Running into trouble: constructions of danger and risk in girls' access to outdoor space and physical activity

This paper considers girls’ participation in running and other outdoor physical activities in their local areas in London, UK. The paper is concerned with the operation of risk discourses in and around this participation and looks at the way that such discourses impacted on girls’ opportunities 10 to take part in physical activities that required outdoor space. Drawing on data from a longitudinal research into girls’ participation in sport and physical activity, the findings suggested that girls, in particular, were subject to risk discourses around their participation in physical activities which constructed the girls as ‘weak’, and ‘vulnerable’. I look at the ways in which girls understood these messages and how they came to define certain spaces and activities as either ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’. 15 I look in particular at how girls were able to resist certain constructions of their embodied physical capacities and also at the ways in which this was constrained by specific incidences of sexual harassment

Girlhood, sport and physical activity : the construction of young femininities in the transition to secondary school

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Embodying Sporty Girlhood:Health & the Enactment of Successful Femininities

This paper focuses on young women’s embodiment of health discourses and how these are “played out” in education and sporting contexts where varying physical cultures are en- acted. We draw on data from three qualitative projects that considered girls’ understand- ings of PE, football, and running within the context of their active schooling subjectivities. Health concerns increasingly frame young people’s participation in sport and physical activity and “girls” in particular have been encouraged to be more physically active. In- fluential “healthism” discourses continue to construct compelling ideas about “active cit- izenship” as moral responsibility and within broader, fluid and neoliberal societies young women are seen as the “magic bullet” (Ringrose, 2013) to overcome social issues and complex health problems such as obesity. Through critical feminist inquiry into the mate- rial-discursive rationalities of healthism in postfeminist times our analysis demonstrates that health and achievement discourses form powerful “body pedagogies” in relation to young women’s engagement with sport and physical activity. The body pedagogies we an- alysed were multifaceted in that they focused on performative potential of sport and phys- ical activity in the quest for the ever “perfectible self” (McRobbie, 2007, p. 719), and were also imbued with fear, anxiety and risk related to failure and ‘fatness’. These findings are significant as they show that current responses to “tackle” ill health that mobilise sport and physical activity as simplified and rationalised responses to the “threat” of obesity are problematic because they do not contend with this complexity as young women assem- ble their postfeminist choice biographies

Embodying Sporty Girlhood: Health and the Enactment of "Successful" Femininities

This paper focuses on young women’s embodiment of health discourses and how these are “played out” in education and sporting contexts where varying physical cultures are enacted. We draw on data from three qualitative projects that considered girls’ understandings of PE, football, and running within the context of their active schooling subjectivities. Health concerns increasingly frame young people’s participation in sport and physical activity and “girls” in particular have been encouraged to be more physically active. Influential “healthism” discourses continue to construct compelling ideas about “active citizenship” as moral responsibility and within broader, fluid and neoliberal societies young women are seen as the “magic bullet” (Ringrose, 2013) to overcome social issues and complex health problems such as obesity. Through critical feminist inquiry into the material-discursive rationalities of healthism in postfeminist times our analysis demonstrates that health and achievement discourses form powerful “body pedagogies” in relation to young women’s engagement with sport and physical activity. The body pedagogies we analysed were multifaceted in that they focused on performative potential of sport and physical activity in the quest for the ever “perfectible self” (McRobbie, 2007, p. 719), and were also imbued with fear, anxiety and risk related to failure and ‘fatness’. These findings are significant as they show that current responses to “tackle” ill health that mobilise sport and physical activity as simplified and rationalised responses to the “threat” of obesity are problematic because they do not contend with this complexity as young women assemble their postfeminist choice biographies

Girlhood, Sport and Physical Activity: The Construction of Young Femininities in the Transition to Secondary School

This thesis deals with issues of sport, gender and identity within schooling. It focuses on six physically active girls as they made the transition to secondary schools in London and considers the social and educational contexts that framed their involvement in physical activity and sport over this period. The research involved in-depth interviews with the girls, and their parents, teachers and friends, over a period of four years, beginning when the girls were in Year 5 and finishing when the girls were aged 13 and in Year 8. Over this period I also carried out ongoing observations at physical education lessons, after-school sports activities and a local youth running group. The analysis explores the social and emotional processes and identifications that made girls’ participation more or less sustainable over this period of time. It considers how girls who had once found immense pleasure and joy from physical activities came to feel disinvested in the PE curriculum, unsure of their physical abilities and unable to see sport as relevant in their bids towards academic or social success. I look in particular at the girls’ schooling contexts, their relationships with friends and peers, their parental and class aspirations and their access to outdoor space. The findings suggest that social class and privilege were particularly implicated in girls’ involvement in sport and that decisions around their participation were often made within the overriding context of an achievement-oriented education system. I draw attention to the broader context of girls’ participation in sport and to the particular ways in which the girls’ gendered, classed and racialised identities mediated their participation. I suggest that girls’ contradictory positioning within dominant discourses of health, ability, sexuality and academic success held particular connotations for their participation, often making sport and physical activity difficult to access at the secondary school level

An Ethnographic Study of Stigma and Ageism in Residential Care or Assisted Living

This study explored aspects of stigmatization for older adults who live in residential care or assisted living (RC–AL) communities and what these settings have done to address stigma. Design and recognition of resident preferences and strengths, rather than their limitations