Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/6554
Title: The Girls in Sport Intervention and Research Project: Thinking Beyond the Square
Contributor(s): Miller, Judith A  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2010
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/6554
Abstract: This is the second of three linked papers which report on the process and preliminary outcomes of the Girls in Sport (GiS) Project. This paper will report on how the teachers talked about the issues associated with girls' participation in physical activity and their ideas at the planning stage about how these issues could be addressed through a school based intervention. The data on which this paper is based were collected through formal interviews with executive members of staff, and focus group interviews with PDHPE/sport and non-PDHPE teachers. These were analysed for themes and compared to other literature on teachers' talk about girls' participation in physical activity, girls' interests and needs, and strategies to improve their participation and engagement in physical activity. There were a variety of explanations from the teachers and the students as to why girls were not engaged. These fell into three main themes: the structure of school sport (choice, variety, hierarchies, resources, and expertise), the environment (opportunities, stereotypes), intrapersonal and external factors (lack of skills and confidence, cost of activities and transport). From the teachers' perspectives, what the girls liked included: participating with friend/s; choice of activities; knowledgeable teachers; variety of activities, and better behaved boys. They foresaw a number of challenges to bringing about change, most of which involved the difficulties of school support and resources, rather than difficulties that resided in the female students. The issues teachers identified for girls at their schools were very similar to those identified in the literature on girls' disengagement from physical activity. The teachers had more difficulty thinking 'beyond the square', that is thinking outside existing sport structures and processes when it came to planning for changes in their school. This has been the challenge taken up by the Project team and the collaborating investigators as 'critical friends'.
Publication Type: Conference Publication
Conference Details: IWG Sydney 2010: 5th IWG World Conference on Women and Sport, Sydney, Australia, 20th - 23rd May, 2010
Source of Publication: 5th IWG World Conference on Women and Sport Program Book and Speaker Abstracts, p. 107-107
Publisher: International Working Group on Women and Sport
Place of Publication: Sydney, Australia
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 130210 Physical Education and Development Curriculum and Pedagogy
130106 Secondary Education
130308 Gender, Sexuality and Education
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 939904 Gender Aspects of Education
930302 Syllabus and Curriculum Development
930403 School/Institution Policies and Development
HERDC Category Description: E3 Extract of Scholarly Conference Publication
Publisher/associated links: http://www.iwg-gti.org/iwg-world-conferences/2010-world-conference/
http://www.iwg-gti.org/iwg-world-conferences/2010-world-conference/conference-program/
Appears in Collections:Conference Publication

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