7 research outputs found
Standards and separatism: the discursive construction of gender in English soccer coach education
Affirmative action is a problematic, but common,
organizational approach to redressing gender discrimination
as it fails to address discourses underlying organizational
definitions and practices in highly masculinized sites like
English football. Unstructured interviews with 27 key
personnel and participants in coach education in the north
of England within a regional ādivisionā of the organization
regulating English football (āThe FAā) were conducted to
explore the gendered construction and enactment of football
and coaching, and the framing of women-only (separatist)
coaching courses. Critical discourse analysis identified the
deployment of discourses concerning the undermining of
standards and the privileging of women as strategies used
to neutralize the significance of gender and previous gender
discrimination, while re/producing the centrality of masculinity for key definitions and identities
āI don't think I can catch itā: women, confidence and responsibility in football coach education
Whilst womenās participation in sport continues to increase, their presence remains ideologically challenging given the significance of sport for the construction of gendered identities. As a hegmonically masculine institution, leadership roles across sport remain male-dominated and the entry of women into positions of authority (such as coaching) routinely contested. But in powerful male-typed sports, like football, womenās participation remains particularly challenging. Consequently, constructions of gender inequity in coaching were explored at a regional division of the English Football Association through unstructured interviews and coaching course observation. Using critical discourse
analysis we identified the consistent re/production of women as unconfident in their own skills and abilities, and the framing of women themselves as responsible for the gendered inequities in football coaching. Women were thereby
strategically positioned as deservedly on the periphery of the football category,whilst the organization was positioned as progressive and liberal
Football, gender and sexism: The ugly side of the world's most beautiful game.
The last 10-15 years have seen substantive claims of an apparent shift in the institutional support for womenās football by the sportās governing bodies, a shift that is being somewhat echoed in more recent commitments from some major television broadcasters of the sport. However, while the womenās game has seen increasing audiences and more media attention, research suggests that a deeply embedded antipathy to it continues to permeate throughout the sport. In this chapter, we discuss some of the major factors and practices that serve to maintain the traditional gendered order of football (aka soccer), how these connect to football as a powerful and global ideological site, and the extent to which a shift in gendered representation was evident in the British television coverage of the 2017 Womenās Euros
Measuring gender composition in work groups: A comparison of existing methods
Reviewing research on diversity and relational demography in teams and work groups, the authors compare different ways of measuring gender composition and demonstrate that existing practice can be theoretically biased. The authors conclude that within group-level analyses, the proportion of women should be used; whereas within individual-level analyses, the appropriate approach depends on whether a gender-by-gender composition interaction effect is found. The generalizability of this approach to other types of diversity is also discussed