Gendered communities of practice and the construction of masculinities in Turkish physical education

Abstract

This paper analyses the construction of masculinities in Turkish physical education through Carrie Paechter's conceptualisation of gendered communities of practice. According to Paechter, educational communities of practice operate as sites of gendered activity. Membership within these communities contributes to the construction of a gendered identity. We suggest that this model is useful for conceptualising how Turkish young men come to engage with physical education classes which can be considered as masculine communities of practice. In one Turkish secondary class, we found that football was the most valued practice, determining boundaries of participation and differentiating levels of participation in the learning community. Young men who were immersed and excelled in football took up 'full' learning trajectories and became accepted as 'fully masculine' while those who were uninterested or non-competitive in football took up marginalised learning trajectories. We suggest that these diverse learning trajectories came to reflect differentiated versions of masculinity. Introduction: communities of practice as gendered sites of learning and identity formationRecent calls in sport and physical education pedagogy have been made to evaluate the role played by power and discourse in constructing masculinities which may be dominant, subordinated, and fluid (Atencio and Wright 2008;Bramham 2003;Pringle 2008;Pringle and Markula 2005). Following on, we differentiate how Turkish young men experience physical education discourses and male power within a shared discursive context (Pringle 2008), and subsequently construct diverse masculinities. Our analysis relies upon Wenger's (1998) model of communities of practice which describes how diverse social practices and identities are created relative to the workings of a particular learning community or community of practice. The concept of 'legitimate peripheral participation' describes the diverse social positions and dynamic practices by which individuals come to engage with their learning communities. Essentially, members of a learning community engage in shared practice; they develop expertise by participating in 'legitimate and acknowledged activities' (Paechter 2003, 71) and in so doing,

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