Sporty Girls: Gender, Health and Achievement in a Postfeminist Era

by Sheryl Clark

Overview

This book engages with the ongoing question of why many girls stop doing sport and physical activity in their teenage years. Previous research has found that many girls’ disengagement from sport takes place despite their childhood enjoyment and that frequently these same women take up sport again as adults. Within these chapters, Sheryl Clark explores what it is about this period of time that persuades many girls to disengage from sports when their male peers continue to take part; why some girls continue to take part; and most importantly how girls understand this participation. She suggests that girls’ participation in sport should be viewed as part of their ongoing constructions of ‘successful girlhood’ within a competitive schooling system and broader socioeconomic context.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030672515
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	03/03/2021
Series:	New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures
Edition description:	1st ed. 2021
Pages:	193
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sheryl Clark is Lecturer and Researcher in the field of educational studies at Goldsmiths University of London, UK. With a particular interest in gender, sport, identities, youth, schooling and girlhood, Sheryl’s research makes use of qualitative methods working with children and young people in schools and other physical activity settings.

Table of Contents

1. Defining a “Problem”: Girls’ Participation in Sport and Physical Education.- 2. Embodying Sporty Girlhood: Exploring Perspectives on Girls’ Sporting Participation Through Postfeminism.- 3. Becoming a Sporty Researcher: Gender, Legitimacy and Bodies That Move.- 4. A Good Education: School Achievement, Sport and Becoming a Successful Girl.- 5. Being “Good at Sport”: Constituting Bodies Through Competition and Selection Processes.- 6. Responsible Body Projects, Health and Moral Hierarchies.- 7. Gendered and Racialised Bodies in Postfeminist Athletics: Embodied Capacities and Feminist Rage.- 8. Conclusion: Sporting Girlhoods and Feminist Possibilities.

Editorial Reviews

The author’s emphasis on the lived experiences of girls, their stated reactions—both positive and negative—to sport participation, and a recommendation for more input from girls going forward, is exemplary. … This book, along with others in the series, is worth reading for scholars’ data-driven perspectives that can inform future feminist philosophical theorizing on the body.” (Peg Brand Weiser, Hypatia - A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, November 26, 2024)

From the Publisher