The idea for this Special Issue, 'Gender, Physical Education and Active Lifestyles: Contemporary Challenges and New Directions' developed from the interest generated by a one day conference held at Leeds Beckett University in September 2017. The conference marked 25 years since the publication of Sheila Scraton's ground breaking, feminist analysis of Physical Education. As a pivotal text that has contributed to the growth of gender research within the UK and more broadly, it seemed fitting to mark this occasion. The reach of Sheila's work was perhaps realised through the delegate body. Early career researchers mingled with established scholars from America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the UK. Building on this conference and a wider call for papers, we are delighted to offer two Special Issues of Sport, Education and Society. The first issue engages explicitly with the challenge of theorising and understanding gendered subjectivities and embodiment across a range of contexts. These papers reflect the diversity of theoretical approaches being employed with some drawing on feminist perspectives, and others using Bourdieu, intersectionality, critical whiteness studies, and masculinity studies. The collection of papers in the second issue seek to examine the different ways in which gender becomes implicated in pedagogical relations and practice. These range from accounts of teachers' struggles to use critical pedagogies to address gender inequities in PE classes, to analyses of the wider pedagogical 'work' of the media in constructing understandings about gender, with several papers exploring these two aspects in combination. We hope you enjoy reading the papers across these two Special Issues as much as we have enjoyed the journey as the editorial team. Collectively the papers raise alternative questions and provide new insights into gender and active lifestyles, and importantly, all seek to make a difference in moving towards more equitable physical activity experiences.
Scraton's (1992) ground breaking research highlighted how Physical Education (PE) contributed to the reproduction of gender power relations; more specifically, how three messages around motherhood, sexuality and physicality, reflected through PE's structures, activities and delivery, contributed to young women's sense of self. Twenty five years on, this paper explores how contemporary PE reproduces and challenges gender power relations in four English secondary schools. Data were generated from eighty hours of observations of PE lessons, and eight semistructured interviews with PE teachers. Guided by Hill Collins' (2000) four domains (structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, interpersonal) underpinning the matrix of domination the findings demonstrate that gender remains a visible organising feature in the structural arrangements of PE.Moreover, teachers' gendered beliefs and assumptions circulating within the hegemonic domain, and actions in the disciplinary domain, ensure that students embody their gender in appropriate ways.Furthermore, a consistency of practice was evident in teachers' pedagogy despite differences in the schools' cohorts. Similar blocks of teaching activities and a performance-based pedagogy failed to include difference. We suggest this is unsurprising and unlikely to change with the current National Curriculum promoting a performative, PE as sport discourse, and teacher training not conducive to developing teachers who can engage with difference and challenge inequalities. As such, PE continues to reinforce gender power relations and gender differences. By drawing upon the matrix, the need for change to occur at different levels and contexts is identified. To this end, teacher training must do better in developing the next generation of teachers who are willing and able to critique the status quo and work with girls to advocate for change. Relatedly, we draw attention to what can be achieved when power is shared through a democratic pedagogy that values girls' voices and recognises them as co-collaborators in curriculum design.
In recent years, Physical Education (PE) has seen a growth in the commitment to youth voice research. This approach foregrounds the practice of researching with young people, rather than conducting research on or about them. Whilst we are cognisant of the many possibilities youth voice research offers, we are also concerned that there is a tendency to overlook the challenges of supporting youth voice activities. This paper draws on our collective reflections to bring to the fore some of the complexities we have encountered when attempting to engage in school-based youth voice research. We explore the following questions: How can youth voice research engage with different young people to capture a diversity of voices? What are the challenges of undertaking youth voice research? What are the possibilities of change through youth voice research? We consider these questions by drawing upon four principles of student voice work including communication as dialogue, participation and democratic inclusivity, unequal power relations, and change and transformation. We use these principles to critique our own research and, in doing so, draw on entries from our research diaries. The paper questions whether young people need help to share their insights and experiences about PE, or whether it is us - researchers, teachers and schools - who need help to more readily recognize and be attentive to young people's voices. We also point to the importance of recognizing modest change through youth voice research and the need to secure adult allies to support activities and potential outcomes. Engaging in youth voice research is an immersive and messy encounter that involves navigating a journey that is anything but straightforward. Even though this is the case, our moral and ethical compass continues to point us in this direction and we remain firm advocates of youth voice work. This paper offers a starting point for others to begin to grapple with the pitfalls and possibilities when supporting youth voice research.
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