'Power, regulation and physically active identities' : the experiences of rural and regional living adolescent girls
- Authors: Casey, Meghan , Mooney, Amanda , Smyth, John , Payne, Warren
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Gender and Education Vol. 28, no. 1 (2016), p. 108-127
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP0990206
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Drawing on interpretations of Foucault's techniques of power, we explored the discourses and power relations operative between groups of girls that appeared to influence their participation in Physical Education (PE) and outside of school in sport and physical activity (PA) in rural and regional communities. Interviews and focus groups were conducted in eight secondary schools with female students from Year 9 (n = 22) and 10 (n = 116). Dominant gendered and performance discourses were active in shaping girls' construction of what it means to be active or sporty', and these identity positions were normalised and valued. The perceived and real threat of their peer's gaze as a form of surveillance acted to further perpetuate the power of performance discourses; whereby girls measured and (self) regulated their participation. Community settings were normalised as being exclusively for skilled performers and girls self-regulated their non-participation according to judgements made about their own physical abilities. These findings raise questions about the ways in which power relations, as forged in broader sociocultural and institutional discourse-power relations, can infiltrate the level of the PE classroom to regulate and normalise practices in relation to their, and others, PA participation.
Where has class gone? The pervasiveness of class in girls' physical activity in a rural town
- Authors: Smyth, John , Mooney, Amanda , Casey, Meghan
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport, Education and Society Vol. 19, no. 1 (January 2014 2014), p. 1-18
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP0990206
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: 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 paper questions the impact of class and how the girls experience the obstacles, impediments and interferences to participation in PA. These girls are portrayed as living multiple, complex and embodied subjectivities that shape and are informed by the relational geographies in which they are located, as they interact ‘with’, ‘to’ and ‘between’ the social, emotional and classed hierarchies that require them to access familial and other resources in making decisions about participation in PA.