The challenges of intersectionality: Researching difference in physical education

Researching the intersection of class, race, gender, sexuality and disability raises many issues for educational research. Indeed, Maynard (2002, 33) has recently argued that ‘difference is one of the most significant, yet unresolved, issues for feminist and social thinking at the beginning of the twentieth century’. This paper reviews some of the key imperatives of working with ‘intersectional theory’ and explores the extent to these debates are informing research around difference in education and Physical Education (PE). The first part of the paper highlights some key issues in theorising and researching intersectionality before moving on to consider how difference has been addressed within PE. The paper then considers three ongoing challenges of intersectionality – bodies and embodiment, politics and practice and empirical research. The paper argues for a continued focus on the specific context of PE within education for its contribution to these questions

An Intersectionality based framework for tobacco control

While Pederson, Greaves and Poole (2014) propose a framework for gender-transformative health promotion to address tobacco control, this chapter proposes an intersectionality based framework for health promotion and tobacco control. This approach offers a more nuanced understanding of health promotion and tobacco control precisely because it does not consider gender as an independent category. Gender cannot exist as an independent category and always intersects with ‘race’, ethnicity, culture, sexuality and class (Phoenix and Pattynama, 2006). This chapter argues that public health research and policy on cigarette smoking and tobacco control must acknowledge the social and cultural context of cigarette smoking in order to develop relevant and appropriate public health programmes and policies. First, I review the literature on young people and cigarette smoking, focusing specifically on the gaps in the literature and the absence of research studies on African-Caribbean young women and cigarette smoking in the UK. Following this, I present a summary of my research study which uses Cole’s (2009) questions in developing an intersectional research methodology. Finally, I argue that an intersectionality-informed research evidence base is necessary to develop an intersectionality based framework for tobacco control policies that are relevant to global tobacco use in the 21st century

Confirming the structure of the dual process model of diversity amongst public sector South African employees

We set out to validate the structure of the Dual Process Model of Workplace Diversity in a South African work setting contrasting black and white African employees. The study participants were a convenience sample of 296 public service employees (black = 73.3%, female = 59%, 90.7% between the age 18 and 40 years; white = 25.7%, female = 58%, 67.1% between the age of 18 and 40 years). They completed measures of acculturation antecedents (positive and negative conditions), mediators (integration as positive strategy to deal with diversity and separation as negative strategy), and outcomes (work success and ill-health). Using multi-group path analysis, we found race-based invariance of the Dual Process Model, with black employees self-reporting diversity relations in a more favourable way compared to white employees. We conclude that the Dual Process Model is supported for research use in the South African workplaces