Researching Women and Sport PDF
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Researching Women and Sport EDITED BY GILL CLARKE BARBARA HUMBERSTONE JO CAMPLING RESEARCHING WOMEN AND SPORT Researching Women and Sport Edited by Gill Clarke and Barbara Humberstone Foreword by Jennifer Hargreaves Consultant Editor: Jo Campling Editorial matter and selection © Gill Clarke and Barbara Humbcrstone 1997 Text © Macmillan Press Ltd 1997 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1997 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 1997 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-64231-3 ISBN 978-1-349-25317-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-25317-3 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10987654 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 Contents Acknowledgements vii Foreword by Professor Jellllifer Hargreaves viii Notes 011 Contributors x IlItroduction xiii Gill Clarke and Barbara Humberstone Managing a Women's Sport Organisation: Interpreting Biographies Gill Clarke and Barbara Humberstolle 2 Researching a Women's Sport Organisation 17 Brenda Grace 3 Playing a Part: The Lives of Lesbian Physical Education Teachers 36 Gill Clarke 4 Islam, Well-being and Physical Activity: Perceptions of Muslim Young Women 50 Hasina Zaman 5 Self-confidence and Self-esteem in Physical Education and Sport 68 Jail Graydoll 6 On Pleasure and Pain: Women Speak Out About Physical Activity 80 Jan Wright alld Alisoll Dewar 7 Working on the Body: Links Between Physical Activity and Social Power 96 Sarah Gilroy 8 Elite Women Wheelchair Athletes in Australia 113 Talllli Grey 9 Sexual Harassment and Sexual Abuse in Sport 126 Celia Brackellridge v vi Contellts 10 Time and Context in Women's Sport and Leisure 142 Margaret Talbot II Gender Relations in Physical Education Initial Teacher Education 164 Alllle Flintoff 12 The Sporting Lives of Women in European Countries: Issues in Cross-national Research 183 Sheila Scraton 13 Challenging Dominant Ideologies in the Research Process 199 Barbara Humberstotle Index 214 Acknow ledgements We would like to thank our contributors and all the past and present exec utive members of the Women's Sports Foundation for supporting us throughout the genesis and growing pains of this book. The Women's Sports Foundation is the only national organisation in the United Kingdom (UK) that is solely working to improve and promote opportunities for women and sport, and has its mission to pursue and promote equity for women in and through sport. The Women's Sports Foundation was one of 280 delegates from 82 countries representing governmental and non governmental organisations, national Olympic Committees, international and national sport federations and educational and research institutions that attended the first international conference on women and sport, organ w ised by the Sports Council, which took place in Brighton, UK from 5-8 May 1994. The conference drew up and endorsed what has become known as 'The Brighton Declaration on Women and Sport', the overriding aim of which is to develop a sporting culture that enables and values the full involvement of women in every aspect of sport. It is hoped that this inter national strategic approach will accelerate change and lead to a more equitable sporting culture world-wide. Finally we are indebted to Sarah Gilroy for her insightful comments throughout the editing of this book and to Jo Campling for her constant support and helpful advice. Gill Clarke and Barbara Humberstone vii Foreword Feminist accounts of the social world of sport - and, in particular, of women's sport - have increased in number and improved in quality in recent years. Even so, they remain small in quantity by comparison with those which marginalise or comparlmentalise gender issues. Gill Clarke and Barbara Humberstone have edited a text which makes a particularly useful contribution to the field, not only because it expands the scope of investigation to include physical activities and physical education and brings together articles by women who have been actively engaged in dif ferent capacities in sport and associated activities, but also because it emphasizes the process of research. It is the first English-language book to focus in this way on feminist research in the areas of sport, physical activi ties and physical education. As well as attracting readers from Sports Studies, this text is relevant to those doing feminist research in other areas. Collectively, the authors of the book highlight the complex and contro versial nature of feminist research procedures and methodologies. By letting their subjects 'speak for themselves', and treating them as partici pants with the potential to affect the outcome of the research, orthodox relations of power in research are implicitly questioned and the gendered nature of enquiry is revealed. The work of Gill Clarke and Barbara Humberstone in the Women's Sports Foundation (UK) (WSF) provided the impetus for their decision to seek collaborators for this collection. In fact most of the contributors have been involved in one way or another with the WSF. Because the Foundation is concerned with gender equity in and through sport, and has a committee dealing with education and research issues, it provides an important symbolic partner for the publication. Researching Women alld Sport embraces a variety of topics, represent ing women involved in a range of activities and from several countries. Different chapters include research about active athletes, as well as those who are involved in teaching and organisation; participants are from dif ferent social groups - for example, lesbian physical education teachers, young Muslim women, and disabled athletes; and personal and sensitive issues are included - such as problems of body image and sexual harass ment and sexual abuse. The connection between empirical data and theo retical analysis is explored in several chapters, and the importance of viii Foreword ix relating personal experience to wider social implications is made clear. All the contributions are reflective in nature and connected with the per sonal experiences of doing feminist social research. They illustrate the clear connection between the personal and the political, signalling the rela tionship between the process of research and configurations of power. The variety of subject matter and interpretation in Researching Women and Sport makes it a useful guide for students doing research in these areas and represents a welcome intervention in the field. Jennifer Hargreaves Professor of Sociology and Politics of Sport Roehampton Institute, London Notes on Contributors Celia Brackenridge trained as a PE teacher and after some years teaching she became a lecturer in PE at what is now Sheffield Hallam University. During this time she played lacrosse at international level, helped to fonn the Women's Sports Foundation and carried out research on the social psy chology of sport and on women as sports coaches. Following over twenty years as a teacher, researcher and manager, Celia is now Professor and Head of Research and Postgraduate Development in the Department of Leisure Management at Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education. Her current research is concerned with sexual abuse in sports' coaching. Gill Clarke lectures at the University of Southampton. Prior to this she was Field Leader for PE at the Chichester Institute of Higher Education, after having taught PE in secondary schools in Hampshire. Her current research explores the lives of lesbian PE teachers. She has published arti cles on discourse analysis, sexuality and research methods in PE. In her spare time, she is an international hockey umpire, having officiated at the 1992 Olympic Games, the World Cup in Dublin, 1994 and umpired at the Olympic Games final in Atlanta in 1996. Alison Dewar is a lesbian feminist physical educator. She taught in the School of Human Kinetics at the University of British Columbia. She is currently studying law at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Anne Flintoff taught PE in secondary schools before moving to her current post as principal lecturer in sociology of education, PE and sport at Leeds Metropolitan University. Her PhD research focused on gender rela tions in initial teacher education in PE, and much of her teaching reflects a commitment to raising awareness of, and challenging, gender inequalities in PE and sport. Her ongoing research interests include assessing the impact of the recent moves to school based training for equality work, and exploring the nature of young women's active lifestyles in aerobics and conditioning activities. Sarah Gilroy lectures in the sociology of sport and leisure at Chichester Institute of Higher Education. Her main research interests concern the sociology of the body, the construction of gender power relations and negotiations within households over work and leisure. Her involvement in international hockey coaching informs another area of interest concerning coaching and sport developments. x
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