Research analysing the operation of power within sport and physical activity has exposed the marginalisation and exclusion of women's sport in explicit and institutionalised ways. However, for women in recreational and alternative physical activities like surfing, sporting experiences lie outside institutionalised structures, thus requiring…

This paper seeks to animate discussion around how social class operates with adolescent girls from low socio-economic status backgrounds to shape and inform their decisions about participation in physical activity (PA) inside and outside of school. Examining the instance of girls in a single secondary school in an Australian regional town, the…

In this paper, we argue for the importance of creating a context that allows students to explore their sense of "self" and their embodied identities, specifically within a physical education context. We specifically explore how students' mediated and embodied identities are "translated," particularly as they engaged in…

The experiences of female sports fans have been largely marginalised in academic research to date and little research has examined the formative sporting experiences of female spectators. This article draws on 51 semi-structured interviews with three generations of female fans of one (men's) professional football club (Leicester City), to…

The study investigates whether sport is an especially risky environment for sexual harassment to occur. It explores female students' experiences of sexual harassment in organized sport and compares them with their experiences in formal education, by addressing the following research questions: (1) Are there any differences in female sport…

The growing competitiveness of modern sport means that children, from very early ages, are increasingly submitted to intensive training programmes. These programmes are problematic for young athletes not only because their developing bodies are particularly susceptible to different kinds of injuries, but because athletes are also particularly…

Research suggests that girls are disengaged in physical education due to the "traditional" way that it is taught, i.e. teacher-centred approaches with a primary focus on motor performance. In contrast, Cooperative Learning, a student-centred pedagogy focusing on learning in multiple domains, has had success in engaging girls in physical…

This paper explores the role of reflexivity in habituation by contrasting the learning of aerobics and basketball with the acquisition of gendered bodily skills. The discussion is inspired by the paper "So, how did Bourdieu learn to play tennis? Habitus, consciousness and habituation," by Noble and Watkins (2003), which represents a…

This study centres upon the accounts of master women coaches based in the UK, exploring how they have individually experienced such acts of resistance as reaching the top of such a male dominated profession. By going beyond previous positivist feminist approaches to this focus of inquiry, I employ a feminist cultural studies framework to…

In this paper I call for "new forms of thinking and new ways of theorizing" the complex relations between the biological and social in sport and physical culture. I illustrate the inseparability of our biological and social bodies in sport and physical culture via the case of exercise and female reproductive hormones. Inspired by…

The purpose of the paper is twofold: (1) to contribute to the analysis of the origins of modern European female PE and sports from a power perspective, inspired by Foucault's work; and (2) to present a detailed analysis of female PE and sport in Spain (1883-1936) as a specific European case study. It is argued that these physical activities…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of girls and boys about the effects that body-based harassment would have on girls' eating habits and engagement in physical activity. Five scenarios were read to focus groups comprised of 12- to 14-year-old students in grades 7 and 8. Each scenario represented behaviours that fall…

The aim of this paper is to discuss the development and evolution of particular personas adopted by researchers in the quest for rich exchanges within the social field. It analyses my role (the principal author) as a female ethnographer (and the sole female) in the world of elite male rowing. Data are drawn from personal notes, reflections and…

This paper explores how eight women experience, and are incorporated into, the regulatory regimes and pedagogical practices of a corporate (sporting) university in their first semester of college. Using Foucault's conceptions of power, discipline and subjectivity, we situate women's participation on the soccer team within the context of…

This paper contributes to sport, sociology and the body literature by exploring the "exposure and effect" of culture, in particular bodily practices placed on three adolescent swimmers immersed in the Australian swimming culture using an ethnographic framework. The research reported is particularly notable as it addresses two distinct time points…