Professor Anne Flintoff

This paper explores physical educators’ perspectives on race and racism as a first step towards disrupting whiteness and supporting the development of antiracist practice. With close links to sport, a practice centrally implicated in the creation and maintenance of racialised bodies and hierarchies, Physical Education (PE) offers an important context for a study of whiteness and racism in education. Using collective biography we examine physical educators’ narrative stories for what they reveal about the operation of whiteness and racism in PE. Teachers draw on narratives from curricula texts which uphold and reinforce notions of the racialised other, thereby reasserting normative, universal white knowledge. Their pedagogy is underpinned by a colour blind approach where race is ‘not seen’, yet essentialist and cultural discourses of race are nevertheless deployed to position particular racialised and gendered bodies as ‘problems’ in PE. Engagement with antiracism is limited to professional rhetoric within pedagogical practice.

This paper draws on research that aimed to explore the construction of gender relations in sport and physical education (PE) through a national study of Spanish university degree curricula. Spain is a useful case study through which to explore gender knowledge within sport and PE degrees, because, unlike many other countries, it has a common, national curriculum framework for its Physical Activity and Sport Science (PASS) degrees. In addition, it has recently passed a new law concerning the introduction of gender knowledge in higher education. Drawing on Bernstein’s (1990) framework of the pedagogic device, this paper examines how this higher education gender policy becomes recontextualised as universities and lecturers interpret and translate this into the pedagogical texts that make up the PASS curricula. Purposive sampling was used to select 16 of the 37 universities offering PASS degrees in 2012/2013. The research analysed 16 PASS documents at the degree level, and 763 individual subject handbooks. Using discourse analysis, the results showed where and how gender knowledge was incorporated and the extent to which the topic was presented coherently throughout the documents. The analysis revealed five categories of the (in)visibility of gender knowledge within the universities’ instructional discourse. Gender knowledge is largely ignored in PASS curricular documentation, appearing, at best, in highly superficial ways. Despite a national policy requirement on universities to incorporate gender knowledge, this study shows how recontextualisation processes within specific universities’ pedagogic devices operate to marginalise such perspectives within PASS curricula. The research also revealed the significance of individual agents committed to gender equity being situated, and having influence, throughout the pedagogic device. The paper concludes that without a much wider, critical engagement in knowledge about gender equity, PASS degrees will continue to reproduce rather than disrupt the gender relations that have traditionally characterised the field.

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Research continues to highlight how gender is reproduced through pedagogical practice in Physical Education (PE), but there has been much less focus on how it might be challenged. This paper reports on an intervention that used cooperative learning and critical reflection to challenge gender relations in PE, using football, in a school in Valencia, Spain. The intervention was specifically constructed as a form of critical pedagogy to create an inclusive learning environment, a safe space talk about sexism, and help students question and move beyond traditional notions of gendered embodiment. The paper responds to the call for research on the use of models based pedagogy for challenging sexism in PE. Through a critical ethnography, research findings showed how the explicit inclusion of critical pretexts engaging students in reflecting on gender was important to the success of the intervention, particularly the provision of a space for girls to reflect on their experiences of football and sexism in PE, and for boys to listen and hear this. The change to cooperative learning led to a shift in the class climate between students, with most of the girls reporting feeling more valued and included. The improved class climate resulted in better engagement in the classes from students. While some of the boys exhibited more positive attitudes towards girls and their football abilities, some of the more able boys were critical of the approach for its relative lack of engagement with the development of football, beyond skills and techniques. These findings point to both the possibilities and ongoing work necessary to challenge gender relations through a critical pedagogy in PE.

This Fritz Duras lecture argues for the importance of physical educators’ critical engagement with issues of race and ethnic diversity. Despite its colonial history and close relationship to sport - where racialised discourses about the body contribute to shaping commonsense ideas about race - we have yet to engage in any sustained way with issues of race in Health and Physical Education (HPE). Concerns over rises in racism, coupled with persistent gaps between a largely white profession and ethnically diverse school populations in developed countries, point to the need to support teachers’ critical engagement with race. In the paper I examine the potential - and challenges - of adopting a critical whiteness perspective for this task. Antiracist perspectives focusing on the effects of racism position white teachers ‘outside’ of race, and contribute to a deficit view of minority ethnic students in HPE as ‘problems’ for not being ‘active or healthy enough’ in relation to an accepted white (male and middle class) norm. Critical whiteness perspectives shift the focus towards an examination of the workings of the dominant culture through a critical engagement with whiteness, centralising white teachers within processes of racialisation. I ask what such an approach might mean for HPE educators and our (antiracist) practice. To do this, I draw on recent research, funded by the British Academy, that sought to explore the cultural resources on which physical educators draw to make sense of race, including an analysis of discourses of race evident in national curricular policy. Examples from the findings demonstrate how whiteness in HPE works through two discursive techniques, universalisation (the way in which white experience and knowledge is taken to count for the experiences of everyone) and naturalism (the ways in which race is defined in relation to ‘others’, so that white bodies and perspectives are seen as ‘natural’ and the norm). The paper concludes by returning to what a critical whiteness perspective might offer teachers in their anti-racist practice.

Over the last decade or so, young people have increasingly become a focus of UK sport policy. Fuelled in part by concerns such as the increasing levels of childhood inactivity and obesity, and the lack of international success in sport, a plethora of policy initiatives aimed at young people have been developed. In April 2000, the government published its sport strategy document, A Sporting Future for All, pulling together all the threads of recent policies, and in it, restating its commitment to youth sport, sport in education, excellence and sport in the community. One such policy initiative, the School Sport Co-ordinator programme, is the focus of this paper. The School Sport Co-ordinator programme, currently being introduced into schools in England, is an initiative that involves two government departments (sport and education) and a number of other agencies, reflecting the government's current agenda to ensure 'joined up policy' thinking. It aims to develop opportunities for youth sport through co-ordinated links between PE and sport in schools, both within and outside of the formal curriculum, with those in local community sports settings. The essence of the School Sport Co-ordinator programme is to free up nominated teachers in schools from teaching to allow them time for development activities, specifically to encourage schools and community sports providers to work in partnership. This paper draws on data from an ongoing research project examining the implementation of one School Sport Co-ordinator partnership, 'northbridge'. Drawing on in-depth interviews, it explores the perceptions of the newly established School Sport Co-ordinators of their changing role. The paper highlights some of the initial tensions and challenges for them in their task of working across different educational and sporting contexts.

This paper reports on a study that explored black and minority ethnic (BME) students' experiences of physical education teacher education (PETE) in England. Widening the ethnic diversity of those choosing to enter the teaching profession has been a key policy objective of the Training and Development Agency—the government agency responsible for teacher education—for some years. However PETE programmes, designed to produce specialist physical education (PE) teachers to work with secondary age (11–18 years) pupils, reveal significant and enduring levels of under-representation of BME candidates, compared to other subject specialisms. The study reported here used semi-structured interviews and questionnaires with 25 BME participants from five universities involved in PETE in England. The findings show that BME PETE students share many of the characteristics with their White counterparts, being young, sporty and with a desire to improve PE experiences for future generations. However, in other ways, their experiences reveal the significance of ‘race’ ethnicity, and religion and how these are interwoven with gender to position them as ‘other’ in PETE spaces and within schools. Skin colour and religious dress were significant to stereotyping and everyday interactions that served to position them as ‘out of place’, particularly evident in practical activity sessions and on teaching placements. ‘Race’ and ethnicity as part of their professional education was at best a marginalised discourse, at worse, reproduced a deficit perspective of BME pupils’ and their schooling. The paper concludes by arguing for a critical analysis of the construction of Whiteness through PETE.

This article presents findings from recent research exploring black and minority ethnic (BME) students’ experiences of Physical Education teacher education (PETE) in England (Flintoff, 2008). Despite policy initiatives to increase the ethnic diversity of teacher education cohorts, BME students are under-represented in PETE, making up just 2.94% of the 2007/8 national cohort, the year in which this research was conducted. Drawing on in-depth interviews and questionnaires with 25 BME students in PETE, the study sought to contribute to our limited knowledge and understanding of racial and ethnic difference in PE, and to show how ‘race,’ ethnicity and gender are interwoven in individuals’ embodied, everyday experiences of learning how to teach. In the article, two narratives in the form of fictional stories are used to present the findings. I suggest that narratives can be useful for engaging with the experiences of those previously silenced or ignored within Physical Education (PE); they are also designed to provoke an emotional as well as an intellectual response in the reader. Given that teacher education is a place where we should be engaging students, emotionally and politically, to think deeply about teaching, education and social justice and their place within these, I suggest that such stories of difference might have a useful place within a critical PETE pedagogy.

Analyses of curricula in a range of countries show how they tend to reinforce, rather than challenge, popular theories of racism. To date, we know little about the contribution of physical education (PE) curriculum policy to the overall policy landscape. This paper examines the construction of 'race' and racism in two national contexts (Norway and England) as a means of putting race and antiracism on the PE policy research agenda. It adopts a critical whiteness perspective to analyse how whiteness, as a system of privilege, contributes to the racialisation of valued knowledge in PE and asks, who potentially benefits and/or is marginalised within the learning spaces available in the texts? The discourse analysis reveals that three discursive techniques of whiteness combine to privilege 'white', Eurocentric knowledge content. Unmarked 'white' PE practices and students are constructed as universal, normative and contingent. As a result, non-white PE practices and students are positioned on the margins in contemporary policy texts. By revealing the racialization processes evident in the texts we aim to trouble the profession's taken-for-granted truths about 'race' in PE as integral to working towards the development of an antiracist subject.

Professor Anne Flintoff has delivered delivered her inaugural lecture at Headingley Campus on 4th June 2009. Speaking ahead of the lecture Professor Anne Flintoff said: "The lecture will explore the contribution of feminist thought to Physical Education and school sport. Drawing on the concept of difference, it will trace three main theoretical shifts in this work, and assess their significance for gender equitable practice. "In calling for a greater engagement by the profession with feminist work, it will also suggest that Physical Education, as a specifically embodied school subject, has a unique contribution to make to wider feminist debates."

There is little research about teachers’ understandings of race and (anti) racism in Physical Education (PE) and how these may inform their pedagogy and practice. Most studies on race and PE focus on the experiences of ethnic ‘others’ – minority ethnic pupils, students, or teachers (e.g. Flintoff, 2015; Nelson, 2012). Although usefully in revealing how racialised practices are negotiated and resisted, such studies may also contribute to a deficit view of ethnic ‘others’ in relation to an accepted white ‘norm’. They also serve to position white teachers ‘outside’ of race. Given the persistence of a largely white teaching profession, this paper argues for a shift in focus towards examining the workings of the dominant culture through a critical engagement with whiteness, thereby centralising white teachers within processes of racialisation (Levine-Rasky 2002). This paper presents data from a larger study exploring white physical educators’ narratives of race, whiteness and (anti)racism in Norway and England, underpinned by such a critical whiteness studies approach (Gillborn, 2008). Using a collective biography approach (Davies and Gannon 2006), twelve physical education teachers (6 from England and 6 from Norway) have generated written stories with the help of memory triggers from their childhood, schooling, sports experiences, teacher education and work experience. These have consequently been shared with fellow participants, who have interrogated the texts and critically reflected upon the kinds of truths and discourses that have produced them. Emerging themes in the on-going analysis include the ways in which race is constructed and talked about only in relation to ethnic ‘others’; its invisibility in teachers’ own educational and professional stories, and their colour-blind strategies of ‘treating all the kids the same’. The paper concludes by considering the contribution of critical whiteness studies in challenging how whiteness works in HPE.

Despite its colonial history and close relationship to sport - where racialised discourses about the body contribute to shaping commonsense ideas about race - we have yet to engage in any sustained way with issues of race in Health and Physical Education (HPE). Concerns over rises in racism, coupled with persistent gaps between a largely white profession and ethnically diverse school populations in developed countries, point to the need to support teachers’ critical engagement with race. In her lecture, Professor Flintoff will argue for the importance of physical educators’ critical engagement with issues of race and ethnic diversity. She will examine the potential and the challenges of adopting a critical whiteness perspective for this task. Antiracist perspectives focusing on the effects of racism position white teachers ‘outside’ of race, and contribute to a deficit view of minority ethnic students in HPE as ‘problems’ for not being ‘active or healthy enough’ in relation to an accepted white (male and middle class) norm. Critical whiteness perspectives shift the focus towards an examination of the workings of the dominant culture through a critical engagement with whiteness, centralising white teachers within processes of racialisation. Professor Flintoff will asks what such an approach might mean for HPE educators and our (antiracist) practice.

Abstract What counts as ‘useful’ knowledge about gender in PE? What kinds of research are needed to challenge gendered inequalities? How can we avoid the reproduction of what Kirk and Oliver (2014) call the ‘same old narrative story’ about girls and PE? Do we, in fact, still need feminist research in PE? In addressing these and other questions, this paper argues for the continuing importance of feminist research and professional debate on gender for PE and teacher education (PETE). Tracing its development within the academy reveals a vibrancy and diversity of feminist thought, set against longstanding and continuing struggles in relation to its legitimacy, visibility and impact (David, 2014). However, gender research in PE has tended to follow the directions of research on gender and education more widely and as such could be viewed as ‘one step behind’ the mainstream debates (Flintoff and Scraton, 2006). It is also the case that the specific contributions of feminist research in PE, - for example, around physical power relations, (hetero) sexuality and embodiment - have not always been taken up outside our field. This paper asks what are the challenges of contemporary feminist knowledge production in PE within increasingly hostile, neoliberal university cultures (Mountz et al, 2015), and points towards productive questions and approaches. The first part of the paper scrutinises the nature of gender knowledge in PE and PETE and its usefulness for understanding contemporary practice. I highlight some of the consequences for gender equity in how particular discourses about gender get taken up at the expense of others, and how particular research perspectives may be at odds with the promotion of socially just, gender agendas. Secondly, I address the nature and position of feminist knowledge within our university provision (Soler, et al 2016) and some of the challenges of teaching gender knowledge in contemporary higher education classrooms. How do gender relations influence our own classroom practice and what are the implications for our own pedagogies? Finally, I raise questions about the nature of knowledge production in the academy. How are our everyday experiences and work within universities gendered, and what are the consequences for individuals, and for the field of PE?

In this presentation I will seek to problematise the question, What is PE? and suggest that - although we’ve never had one agreed version of PE - contemporary PE practice is increasingly diverse and differentiated, and unequal. Whether the focus is school or university, contemporary PE is characterised by increasing marketisation, commercialisation and privatization (Evans 2014), and the implications of this are that whilst some young people are getting access to high quality, rewarding experiences and opportunities, others are not. Equally, PE practitioners are also working in increasingly differentiated and unequal workplaces. In other words, the so-called ‘level playing field’ is really not that level after all! I will explore what this might mean for us and our everyday practice and argue that we not only have a responsibility to critically consider the implications of the kinds of PE we offer to individuals at the local level, but also how these ‘small’, locally-based, practices and experiences both reflect, contribute to, or challenge, ‘larger’ structures and inequalities in schooling, education and beyond. I will draw on some of my own research and practice to illustrate the ways in which this might be done.

The aim of this article is to problematise the use of the qualitative interview method within physical education (PE) research, but the discussion is equally relevant for the broader field of sport and exercise sciences. We argue that there is a tendency to pay lip-service to the notion that knowledge is co-constructed as multiple, contradictory, partial, cognitive, sensory and experienced in our research projects, whilst our interview practice can best be likened to a ‘form of opinion polling’. As critical, feminist researchers with an interest in matters of social justice, we explore the extent to which we are able to create interview encounters as arenas where researchers and informants can co-construct stories of difference,and in particular, when faced with oppressive stories, whether they can create the space for alternative storylines to emerge? Drawing upon a critical analysis of our own interview practice, we suggest that a more ‘antagonistic’ form of interviewing may be appropriate if we wish to heed the linguistic turn in qualitative research and fulfil our ‘modest’ critical pedagogical objectives.

In this paper we discuss some of the challenges of centralising 'race' and ethnicity in Physical Education (PE) research, through reflecting on the design and implementation of a study exploring Black and minority ethnic students' experiences of their teacher education. Our aim in the paper is to contribute to ongoing theoretical and methodological debates about intersectionality, and specifically about difference and power in the research process. As McCorkel and Myers notes, the 'researchers' backstage'-the assumptions, motivations, narratives and relations-that underpin any research are not always made visible and yet are highly significant in judging the quality and substance of the resulting project. As feminists, we argue that the invisibility of 'race' and ethnicity within Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE), and PE research more widely, is untenable; however, we also show how centralising 'race' and ethnicity raised significant methodological and epistemological questions, particularly given our position as White researchers and lecturers. In this paper, we reflect on a number of aspects of our research 'journey': the theoretical and methodological challenges of operationalising concepts of 'race' and ethnicity, the practical issues and dilemmas involved in recruiting participants for the study, the difficulties of 'talking race' personally and professionally and challenges of representing the experiences of 'others'. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

The School Sport Partnership Programme (SSPP) is one strand of the national strategy for physical education and school sport in England, the physical education and school sport Club Links Strategy (PESSCL). The SSPP aims to make links between school physical education (PE) and out of school sports participation, and has a particular remit to raise the participation levels of several identified under-represented groups, of which girls and young women are one. National evaluations of the SSPP show that it is beginning to have positive impacts on young people's activity levels by increasing the range and provision of extra curricular activities (Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), 2003, 2004, 2005; Loughborough Partnership, 2005, 2006). This paper contributes to the developing picture of the phased implementation of the programme by providing qualitative insights into the work of one school sport partnership with a particular focus on gender equity. The paper explores the ways in which gender equity issues have been explicitly addressed within the 'official texts' of the SSPP; how these have shifted over time and how teachers are responding to and making sense of these in their daily practice. Using participation observation, interview and questionnaire data, the paper explores how the coordinators are addressing the challenge of increasing the participation of girls and young women. The paper draws on Walby's (2000) conceptualisation of different kinds of feminist praxis to highlight the limitations of the coordinators' work. Two key themes from the data and their implications are addressed: the dominance of competitive sport practices and the PE professionals' views of targeting as a strategy for increasing the participation of under-represented groups. The paper concludes that coordinators work within an equality or difference discourse with little evidence of the transformative praxis needed for the programme to be truly inclusive. © 2008 Taylor & Francis.

The aim of this paper is to explore what is performed in students’ and teachers’ actions in physical education practice in terms of “didactic irritations,” through an analysis of YouTube clips from 285 PE lessons from 27 different countries. Didactic irritations are occurrences that Rønholt describes as those demanding “didactic, pedagogical reflections and discussions, which in turn could lead to alternative thinking and understanding about teaching and learning.” Drawing on Barad’s ideas of performativity to challenge our habitual anthropocentric analytical gaze when looking at educational visual data, and using narrative construction, we also aim to give meaning to actions, relations, and experiences of the participants in the YouTube clips. To do this, we present juxtaposing narratives from teachers and students in terms of three “didactic irritations”: (a) stories from a track, (b), stories from a game, and (c), stories from a bench. The stories re-present events-of-moving in the data offering insights into embodied experiences in PE practice, making students’ as well as teachers’ actions in PE practice understandable.

Gender policies in sports have expanded considerably in most countries in recent decades. Nevertheless, the implementation of these policies in sports organizations is by no means an automatic process. This article explores what happens when gender equity policies are applied in an university sports organization. Participatory action research over a four-year period was developed by the authors to increase the participation of women, and it also aimed to explore the perceptions and thoughts of key actors regarding equity actions. The analysis shows the participation numbers in the specific promotional campaign and reveals a wide range of responses among staff, ranging from enthusiasm and interest to resistance and fear. Gender equity actions often encounter resistance which cannot, and should not, be ignored. This article highlights certain forms of resistance that proposals of this kind should be prepared for.

Analyses of curricula in a range of countries show how they tend to reinforce, rather than challenge, popular theories of racism. To date, we know little about the contribution of physical education (PE) curriculum policy to the overall policy landscape. This paper examines the construction of race and racism in two national contexts (Norway and England) as a means of putting race and antiracism on the PE policy research agenda. It adopts a critical whiteness perspective to analyse how whiteness, as a system of privilege, contributes to the racialisation of valued knowledge in PE and asks, who potentially benefits and/or is marginalised within the learning spaces available in the texts? The discourse analysis reveals that two discursive techniques of whiteness combine to privilege white, Eurocentric knowledge content. Unmarked white PE practices and students are constructed as universal, normative and contingent. As a result, non-white PE practices and students are positioned on the margins in contemporary policy texts. By revealing the racialization processes evident in the texts we aim to trouble the profession's taken-for-granted truths about race in PE as integral to working towards the development of an antiracist subject.

School sport partnerships (SSPs) have been at the centre of a national strategy for Physical Education and School Sport (PESS) in England for the last seven years, aiming to improve both the range and quality of opportunities for young people to be physically active. While annual surveys show significantly increased opportunities for young people to be physically active, both in curriculum PE and outside of school sport (Quick et al., 2010; The Loughborough Partnership, 2008), there has been less evaluation of the quality of these new experiences. This article draws on interviews with experienced coordinators across eight sport partnerships in the north of England and explores their perceptions of good practice in high quality PESS. Good practice was described as underpinned by educational rather that performance pedagogy, linked to wider whole school agendas, and sustainable (for example, through the continuing professional development of non-specialist primary teachers). The importance of providing activities other than traditional sport for engaging previously inactive young people was also recognized, although there was less evidence of an accompanying, innovative pedagogy.

Despite the increased growth and professionalism of women’s and girls’ soccer in recent years, there is still a paucity of research exploring talent identification and development. It is widely acknowledged that growth and maturation influence the biopsychosocial development of girls and boys differently, which has important implications for talent identification and development in soccer. Therefore, this chapter disentangles gender by providing an overview of existing research in women’s and girls’ soccer as well as offering recommendations for talent identification and development practices. Firstly, the chapter explains how growth and maturation may impact physical development of young female soccer players. Secondly, the chapter considers the psychosocial development of female players. Lastly, the chapter proposes directions for future research and outlines implications for practice.

This paper contributes to existing literature on gender equity within sporting organisations, focusing on the merger between the Women’s Cricket Association (WCA) and the England and Wales Cricket Board in 1998. At the time of the merger those involved in the WCA debated whether the merger would be positive for the future of the women’s game. In this paper we discuss the impact of the merger on the women’s role in the governance of their sport through the views of 10 women who were involved in playing, administrating, managing or coaching cricket during the time of the merger. The interviewees’ experiences are located within wider debates about power, gender and sport. We specifically draw on the concept of exclusionary power to highlight how gender inequities continue to impact upon the management and organisation of women’s cricket in England. Our participants’ testimonies suggest that since the merger, the game has unquestionably benefited from increased financial support. This has significantly boosted the elite development of the game. However, since the merger the role of women has changed. They now have limited power over the organisation and development of both elite and grassroots levels of play. This paper therefore contributes to existing research on gender relations and sporting organisations, such as the work of Stronach and Adair ((2009) ‘Brave new world’ or ‘sticky wicket’? Women, management and organizational power in Cricket Australia. Sport in Society 12(7): 910–932) and Sibson ((2010) “I Was Banging My Head against a Brick Wall”: Exclusionary power and the gendering of sport organisations. Journal of Sport Management 24: 379–399), by further applying the concept of exclusionary power to understanding gender relations within a UK sports context.

Issues of equity remain an essential theme throughout the study and practice of physical education (PE), youth sport and health. This important new book confronts and illuminates issues of equity and difference through the innovative use of narrative method, telling stories of difference that enable students, academics and professionals alike to engage both emotionally and cognitively with the subject. The book is arranged into three sections. The first provides an overview of current theory and research on difference and inequality in PE, youth sport and health, together with an introduction to narrative forms of knowing. The second section includes short narratives about difference that bring to life the key themes and issues in a range of physical activity contexts. The third section draws upon a selection of narratives to offer detailed, practical suggestions for how they might be used in, or inform, teaching sessions. This is the first book to explore issues of equity through narrative, and the first to examine the pedagogical value of a narrative approach within PE, youth sport and health. With contributions from many of the world’s leading equity specialists, it will be invaluable reading for all students, scholars and professionals working in PE, youth sport, health, sports development, gender studies and mainstream education programmes.

Background: The persistent gaps between a largely white profession and ethnically diverse school populations have brought renewed calls to support teachers' critical engagement with race. Programmes examining the effects of racism have had limited impact on practice, with student teachers responding with either denial, guilt or fear; they also contribute to a deficit view of racialised students in relation to an accepted white ‘norm’, and position white teachers ‘outside’ of race. Recent calls argue for a shift in focus towards an examination of the workings of the dominant culture through a critical engagement with whiteness, positioning white teachers within the processes of racialisation. Teacher educators' roles are central, and yet, while we routinely expect student teachers to reflect critically on issues of social justice, we have been less willing to engage in such work ourselves. This is particularly the case within physical education teacher education (PETE), an overwhelmingly white, embodied space, and where race and racism as professional issues are largely invisible. Purpose: This paper examines the operation of whiteness within PETE through a critical reflection on the three co-authors' careers and experiences working for social justice. The research questions were twofold: How are race, (anti) racism and whiteness constructed through everyday experiences of families, schooling and teacher education? How can collective biography be used to excavate discourses of race, racism and whiteness as the first step towards challenging them? In beginning the process of reflecting on what it means for us ‘to do own work’ in relation to (anti) racism, we examine some of the tensions and challenges for teacher educators in PE attempting to work to dismantle whiteness. Methodology: As co-authors, we engaged in collective biography work – a process in which we reflected upon, wrote about and shared our embodied experiences and memories about race, racism and whiteness as educators working for social justice. Using a critical whiteness lens, these narratives were examined for what they reveal about the collective practices and discourses about whiteness and (anti)racism within PETE. Results: The narratives reveal the ways in which whiteness operates within PETE through processes of naturalisation, ex-denomination and universalisation. We have been educated, and now work within, teacher education contexts where professional discourse about race at best focuses on understanding the racialised ‘other’, and at worse is invisible. By drawing on a ‘racialised other’, deficit discourse in our pedagogy, and by ignoring race in own research on inequalities in PETE, we have failed to disrupt universalised discourses of ‘white-as-norm’, or addressed our own privileged racialised positioning. Reflecting critically on our biographies and careers has been the first step in recognising how whiteness works in order that we can begin to work to disrupt it. Conclusion: The study highlights some of the challenges of addressing (anti)racism within PETE and argues that a focus on whiteness might offer a productive starting point. White teacher educators must critically examine their own role within these processes if they are to expect student teachers to engage seriously in doing the same.

This commentary introduces David Kirk's paper entitled 'Making a career in Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy in the corporatized university: Reflections on hegemony, resistance, collegiality and scholarship', which was presented in the 2012 Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP) 'scholar lecture' at the British Educational Research Association (BERA) conference. We briefly describe the origins of the scholar lecture and its link to the PESP special interest group of BERA and then make a few introductory comments about the lecture, highlighting a number of points of tension that the paper raises for us. © 2013 © 2013 Taylor & Francis.

Developing teacher education programmes founded upon principles of critical pedagogy and social justice has become increasingly difficult in the current neoliberal climate of higher education. In this article, we adopt a narrative approach to illuminate some of the dilemmas which advocates of education for social justice face and to reflect upon how pedagogy for inclusion in the field of physical education (PE) teacher education (PETE) is defined and practiced. As a professional group, teacher educators seem largely hesitant to expose themselves to the researcher's gaze, which is problematic if we expect preservice teachers to engage in messy, biographical reflexivity with regard to their own teaching practice. By engaging in self- and collective biographical story sharing about ‘our’ teacher educator struggles in England and Norway, we hope that the reader can identify ‘her/his’ struggles in the narratives about power and domination, and the spaces of opportunity in between.

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study which aimed to explore young women's perceptions of and attitudes towards involvement in physical activity and physical education (PE). Drawing on group and individual qualitative interviews with 21 15-year-old young women, it explores the nature, purpose and experiences of their physical activity involvement, both in and out of school. It examines how, in both settings, young women make conscious choices about their physical activity involvement. The data showed that although there were qualitative differences between the individual choices of different girls, many of these were made within a negotiation of gender relations. Contrary to much of the recent concern about girls' 'dropout' from physical activity and a perceived disinterest of young women in physical activity and sport, the young women in this study were involved in a range of physical activities outside of school and defined themselves as active. They also appeared to be positively influenced by contemporary discourses about the health benefits of exercise. This was in contrast to their perceptions of how they were defined within and through PE.

Research that focuses on the home as a physical activity setting appears preoccupied with measuring activity. What is less researched is how the home is experienced as a physical activity context. This paper explores the physical activity experiences in and around the home of 13 South Asian, Muslim young women. Data were generated using participatory approaches in focus groups and individual interviews. The research highlights the home and vicinity, as a physical, social and cultural space, significant to these young women’s physical activity involvement. However, the home also emerges as an important site in the reproduction of gendered power relations. These young women recount the ways in which expectations on them to undertake traditional gender roles within the home can leave them with less time and energy to be physically active. Despite this, the young women suggest that positions other than ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ are envisaged for their future, not least in the ways in which they prioritise their education and schooling. The young women emerge as active agents who navigate diverse expectations and priorities to be physically active on their terms.

Young women’s relationship with physical activity has been explored extensively, yet the focus is often upon young women who are White. This paper considers South Asian, Muslim young women’s experiences of physical activity and how these are influenced by family. A ‘middle ground’ feminist approach is used, drawing upon the work of Hill Collins [(2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. London: Routledge] and Hamzeh [(2012). Pedagogies of deveiling: Muslim girls and the hijab discourse (critical AQ2 construction). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing were generated with 13 young women using participatory approaches in focus group settings, and individual interviews. This research highlights how the young women’s families can both enable and challenge opportunities and involvement in physical activity. The paper discusses how gender and religion intersect with family and wider community to influence experiences in multiple, diverse and fluid ways. The young women’s narratives suggest that experiences are not determined solely by these influences; rather, they emerge as active agents negotiating different contextual challenges in their quest to be physically active.

This chapter argues for the continuing importance of feminist praxis in PE. It draws on recent research that responds to calls for more middle-ground theorizing in PE to explore difference and inequality, and for the use of creative methods in research practice with young people. The first example explores black and minority ethnic student teachers’ experiences of their PE teacher education, going beyond earlier, “single-issue” approaches that focus on gender and PETE to address how gender is interwoven with race and ethnicity (and other relations of power). The second example focuses on using innovative methods to understand the diverse PE experiences of South Asian, Muslim girls. In so doing, it challenges dominant conceptions of “femininity” as homogeneous and problematizes simplistic views of Muslim girls’ (dis)engagement. The chapter concludes by pointing to areas where future feminist praxis in PE would be valuable.

This chapter draws on the CREATE framework to explore the REHEAL-C project, supported by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship 2019–2020. It aims to understand British Chinese children’s physical activity, leisure and health-related experiences, which aligns with broader European policy to address health inequalities. On reflection, the CREATE framework resonates with the values and principles that underpinned ethnographic and arts-based methods. The principles of connections, reflexivity, empathy, adherence, transparency and empowerment, demonstrated by the REHEAL-C project, have enabled a more critical and humanistic approach in researching with British Chinese children amid challenges sparked by Covid-19 pandemic and the historical invisibility of British Chinese communities and research locally and globally.

This book provides students and scholars with a fail-safe guide to the key concepts in the field of Sport & Exercise Science.

This chapter focuses on the development of critical work on gender and sport and how this has changed over time. It talks about sports feminisms and how different theoretical explanations have sought to answer very different questions relating to gender and sport. The underlying assumption of all liberal sports feminism is that sport is fundamentally sound and represents a positive experience to which girls and women need access. Women's oppression cannot simply be explained by class relations and the sexual division of labor (Marxist feminism) or by men's power over women (radical feminism). Socialist feminism attempts to provide a more comprehensive explanation that incorporates both of these areas. Poststructuralist feminists provide conceptual challenges to the macro-analyses of the structural approaches of liberal, radical, and socialist feminism. Finally, the chapter addresses what might be new avenues or questions for feminism, gender, and sport..

Jenny let her gaze come to rest on the untidy notice-board on the end wall of the cramped, over-hot, PE office and stopped herself from sighing out aloud. Out-of-date notices, the latest Head of Year missive, telephone numbers scribbled on bits of torn paper, and a lone black plastic whistle, hung by a frayed cord, jostled for position on its now faded, felt surface. A fly buzzed irritatingly around the room. Her colleagues looked at her and waited, silent. She noticed their folded arms across their chests and their posture, sitting back on their chairs, looking defensive. Danny tapped one foot, impatiently, grains of sand dropping from his shoe and collecting in a small pile on the floor. This wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d thought and, for a moment, she hesitated. Did she have the energy, the determination? Getting everyone on board would take time, and a quick glance at the clock told her that, if she didn’t hurry up, her time would be up, and her chance gone. Taking a deep breath, she reiterated her point: ‘so to summarize, this is not about change for change’s sake - it’s important for girls’ participation in PE as a whole, for who takes part, for how they feel, whether they view PE as something they feel comfortable doing - want to do. Surely we all want every pupil to feel like that, don’t we? We all know we struggle with some of the girls, and I just think we ought to consider the whole package - not just what we offer - we’ve made some good changes to the kinds of activities we’re doing. .. but now I am proposing we go one step further. Research in the UK shows that one of the key things that puts girls off PE is the kit they’re asked to wear, and the whole changing room/showering thing.' ‘Research!' Danny snorted, ‘great - so now we’re going to change everything because you’re doing your masters and have read some article! Our kids all go out for PE looking the part, looking smart, all the same. We’ve worked hard over the years for that. But now we’re gonna relax our standards and let kids do what they like? Just because a few girls don’t like it, and some academic or other - who I bet’s never been anywhere near a school in the last 20 years - says so! Bloody marvellous!' Danny tightened his arms still further, frustrated at the way in which Jenny was pushing them to agree the change, and her power to impose it, regardless of their views. Although he’d not admit it, he was still smarting over the fact that she’d been appointed to the head of department’s post two years ago. At the time he couldn’t be bothered to apply. He thought he didn’t need the hassle, what with his coaching and everything. Now it seemed his decision had come back to haunt him. Peter, in his second year of teaching and still finding his feet in the politics of the department, did as he often did, and aligned himself with his senior male colleague’s position. He chipped in, ‘Danny’s right, we shouldn’t be changing the whole kit policy just because of one or two kids. The boys don’t complain. In fact, in my experience, most of the girls don’t, either. We already allow the Muslim girls to wear leggings, if they want to. So they’re sorted. And if we do make a change, it’s no guarantee that the others are going to get into PE anyway, so why bother upsetting things when most kids are OK? We know the kids who don’t want to do PE and, whatever we do, they’re always going to be like that!' Danny, who wasn’t going to give way easily, added, ‘And anyway, OFSTED1 didn’t say anything about it! They clearly don’t think we’re doing anything wrong by having a kit for PE. And the head’s always saying that part of the reason we’ve moved up the league tables is because of our uniform policy and the way we enforce it. Our kids look smart, and parents like that!'.

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.

Scraton’s [1992. Shaping up to womanhood: Gender and girls’ physical education. Open University Press] ground breaking research highlighted how Physical Education (PE) contributed to the reproduction of gender power relations; more specifically, how three messages around motherhood, sexuality and physicality, reflected through PE’s structures, activities and delivery, contributed to young women’s sense of self. Twenty five years on, this paper explores how contemporary PE reproduces and challenges gender power relations in four English secondary schools. Data were generated from eighty hours of observations of PE lessons, and eight semi-structured interviews with PE teachers. Guided by Hill Collins’ [2000. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge] four domains (structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, interpersonal) underpinning the matrix of domination the findings demonstrate that gender remains a visible organising feature in the structural arrangements of PE. Moreover, teachers’ gendered beliefs and assumptions circulating within the hegemonic domain, and actions in the disciplinary domain, ensure that students embody their gender in appropriate ways. Furthermore, a consistency of practice was evident in teachers’ pedagogy despite differences in the schools’ cohorts. Similar blocks of teaching activities and a performance-based pedagogy failed to include difference. We suggest this is unsurprising and unlikely to change with the current National Curriculum promoting a performative, PE as sport discourse, and teacher training not conducive to developing teachers who can engage with difference and challenge inequalities. As such, PE continues to reinforce gender power relations and gender differences. By drawing upon the matrix, the need for change to occur at different levels and contexts is identified. To this end, teacher training must do better in developing the next generation of teachers who are willing and able to critique the status quo and work with girls to advocate for change. Relatedly, we draw attention to what can be achieved when power is shared through a democratic pedagogy that values girls’ voices and recognises them as co-collaborators in curriculum design.

This book provides students and scholars with a fail-safe guide to the key concepts in the field of Sport & Exercise Science.

The idea for this Special Issue, ‘Gender, Physical Education and Active Lifestyles: Contemporary Challenges and New Directions’ developed from the interest generated by a one day conference held at Leeds Beckett University in September 2017. The conference marked 25 years since the publication of Sheila Scraton’s ground breaking, feminist analysis of Physical Education. As a pivotal text that has contributed to the growth of gender research within the UK and more broadly, it seemed fitting to mark this occasion. The reach of Sheila’s work was perhaps realised through the delegate body. Early career researchers mingled with established scholars from America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the UK. Building on this conference and a wider call for papers, we are delighted to offer two Special Issues of Sport, Education and Society. The first issue engages explicitly with the challenge of theorising and understanding gendered subjectivities and embodiment across a range of contexts. These papers reflect the diversity of theoretical approaches being employed with some drawing on feminist perspectives, and others using Bourdieu, intersectionality, critical whiteness studies, and masculinity studies. The collection of papers in the second issue seek to examine the different ways in which gender becomes implicated in pedagogical relations and practice. These range from accounts of teachers’ struggles to use critical pedagogies to address gender inequities in PE classes, to analyses of the wider pedagogical ‘work’ of the media in constructing understandings about gender, with several papers exploring these two aspects in combination. We hope you enjoy reading the papers across these two Special Issues as much as we have enjoyed the journey as the editorial team. Collectively the papers raise alternative questions and provide new insights into gender and active lifestyles, and importantly, all seek to make a difference in moving towards more equitable physical activity experiences.

Covering a range of topics that lend themselves quite naturally to existentialist analysis - crime and deviance as becoming and will, the existential openness of symbolic exchange, the internal conversations that take place within criminal ...

Research that focuses on the home as a physical activity setting appears preoccupied with measuring activity. What is less researched is how the home is experienced as a physical activity context. This paper explores the physical activity experiences in and around the home of 13 South Asian, Muslim young women. Data were generated using participatory approaches in focus groups and individual interviews. The research highlights the home and vicinity, as a physical, social and cultural space, significant to these young women’s physical activity involvement. However, the home also emerges as an important site in the reproduction of gendered power relations. These young women recount the ways in which expectations on them to undertake traditional gender roles within the home can leave them with less time and energy to be physically active. Despite this, the young women suggest that positions other than ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ are envisaged for their future, not least in the ways in which they prioritise their education and schooling. The young women emerge as active agents who navigate diverse expectations and priorities to be physically active on their terms.