My Life Story
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Girlhood, Sport and Physical Activity: The construction of young femininities in the transition to secondary school Sheryl Clark Goldsmiths Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1 I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. ______________________________ Sheryl Clark 2 Abstract This thesis deals with issues of sport, gender and identity within schooling. It focuses on six physically active girls as they made the transition to secondary schools in London and considers the social and educational contexts that framed their involvement in physical activity and sport over this period. The research involved in-depth interviews with the girls, and their parents, teachers and friends, over a period of four years, beginning when the girls were in Year 5 and finishing when the girls were aged 13 and in Year 8. Over this period I also carried out ongoing observations at physical education lessons, after-school sports activities and a local youth running group. The analysis explores the social and emotional processes and identifications that made girls’ participation more or less sustainable over this period of time. It considers how girls who had once found immense pleasure and joy from physical activities came to feel disinvested in the PE curriculum, unsure of their physical abilities and unable to see sport as relevant in their bids towards academic or social success. I look in particular at the girls’ schooling contexts, their relationships with friends and peers, their parental and class aspirations and their access to outdoor space. The findings suggest that social class and privilege were particularly implicated in girls’ involvement in sport and that decisions around their participation were often made within the overriding context of an achievement-oriented education system. I draw attention to the broader context of girls’ participation in sport and to the particular ways in which the girls’ gendered, classed and racialised identities mediated their participation. I suggest that girls’ contradictory positioning within dominant discourses of health, ability, sexuality and academic success held particular connotations for their participation, often making sport and physical activity difficult to access at the secondary school level. 3 Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................ 5 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ 6 Chapter One Introduction to Girlhood, Sport and Physical Activity ............ 7 Chapter Two The Development of a Physical Identity: Bodies, gender and identity ......................................................................................................... 18 Chapter Three Researching Young Women and Sport ............................... 42 Chapter Four An Introduction to the Girls and Their Schools .................... 78 Chapter Five Schooling, PE and the Standards Agenda: The identification of a ‘problem’ in girls’ participation in physical activity ............................ 92 Chapter Six A Good Education: Girls’ extracurricular pursuits and school choice ......................................................................................................... 119 Chapter Seven Being and Doing Active Girlhood: Girls negotiating identity in peer cultures ........................................................................................... 149 Chapter Eight Health, Ability and Fun: Competing discourses of sporting participation................................................................................................ 184 Chapter Nine Running into Trouble: Constructions of danger and risk in girls’ access to outdoor space and physical activity................................... 215 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 243 References .................................................................................................. 256 Appendix 1 Participant Information.......................................................... 274 Appendix 2 Interview Schedule ................................................................ 276 Appendix 3 Questionnaire ........................................................................ 277 4 List of Figures Figure 1. ‘I'm always in my room.’ Gazza’s bedroom. .............................. 220 Figure 2. Nirvana's back garden. ................................................................ 227 Figure 3. Park near Gazza's home. ............................................................. 228 5 Acknowledgements It is difficult to believe that something I spent the past four years working on has finally come to completion. Although the experience of researching and writing this thesis has been a hugely satisfying endeavour, it was often daunting. I would not have made it through without the help and support of friends, colleagues and sponsors. The research was supported through funding from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (752-2006-0654) and from the Overseas Research Student Awards (ORSAS). Although I cannot thank them by name, I am eternally grateful to my participants who allowed me an intimate glimpse into their lives and sporting experiences over a period of four years and whose creativity and resilience I hope to do justice to throughout the thesis. The support and guidance of my supervisors, Carrie Paechter and Rosalyn George, has been wonderful and I am grateful for their ability to be both encouraging and challenging. Their own commitment to feminist educational research is always inspiring. I was lucky enough to not have to go through this experience alone and I am grateful for the encouragement, friendship and occasional moan I shared with fellow PhD students Sadia Habib and Anna Carlile at Goldsmiths. Naomi Rudoe has also been a dear friend who undertook her PhD at the same time and whose warmth, thoughtfulness and intelligent insights contributed both towards my work and personal well-being. I would also like to thank Tamara Bibby for her perfect blend of realism, empathy and intellect. Thanks to my Mom for the emotional support and to my sister Serena, who lives her feminism in inspiring ways and who helped out with the transcribing, often echoing my delight in the fascinating narratives shared therein. My cat, Sadie, was usually curled up in my lap as I typed away over the cold, lonely days in front of the computer and I was grateful for her company. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my partner Jurek: my tech support, best friend and biggest fan. I could not have done it without his love and belief in me. 6 Chapter One Introduction to Girlhood, Sport and Physical Activity In a context of increasing concerns around young people’s eating patterns and physical (in)activity linked to an ongoing ‘obesity crisis’ (Evans et al., 2008b, Gard and Wright, 2005) this thesis provides a nuanced account of the complex processes surroundings girls’ participation in sport and physical activity. The research was based at a variety of primary and secondary schools across London, variously positioned within an overriding educational standards agenda. My analysis centres on issues relating to gender, youth, class, ethnicity, sport and identity by employing insights from both the sociology of sport and the sociology of education, with a particular feminist orientation. Drawing on the experiences of a group of six key girls over a period of four years, I trace their ongoing constructions of gendered identities as they made the transition to secondary school. My analysis complicates straightforward suggestions that women and girls’ gains in sporting achievements are indicative of their newfound equality, despite acknowledging many of the benefits that might arise from this participation. Specifically, it questions the access and costs of this participation by exploring what identities are made available within current models of sporting engagement, and which are excluded. Since the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) and the Gender Reform Act (1988) in the UK, women and girls have made impressive gains within the fields of sport and physical activity. They have entered into elite competition in unprecedented numbers as well as comprising growing participation rates in a broad variety of amateur sports and physical activities both nationally and internationally (Flintoff and Scraton, 2001, George, 2005, Roster, 2007, Wesely and Gaarder, 2004, Scraton et al., 1999). The much-celebrated victories of female British athletes in the Beijing Olympics served to highlight the impressive progress of female sports performances and might even be held up as examples of women’s already-achieved equality and success in formerly male-dominated fields (Cochrane, 2008). 7 Yet despite early feminist calls for an emphasis on sociality and democratic participation, models of dominance and competitiveness seem to have been uncritically accepted in women’s versions of formerly male dominated sports. The continuing association of sports such as football with masculinity had implications for girls’ involvement as it delimited the practices associated with conventional masculinities and femininities in school. Moreover, although women’s sporting images are now more widespread, the lean, young bodies of female athletes are frequently sexualised and are used to endorse a variety