The higher the organization level, the lower the percentage of women in governance. The purpose of the present study was to explore how men and women negotiate women's 'fit' as candidates for boards of national sport organizations. We based our analysis on in-depth interviews with male chairs and female board members. The results provide evidence that men can control boards by affirming and negating affirmative action policies and by framing the process of recruitment and selection in such a way as to reproduce the male-dominated culture in the board. Women, in their turn, tend to negotiate their entry by distancing themselves from their gender and proving their 'fit.'

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Processes of sense making enable individuals to explain or give meaning to their experiences including those pertaining to gender. Meanings shape both individual behaviors and expectations for the behavior of others. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine how board members of national sport associations in the Netherlands made sense of gendered arrangements. We used a sense making approach that acknowledges the significance of context (gender ratio) and constructions of meaning in shaping organizational practices. The results, based on 29 semi-structured interviews, showed how board members gave meanings to gender skewness that included defining board work as gender (in) appropriate and sustaining and challenging behaviors defined as stereotypical. We discuss how the results reflect doing and undoing gender.

The relatively low percentage of women and minority sport journalists suggests dynamics of exclusion. We used J. Acker's (1990Acker's ( , 1992 theory about gender and organizations to examine several interrelated processes in the construction of gender and ethnicity in sport journalism. Acker named 4 processes that inform these constructions: division of labor, images and discourses, interactions, and identity work. We held semistructured interviews with 15 experienced journalists/editors who worked in the sport departments of either national newspapers, commercial television, or public television. The results indicate that, although the journalists asserted that the meanings given to their ways of doing journalism are ideologically neutral, these 4 processes do construct gender and ethnicity in overlapping and interrelated ways. In the discussion, we place these results in their context and focus on this contradiction between desirable and actual neutrality.

Inclusionary and exclusionary mechanisms that influence sport participation and positions of leadership in sport form a complex constellation of interacting factors and dimensions. Who can, who is allowed, and who is willing to participate in sport is influenced by institutional selection mechanisms as much as by individual options and choices. Socialization, money and time, accessibility of sporting facilities, normative and discriminating structures and cultures, and sporting abilities and talent are interacting in/exclusionary factors that influence sport participation options among people with different social-status positions (e.g., age, gender, and ethnicity). Changes in the facilitation and organization of sport can enhance a more inclusive sport practice, which might also foster social inclusion in broader society. The focus of this article is on changing and reproducing patterns of social inclusionary and exclusionary mechanisms in (post)modern sport in Western countries like the Netherlands. We present and analyze the current status and development in central theories, governmental policies, and empirical data.