Girls and Physical Education

Introduction

In this chapter we provide an overview and synthesis of the current knowledge and developments in understanding girls and physical education (PE). Over the past three decades, there has been a considerable increase in the amount of work focusing on girls' experiences of PE. Over this time, our knowledge and understanding has developed and shifted and become increasingly sophisticated. Theories have developed from viewing girls as a homogeneous group to ones that recognize diversity between girls, and the interconnections of gender, sexuality, race and class.

The chapter begins with a brief historical perspective that explores the changes over time that have occurred with the research on girls and PE. The chapter then outlines the conceptual and theoretical debates relating to girls' PE and how these have underpinned research focusing on the curriculum; teachers and teacher education; teaching styles and approaches, and girls' perceptions and experiences of PE. The final section of the chapter identifies future directions for work in this area.

Brief Historical Perspective

This section provides a brief historical overview of the major research trends in girls' PE since its early beginnings in the 1970s/1980s. This is followed in the next section by more detailed analysis of how concepts and theories underpinning this research have developed. Early research focused on the historical roots of girls' PE (Fletcher, 1994; Hargreaves, 1979, Vertinsky, 1987) the differential roles of girls and boys in PE, the associated provision of “appropriate” curricula and issues of opportunity and access (Griffin, 1984, Leaman, 1984). Over time the influence of feminist theory shifted the research questions to ones of power relations between the sexes and included research focusing on femininity, sexuality and physicality in school PE (Scraton, 1992), with teachers (Benn, 1996, 2002; Clarke, 1998, 2002) and teacher education (Flintoff, 1993). More recently research, influenced by post structuralist theory, has moved to an exploration of individual girls' experiences of PE and has centralized difference, bodies and subjectivities (Garrett, 2004; Wright, 2004).

The above trends in research in girls' PE reflect more broad theoretical trends in feminist thought. There have clearly been shifts in how gender inequalities have been explained over time yet these different theoretical strands should not be perceived as having clear boundaries and as being totally distinct from each other. As we have discussed elsewhere it may be useful to think of “waves” of theory (Flintoff and Scraton, 2004; and Flintoff, 2002). New theories do not totally replace existing ones but like waves in the sea grow out of and contain aspects of the wave that started further out from the shoreline. Thus liberal feminism developed as a wave of theory reflecting and influencing women's experiences at a certain point in our history in the 1960s and 1970s. Out of this wave developed radical and socialist feminism each of which incorporated some of the arguments from liberal feminism but provided explanations centred on very different understandings and concerns. More recently in the 1990s we have post-structuralist theory once again building from and challenging what has gone before. However, at no point is one theory totally replaced by another. In a similar way although we now have new and exciting research questions, it is important to note that many of the earlier ones are still pertinent to contemporary girls' PE.

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