Durham E-Theses

Trapped: Gender, Identities and PE

METCALFE, SARAH,NICOLA

How to cite: METCALFE, SARAH,NICOLA (2018) Trapped: Gender, Identities and PE, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12904/

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“Trapped”: Gender, identities and PE

Sarah Nicola Metcalfe A thesis submitted to Durham University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Research undertaken in the School of Education, Durham University 2018

2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors – Anna Llewellyn and Martin Roderick. Both have been instrumental in helping get my PhD to the point of completion. I greatly appreciate their critical eye and their questioning of my decisions, processes, and how this PhD has come to existence. I would like to thank Martin in particular, for placing his trust in me.

I left my previous job as a secondary PE teacher in a very successful and prestigious school to start this piece of work. I do not regret this move – in fact, it is probably the single best decision I have ever made. Whilst possibly unusual, I would like to thank myself for having the confidence to quit, become a student again, and persevere to hopefully forge an academic career in an environment in which I feel increasingly more “at home”. I am grateful for receiving my ESRC studentship which has provided the financial support necessary to complete my research.

This PhD would not exist without the insightful and candid thoughts of the young people I spoke with. They have unquestionably shaped this thesis, and made the data collection process incredibly enjoyable. Their openness and experiences have challenged my own ideas, for which I am very grateful.

Outside the world of academia, I owe a huge debt to my mum, Sheila, for proofreading and checking every word I have written. She claims she has “learned a lot”, and it is important to me to know I have her support. My husband, Chris, whilst afraid of reading “all those words” has offered immense support in a non-academic capacity. He is always there for me. And finally, my gratitude must extend to our dog, Jasper, who has been crucial in providing an excuse to get out and go for long walks to “think” or to clear my head. He would love me regardless of this PhD, and that unfaltering affection has certainly seen me through some difficult times.

I have learned a lot throughout this process – about gender, Bourdieu, sociology, class; but probably most importantly, I have learned about who I am, what I want to be, and what I am good at. I hope anyone who reads this thesis also learns about themselves and questions who they are, why they think the way they think, and starts to interrogate the “taken for granted”.

3 ABSTRACT

Physical Education (PE) is one of the most gendered school subjects, and is historically based on a binary which normalises a difference between young men and young women.

As young people develop through adolescence, their social lives are characterised by interconnected social fields, including schooling, sport and media. This study sought to explore how young people negotiate their gendered identities within, and across, these interconnected fields using a Bourdieusian analysis. I used a mixed-methods approach of collective case studies to answer three research questions:

1. What role does sport play in the ways young people negotiate their gendered identity? 2. What role do schooling and media messages play in reproducing gender norms for young people? 3. How does social class influence how young people understand sport and their gendered identity?

My methods combined a content and narrative analysis of media messages produced by four online sports media outlets during Rio 2016 Olympic Games with case studies in three demographically different schools in North East England. In each school, Year 11 students completed a questionnaire about their participation in sport and physical activity, coupled with their views of masculinity and femininity. Following this, interviews with

70 young people (33 males, 37 females) were conducted which focused on how young people negotiate their gendered identities within different social fields.

Using Bourdieusian concepts of habitus, field and capital, this study has shown that these young people are strongly influenced by rigid and stereotypical representations of masculinity and femininity which are often conflated with binary notions of biological sex. The internalisation of these norms within one’s gendered habitus has meant that many young people expressed a sense of being “trapped” by these rigid notions of

“acceptable” gendered behaviours, and consequently reproduce an ideology of difference between masculinity and femininity. Sport is internalised as “natural” within young

4 men’s habitus, where participation and excellence in the “right” sport can lead to the accrual of social status and popularity. In contrast, the “sporty” female is othered, and little capital can be accrued for female participation in sport. Instead, young women are pressured to presenting an image of a “healthy” female appearance (one which is often unattainable as both skinny and curvy) through a symbolic attention to the body. Many young women go to the gym, but do not engage in vigorous exercise when they are there.

Within this thesis, I refer to young people playing the game of gender, whereby there are

“rules”, tactics, referees and winners/losers. The expectations of the game differ depending on whether the individual is male or female, and also on one’s classed position. This metaphor demonstrates an awareness that young people can be simultaneously affected by both structure and agency. By using tactics and strategy to manipulate one’s own gendered identity, young people can show agency. However, the rewarding of stereotypical and binary representations of masculinity and femininity through capital often means that many young people feel pressure to reproduce normative behaviours which do not challenge the status quo of the doxa.

This PhD paints a negative image of how schooling and PE reinforce gender norms which prevent many young people experimenting and exploring their own gendered identities. However, through challenging young people’s reflexivity during the interview process, I found that many young people can reflect on their behaviours, bringing the often-non-conscious habitus into consciousness. This suggests that to challenge taken- for-granted norms of the habitus, pedagogy and research must encourage this reflexivity and force young people to think about gender in ways they have not done before.

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ...... 3 Abstract...... 4 List of Figures...... 9 List of Tables ...... 9 Declaration ...... 9 Statement of Copyright ...... 9 Part 1: The Warm Up ...... 10 Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 10 Who I am, and why this research is important ...... 12 Research questions ...... 15 Contextual setting for this research ...... 16 Government and policy interventions ...... 17 Physical inactivity and health consequences ...... 19 Contextual section summary ......