Gender, Physical Education, and Sport Bringing forward Rwandan girls’ perspectives on their lived experiences of physical activity and sport in secondary schools Lysanne Rivard Department of Integrated Studies in Education Faculty of Education, McGill University Montreal, Canada July 2015 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Lysanne Rivard 2015 CONTENTS Abstract ..........................................................................................................................................xi Résumé..........................................................................................................................................xii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................xiv CHAPTER 1 1. Gender, Physical Education, and Sport in the Global South: A debate transitioning from “Where are the girls in physical education and sport programming?” to “Where are girls’ voices?” .......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. The Case of Rwanda ............................................................................................................... 6 1.2. Research Focus........................................................................................................................ 7 1.3. Positioning of the Researcher ................................................................................................. 8 1.3.1. Personal experiences with physical activity and sport ........................................................ 8 1.3.2. Epistemological positioning .............................................................................................. 10 1.4. Organization of the Thesis ................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 2 2. Theoretical Framework and Methodological Approach .................................................... 12 2.1. Physical Education and Sport in Sub-Saharan Africa: Calls for the contextualization of programming ........................................................................................................................ 13 2.2. Sport for Development and Peace: Calls for the decolonization of programming .............. 16 2.3. Towards New Approaches to Physical Education and Sport in Sub-Saharan Africa .......... 21 2.4. Postcolonial Feminism: Valuing voice ................................................................................ 21 2.5. The Issue of Voice in Gender and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa .................................. 25 2.6. The Issue of Voice in Physical Education and Sport for Girls in Sub-Saharan Africa ........ 30 2.7. Accessing Voice ................................................................................................................... 33 2.8. Girls’ Voices and Agency ....................................................................................................35 2.9. Contribution of this Research: A “middle of the road” approach to balance participatory objectives with broader social impact .................................................................................. 38 2.10. Summary ............................................................................................................................ 39 CHAPTER 3 3. Educational Context of Rwanda ........................................................................................... 40 3.1. The Education System from the 19th to the 20th Century ..................................................... 41 3.1.1. Physical education and sport ............................................................................................. 45 3.2. Education During the Time of the 1994 Genocide .............................................................. 46 3.3. Post-conflict Reconstruction of the Education System: 1994-2004 ..................................... 48 3.3.1. Girls’ education ................................................................................................................. 51 3.3.2. Physical education ............................................................................................................. 53 3.3.3. Sport and physical activity for girls in post-conflict Rwandan society ............................. 56 3.4. Present-day: Progresses and challenges of the education system (2004-2014) ................... 57 3.4.1. Primary education ............................................................................................................. 59 3.4.2. Lower and upper secondary education .............................................................................. 60 3.4.3. Girls’ education ................................................................................................................. 61 3.4.4. Physical education ............................................................................................................. 67 3.4.5. Sport and physical activity for girls in Rwandan society .................................................. 72 3.5. Summary .............................................................................................................................. 74 CHAPTER 4 4. Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 75 4.1. Identifying Methodological Tools to Work with Girls and to Reach Decision-makers ...... 75 4.2. Photovoice ............................................................................................................................ 76 4.2.1. Strengths of the method ..................................................................................................... 77 4.2.2. Challenges of the method ..................................................................................................77 4.2.3. Photovoice with girls in sub-Saharan Africa ..................................................................... 80 4.3. Situating Myself in the Research .........................................................................................83 4.4. Phase 1: Working with the girls ........................................................................................... 84 4.4.1. “SMART” Photovoice ....................................................................................................... 85 4.4.2. Organizing Photovoice sessions ........................................................................................ 87 4.4.3. Implementing Photovoice sessions ................................................................................... 94 4.4.4. Validity and reliability of the Photovoice data ................................................................ 102 4.5. Phase 2: Working with decision-makers ............................................................................ 103 4.5.1. Transforming photo-posters into a photo-report ............................................................. 103 4.5.2. Creating the photo-report ................................................................................................ 104 4.5.3. Identifying decision-makers ............................................................................................ 105 4.5.4. Conducting the interviews with the decision-makers ..................................................... 107 4.6. Summary ............................................................................................................................ 108 CHAPTER 5 5. Results and Analysis: Photovoice with Girls ..................................................................... 109 5.1. Organizing the Photovoice Data ........................................................................................ 109 5.1.1. Working with the data ..................................................................................................... 110 5.2. Physical Education and Sport / Physical Activity and Sport in School Programming ...... 117 5.2.1. School 1 ........................................................................................................................... 118 5.2.2. School 2 ........................................................................................................................... 120 5.2.3. School 3 ........................................................................................................................... 121 5.2.4. School 4 ........................................................................................................................... 123 5.2.5. School 5 ........................................................................................................................... 125 5.3. Girls’ Perspectives .............................................................................................................. 127 5.3.1. Question 1: What do girls like about physical activity and sports in school? ................. 127 5.3.2. Question 2: What difficulties do girls face when doing physical activity and sports in school that boys do not face? .......................................................................................... 133 5.3.3. Question 3: What can be done to improve girls’ experiences of physical activity and sports in school? ......................................................................................................