities Peshawar Quetta Karachi Lahore Sign. P& P& P& Q& Q& K& Problem Mean ±SD Mean ±SD Mean ±SD Mean ±SD Q K L K L L Ethos of college P.E 2.69 1.44 2.42 1.64 3.45 1.47 2.38 1.60 0.08 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.78 0.00 Sport facilities and 3.20 1.54 3.04 1.39 2.52 1.60 2.56 1.70 0.26 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.81 equipment Religion and culture 2.84 1.60 1.68 1.33 2.88 1.72 2.47 1.54 0.00 0.83 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.01 Family values about PE 3.14 1.58 2.94 1.62 2.28 1.51 2.62 1.56 0.21 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.03 Economic problem 3.09 1.59 1.47 1.15 2.65 1.69 2.41 1.58 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.14 Gender 3.01 1.59 3.61 1.33 2.59 1.64 2.61 1.64 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.88 Political 2.91 1.68 2.64 1.65 2.46 1.61 2.56 1.65 0.11 0.01 0.04 0.27 0.61 0.56 Mass media 2.52 1.65 2.63 1.63 2.58 1.71 2.37 1.63 0.48 0.72 0.38 0.74 0.11 0.22 P = Peshawar; Q = Quetta; K = Karachi; L = Lahore. sporting activities due to these problems. Almost 331 (41.4%) female students constantly participated in sports in spite of experiencing various constraints. Whereas, almost 58.6% of the total population decided not to participate ever in such activities.

5. Discussion of the findings This study provides a complete understanding of constraints and the current condition of female participation in sport in Pakistan. Having responses from 800 female students from 8 different female colleges in 4 cities in Pakistan, the survey results were adequate to answer the research question of the study. Similar to the findings of other scholars (Johnson et al. 2001,Yuet al. 2004, Wilson and Spink 2006, Attarzadeh and Sohrabi 2007, Iqbal and Rajput 2008, Hanley 2013, Moran 2014), it was found that sub-dimensions of the constraints ‘Mass Media’ and ‘Religious and Cultural’ INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPORT POLICY AND POLITICS 393 such as: ‘The coverage of mass media for female sport is too short’, ‘Mass media most of the times affiliate/represent sportswomen with something bad’ and ‘It is extremely hot and uncomfortable to run/exercise strenuously wearing full hijab, long dress with full sleeves’, so on, are the most influential factors causing barriers to sport participation. Many scholars have demonstrated that religious and cultural factors create remarkable hindrances in the path of sports participation (e.g. Peiser 2000, Klein 2007, Little 2002, Di-Capua 2005, Kay 2005, Greendorfer 1993, Moghissi 1999, Hargreaves and Vertinsky 2007, Fitzgibbons 2015, Azabdaftaran 1999, Dadashi 2000, Beirami 2009, Ehsani 2002, 2005). Many of the findings of this study show that constraints like ‘Religion and Culture’ and ‘Mass Media’ have a significant influence on students in each city; these findings are supported by other scholars such as Khalaf (2014) and Phillips (1997). In contrast, some studies state that religion and culture are not factors which can be labelled as constraints to participation in sport (Tekin 2010). The unique finding of this study is that female students at public institutions experience more constraints to sport participation than students at private institutions. The reason could be that at private institutions, there are better facilities and more opportunities for taking part in such activities, due to their more disciplined environment. As we hypothesised, there is difference in students of public and private school in aspect of economic status, education system and philo- sophy of life. Moreover, the facilities of sports are different between private and public schools. There is a gap in the literature related to this issue. This comparison enables us to become one of the initial researchers in this field. The findings form this study indicate that, as was hypothesised, big cities provide more support and opportunities for female students to participate in sport, as compared to their counterparts in smaller cities. Curtis and McPherson (1987), Curtis and Birch (1987) and Côté et al.(2006) have also discussed that big cities offer more opportunities for students to engage in structured sports, while smaller cities produce fewer opportunities, which results in fewer professional players in sport. However, these findings are not consistent with a few other studies (for example, Elgar et al. 2003). The results regarding the effects of these constraints at the level that students completely stopped taking part in such activities show that the majority of the female students give up participating in physical activities due to these barriers. These results support Nakamura (2002), Olajide (2004), Richards (2017) and Mirsafian and Mohamadinejad (2013). On the other hand, the rest of the female students, in spite of experiencing such barriers, strived to participate in sport. In comparison amongst cities such as between Quetta and Lahore, it was found that in some constraints (i.e. ethos of college P.E), there was less significant difference (Table 4). This is the unexpected finding of this study whereas, according to studies by some scholars (Curtis and Birch 1987, Curtis and McPherson 1987, Côté et al. 2006), smaller cities provide fewer chances to participate in sporting activities and have inadequate facilities compared to their big city counterparts. One fascinating question for future research is to explore the reasons behind the lack of participation of students at public institutions on a larger scale and also to compare the participation of boys, to make sure the difference in participation between public and private institutions is international, using a critical feminist approach. In addition, research on rehabilitation and awareness programmes for parents and female students about the benefits of sport could help to understand this topic better. The main problem in Pakistan is that politicians and media pay less attention to female sports. The second more important thing is to provide awareness to girls from a young age of sports and to acknowledge them. There should be support and motivation for women and girls to participate in sport from their family and society members; sports courses and sporting events should be designed in educational institutions, as extra-curriculum activities; expert female coaches should be hired for all female training physical education; media should focus on participation of women in sports; eliminate gender discrimination; and, last but not least, the government should give funds to sports departments in order to provide facilities for female sporting events. We conclude, thus, that using feminist theory with the intersection of ideology of 394 R. LAAR ET AL. patriarchy, with the help of educational management, governmental and media attention can function to promote female students’ participation in sports in general, through the strategic use of the term sports for all. This study supports the notion that policies and rules need to be frequently questioned by sportswomen and their leaders, if women are to be really equal to sportsmen.

6. Limitations and strengths The methodology and the questionnaire designed for this study have several limitations. Some factors could not be used in the questionnaire because we already know that it is not easy to get access to female colleges; if we get access, it will be surely with limited time. The factors included were: lack of information about where and how to participate; lack of time and skilled partners; and no interest in participation in sporting activities. Data were collected from college-level female students only. Due to lack of resources, the sample size is limited (colleges from each province, 100 female students per college). Constraints deﬁned in the questionnaire do not contain the general categories like interpersonal, intrapersonal and structural constraints. Because of security issues in Karachi and Quetta, the author(s) did not get access to some colleges; in that case, questionnaires were handed to the teacher and she distributed them to the students in the classroom. After completing questionnaires, they were collected by the researchers on the given date and time. Despite these limitations, the methodology employed in this study renders the conclusions especially valuable about which factors were hindering the female students from participating in sports in diﬀerent cities of Pakistan. Another strength of this methodology is that the intensity of the problems was compared between public and private institutions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors Rizwan Laar is the PhD scholar at Beijing NormalUniversity, Beijing, China. His research areas include, genderstudies, feminism, sports and sociology.

Professor Jianhua Zhang, PhD, supervisor, has been working for the School of Physical Education and Sports, Beijing Normal University, since 1987. His current research interests include sociology of sports, theory of knowledge of physical education, and comparative study of physical education and sports.

Tianran Yu (1986-till date) has been associated with the College of Physical Education and Sports, Beijing Normal University, Haidian District, Beijing. His research direction is on sports sociology.

Huanhuan Qi (1983-till date), PhD, is a student of the College of Physical Education and Sports at Beijing Normal University. Her major is sports humanities and sociology.

Ashraf Muhammad Azeem, PhD, is a candidate at the Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University. He has been a lecturer and consultant for diﬀerent universities in China. He has (co)authored many articles in diﬀerent international journals and book chapters. His work mainly focuses on educational policy and social justice education.

ORCID Rizwan Laar http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2040-1771 Muhammad Azeem Ashraf http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0133-4056 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPORT POLICY AND POLITICS 395

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