Sporty Girls: Gender, Health and Achievement in a Postfeminist Era (New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures) 3030672484, 9783030672485

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NEW FEMININITIES IN DIGITAL, PHYSICAL AND SPORTING CULTURES

Sporty Girls Gender, Health and Achievement in a Postfeminist Era

Sheryl Clark

New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures

Series Editors Kim Toffoletti School of Humanities and Social Sciences Deakin University Melbourne, VIC, Australia Jessica Francombe-Webb Department for Health University of Bath Bath, UK Holly Thorpe School of Health University of Waikato Hamilton, New Zealand

Palgrave’s New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures series is dedicated to exploring emerging forms and expressions of femininity, feminist activism and politics in an increasingly global, consumer and digital world. Books in this series focus on the latest conceptual, methodological and theoretical developments in feminist thinking about bodies, movement, physicality, leisure and technology to understand and problematize new framings of feminine embodiment. Globally inclusive, and featuring established and emerging scholars from multi-disciplinary fields, the series is characterized by an interest in advancing research and scholarship concerning women’s experiences of physical culture in a variety of cultural contexts. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15874

Sheryl Clark

Sporty Girls Gender, Health and Achievement in a Postfeminist Era

Sheryl Clark London, UK

ISSN 2522-0330     ISSN 2522-0349 (electronic) New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures ISBN 978-3-030-67248-5    ISBN 978-3-030-67249-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67249-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover Illustration: RooM the Agency / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Defining a “Problem”: Girls’ Participation in Sport and Physical Education  1 2 Embodying Sporty Girlhood: Exploring Perspectives on Girls’ Sporting Participation Through Postfeminism 21 3 Becoming a Sporty Researcher: Gender, Legitimacy and Bodies That Move 53 4 A Good Education: School Achievement, Sport and Becoming a Successful Girl 83 5 Being “Good at Sport”: Constituting Bodies Through Competition and Selection Processes109 6 Responsible Body Projects, Health and Moral Hierarchies131 7 Gendered and Racialised Bodies in Postfeminist Athletics: Embodied Capacities and Feminist Rage157 8 Conclusion: Sporting Girlhoods and Feminist Possibilities181 v

1 Defining a “Problem”: Girls’ Participation in Sport and Physical Education

Introduction This book situates girls’ participation in sport and physical activity within a postfeminist landscape where discourses of achievement, health and performance provide ongoing expectations about what being a successful, sporty girl entails. Within this landscape, the increased visibility of female athletes in sport has been used to claim that feminism is no longer necessary, even as exclusionary practices continue (Azzarito 2010; Thorpe et al. 2017). Drawing on these insights, my analysis reveals the inadequacy of claims of gender equity in sport by focusing on a diverse group of girls living in the UK who were interested in sport, often incorporating it into their everyday identities and practices. Using longitudinal research, the book explores what happens next, as girls attempted to take up “sporty girl” identities into adolescence as part of their wider-gendered schooling trajectories. Girls’ accounts are contextualised within the socio-material relations and hierarchies that mediated the educational and community settings where girls’ moving bodies were engaged in activities such as athletics, cycling, football and playground games of chase, as well as school physical education (PE) lessons. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Clark, Sporty Girls, New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67249-2_1

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In this chapter I begin by introducing what has been understood as the “problem” of girls’ underrepresentation in sport and physical activity before outlining how its conceptualisation within policy has led to varying models of participation embodied in the figure of the “fit girl,” “go girl” and “talented girl” taking part in sport. I then outline a counternarrative to these popular representations of girlhood by suggesting that girls’ engagement in sport and their disengagement can be seen as part of their ongoing constructions of successful girlhood in which they attempt to navigate contradictory sets of expectations around their academic, sporting and gendered achievements in contexts where sexism, racism and classism continue to operate. Girls’ participation in sport and physical activity has frequently been seen as problematic since many girls stop or disengage from PE and sport in their teenage years (Cockburn and Clarke 2002; Flintoff and Scraton 2001; Green 2010). However, research also indicates that many girls return to this participation later on, which suggests that a proportion of girls who would like to take part in sport and may later come to benefit from this participation, are not doing so (Wright and Dewar 1997; WSFF 2012). Current UK health policy suggests that young people should take part in 60 minutes of moderate physical activity daily (NICE 2009). Yet, the Sport England (2018) Active Lives report found that only 20% of boys and 14% of girls achieved this recommended level of physical activity. Further, it showed that this gender gap widened from the age of 9 and was particularly stark between the ages of 14 and 19 when girls’ participation levels dropped to 10% with girls from black1 and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds particularly underrepresented (Sport England 2018, pp.  5–6). Therefore, in the UK, as in countries such as Australia and Canada, girls’ physical activity participation has increasingly been linked to a health agenda based on concerns around obesity (Wright and Harwood 2009). Girls’ underrepresentation in sport is more widely of interest internationally where it is prioritised differently within varying political and social agendas. In a special edition of Sport in Society, Chawansky and Hayhurst (2015) chart the international rise of girls’ sports initiatives framed within a development discourse of “empowerment” in countries including South Africa, India and Brazil. In Sweden, although gender

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equality legislation has sought to challenge girls’ underrepresentation within an equity discourse, recent research suggests that girls’ participation has remained “ambiguous and contradictory” in this context (Bäckström and Nairn 2018, p. 424). The range of motivations and concerns which come to justify increasing girls’ sports participation are therefore varied and linked to shifting political priorities and social anxieties around health, economic productivity and changing gender patterns where girls are viewed as at the “vanguard of new subjectivities” (Harris 2004, p. 1). Against this backdrop, girls and young women have increasingly been invited to take part in sport through various campaigns and school-based initiatives within incitements that are alternately celebratory, compelling and regulatory as they come to shape ideas about what active, “sporty girlhood” is and represents (Chawansky 2012). My analysis reveals how the implementation of girls’ sporting provision and initiatives reveals a mix of achievement, distinction and empowerment discourses with differing, often-contradictory ideals of sporting participation for girls. In the following sections, I outline how these policy initiatives have understood girls’ sports participation as both potential problem and potential solution in relation to wider perceived risks and imagined futures. My overall concern is with the way in which these oversimplified narratives pay insufficient attention to the wider context and complexity of girls’ participation.

“Go Girl”: Sport as Empowerment Girl-focused sporting initiatives have increasingly been located within an empowerment narrative where the “go girl” overcomes challenges to prove herself through sporting achievements. For example, the influential “This Girl Can” (Sport England 2015) campaign was initiated in the UK across both mainstream and social media, inviting women and girls to sweat, breathe and “feel the burn.” As part of this initiative, Sport England developed a digital resource to be used in schools aimed directly at girls as a means of “empowering girls and building their confidence” (Foster and Roberts 2019, p. 4). While the campaign was commended for the diversity of its fitness models and refusal to body shame, it also placed

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much of the onus for this participation on individual girls, and more recently women, themselves to go out and “get fit” (Depper et al. 2019). Other examples of empowerment models include school-based initiatives such as the ongoing “Girls Active” programme run by the Youth Sport Trust which delivers sport programmes for teenage girls between the ages of 11 and 14 in the UK. In 2013, the pilot “Girls Active” sports initiative was rolled out at 21 schools across the UK, targeting over 3000 girls between the ages of 11 and 14 for participation. The current programme is rooted in behaviour change theories which seek to address girls’ perceptions of the relevance of sport to their lives as well as the failure of physical education (PE) and school sport to meet the needs of “less active” girls (Youth Sport Trust 2014). It operates through a dual system of training girls as sports mentors in their schools as well as training PE teachers. Programmes such as “Girls Active” tend to be underpinned by equity-­ based concerns around girls’ physical activity levels where participation is empowering because it exceeds gendered expectations of girls’ physical inactivity and incapacity. Decisions about which girls are chosen to take part in these programmes relate to popular notions of leadership and confidence seemingly developed in sport as enabling girls to succeed elsewhere. An empowerment discourse therefore relies on an individualistic narrative in which sport opportunities are available for individual girls and women committed to taking the initiative and maintaining the effort themselves despite other difficulties. The idea that girls can and should get involved in sport as a means of empowerment can also be seen to conflict with more elitist definitions of sport which designate value on the basis of those deemed “more able.”

“Talented Girl”: Sport as Performance Constructions of the “talented girl” can be seen to rest in a performance discourse where athletic ability and accomplishments allow girls to succeed in the super-competitive world of elite sport as well as contributing to career development. Tensions between an inclusive, equity-based model and a performance-based, elite model of sporting participation have continued to manifest themselves in the provision of physical

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education and school sport (PESS; Capel and Piotrowski 2000). They also relate to expectations around how schools should deliver extracurricular sport and channel more “talented” athletes to broader sporting associations. These tensions are evident in previous policy shifts such as the 2008 PE and Sport Strategy which proposed both to target and to identify “the most talented young people in the country” as well as to provide a “sustainable legacy” of “engaging more young people in sport” overall (DoH and DCSF 2008). The shift towards performance through “talent” development was further cemented by the abolishment of funding for School Sport Partnerships (SSPs), which had previously facilitated a coherent structure of sporting opportunities across schools in England through dedicated staffing. However, in 2010, Michael Gove, the Education Minister, announced that he would be replacing the system of School Sport Partnerships with a nation-wide “Olympic-style school sports competition,” thus replacing the education pedagogy underpinning SSPs with an increased orientation to competitive sport (Flintoff et  al. 2011). Implicitly critiquing a more participatory and equitable model of youth sport provision, Gove (2010) advocated the need to foster a “more competitive ethos of achievement and self-improvement.” This emphasis on competition and the vision for youth sport that is visualised can be seen to echo policy imperatives at school and the “excellence” culture set out in the Excellence in Schools White Paper (DfEE 1997), which aimed to raise academic standards by increasing the role of school performance tables and regulating school targets for pupil progress. School policy has successively operated on a neoliberal model of individualisation, which seeks to differentiate students based on designations of “ability” and “talent,” echoed in sporting initiatives and physical education goals. The policy focus on the identification of elite models of sporting performance can also be seen to conflict with wider participatory models based in concerns around public health that have been more recently implemented within schools.

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“Fit Girl”: Sport as Health Practice Constructions of the “fit girl” who works on her body as a preventative form of personal responsibility tend to be justified within concerns around public health and obesity among young people. The UK government’s recent Childhood Obesity Report (2016) placed renewed emphases on schools to tackle obesity through the provision of school sport and physical education. The report outlines its aim of increasing physical activities to one hour per day and explicitly enlists schools in these efforts. The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), which regulates schools in England, now includes health as one of its indicators of school quality. Schools are thereby incited to take up the National Healthy Schools initiative where they carry out pervasive health “monitoring and incentivization techniques aimed at linking good health, behaviour and achievement” (DoH and DCSF 2008). Attempts to engage more young people in physical activity are prevalent both in and outside of schools. Many schools have also now begun to implement the “Daily Mile” initiative which aims for children to run/ walk one mile per day and often encourage children to take part in local “Junior Parkruns” where children run a 1¼ mile loop in a park or other green space.2 Attempts to increase young people’s, and particularly girls’, participation in physical activity, however, do not necessarily align with physical education and school sport provision, where most children gain formative experiences of physical activity and sport. In this book, I argue that the complex ways in which schools and other organisations understand and take up these contradictory policy positions are key to understanding girls’ engagement in sport within the wider socio-political discourses that have come to define these contested spaces. Health, physical ability and school achievement are thus key themes of my analysis.

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 hysical Education and School Sport Provision P in the UK In the UK, physical education is a compulsory school subject under the National Curriculum at all key stages of schooling, until the age of 16 (Foster and Roberts 2019). The Department for Education guidance states that schools should not separate pupils based on sex except in single-­sex sports provision, which in practice means that some aspects of PE can be taught in single-sex groups. In 2010, the curriculum was revised to include more competitive sports in line with the Coalition Government’s requirements in a collective offer of physical education and school sport (PESS)(Foster and Roberts 2019). In key stages 1 and 2 (ages 5–11) the curriculum advises instruction in basic movements; games including badminton, hockey, football and rounders; outdoor activity challenges; dance; gymnastics and athletics; and swimming. By key stages 3 and 4 (ages 11–16) the emphasis remains on competitive games but no longer includes swimming (Foster and Roberts 2019). There is no set target for curriculum hours spent on PE each week, and although Ofsted recommends two hours per week, this number has been in decline, particularly in the upper key stages (Foster and Roberts 2019). This decline has been linked to the high-stakes pressure schools face in relation to league table positioning for performance in STEM (Science, Technology, English and Maths) subjects, which government policy places emphasis on (Evans et al. 2007). Despite calls for schools to facilitate more physical activity, “non-core” school subjects including PE have increasingly been relegated in academic value while concurrently financial pressures on schools have led to less funds for extracurricular provision. A recent survey reported that both PE and break times across year groups in the UK have been progressively curtailed as schools were pushed to focus on academic subjects by national regulatory mechanisms (YST 2018). This trend is echoed in community youth sport provision, which has also struggled as funding for youth sport and community leisure budgets are cut in councils attempting to reconcile austerity budgets (BBC News 2015).

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Within what has been described as a cacophony of policy implementation via schools, attempts to increase girls’ participation in sport have shifted school imperatives within varyingly contradictory and seemingly impossible sets of priorities. Schools have been expected to empower girls, to keep their students physically healthy, to hone “talented” individuals for future sporting success, and to support their mental health. Yet they are expected to do so within an overriding ethos where achievement in STEM subjects through the intensification of testing and narrowing of the curriculum are overwhelmingly prioritised. It is not surprising then that girls themselves are subject to competing discourses surrounding their participation.

Girls to Blame? I have been researching as well as coaching girls’ sport for over a decade now, and despite growing recognition of gender disparity and institutionalised barriers, the “problem” of many girls’ disengagement is one that frequently seems to be blamed on girls themselves. In one research conversation, a school’s PE coordinator suggested to me that a drop-off in girls’ participation in cross-country running at age 11 could be attributed to girls “not wanting to get muddy.” On another occasion a coach lamented that girls came to the running track simply to “look good in a swimsuit” instead of to perform competitively as he expected. Their comments allude to broader stereotypes of girls as frivolous, superficial and overly concerned with their appearance. As I carried out my research at various primary and secondary schools across London, UK, I came to understand that the conceptualisation of the problem itself represented part of the issue for girls, as understood by multiple facilitators of girls’ activities including this teacher who recounted: In a [physical education] class here, I would say I have maybe 5 or 6 girls trying to opt out. It’s just not valued as much and it’s really, really frustrating … and none of us are really sure how to tackle that. Because we’re required by the National Curriculum to make sure they’re all doing it. But at the same time, what do you do when, and how far do you allow them to

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make themselves stand out from the other girls? Which could lead to problems. So I don’t think there is a problem at the moment but I think there is potential for them to start developing. (Interview with PE teacher at an all-girls’ secondary school)

This female physical education teacher relates the problem of girls’ participation in PE to compliance since she herself is assessed and measured by Ofsted and the National Curriculum, which outlines expected achievement in physical education lessons in England. Here she contrasts the regulatory gaze directed at her with some girls’ perceptions that PE is simply not of “value.” The frequent practice of opting out of PE, for example, by bringing notes from their parents or forgetting their PE kits (uniform), which the teacher lamented in our interview, is rendered doubly problematic by the onus placed on teachers to ensure participation as well as the insistence that girls themselves should be able to recognise and thus take up the benefits of physical activity. That some girls may not come to “value” PE is unsurprising in an educational climate where PE is increasingly devalued and subject to cuts representing the overloaded, underfunded and incongruous policy landscapes UK schools find themselves in (Helm 2019). The teacher’s perspective therefore seeks to reconcile the tensions between policy and achievement discourses that emphasise both independence and compliance set against a wider context of regulatory governance mechanisms around health and the body. Within a neoliberal governance context, girls are expected to recognise for themselves the benefits of physical education and activity, at the same time that they agree to the requirements placed on them by the school and the curriculum of what, how and where they should take part in these activities.

Too Much Sport? Not all young women are participating less in sport, however, suggesting important complexities and nuances within the framing of girls’ underrepresentation. One of my early research visits revealed a much more complicated situation in which access to sport and physical activity was

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highly differentiated by social class and family resources where some girls seemed to be participating in excessive levels of physical activity. On a warm summer afternoon, I arrive at the school shortly after the end of lessons for athletics club. I am sweaty from having cycled here, and slightly anxious about introducing myself to another teacher and set of girls, only a few of whom I know from their primary school. Annie, the PE teacher, leads me to the playing fields and en route chastises a girl for shouting outdoors before telling me that the girls complain “whether it’s hot or cold.” The girls are already waiting and are dressed in the school-mandated PE kits of white polo t-shirts and short “navy blues”—worn under skirts or sometimes on their own. They are instructed to run a lap around the field and I count 17 girls taking part. Annie tells me there are normally more girls and she is trying to get more to come out to clubs. Because she can’t train all the track and field events on her own, Annie sorts the girls into groups and I join the one with Lucy in it, who I haven’t seen since primary and am eager to catch up with. Annie puts another girl, Hettie in charge since she trains with an athletics club and as they decide on their session (400m or 800m) I ask them about what physical activities they enjoy. Several of the girls are concerned about over-exertion since they have further activities planned for the day or week. Hettie tells me she is doing trampolining tonight and already did running once today. Her doctor has apparently told her to “take it easy” but her Mum said she could still train, just “not so hard.” Callie has swimming tonight and Ava is going to do two hours of dance after this (having run in PE earlier). Lucy will also attend athletics training at Champions running club later. I am somewhat taken aback at their very busy, active schedules. I thought the problem was girls doing not enough physical activity but these girls seem to be doing too much! (Fieldnotes, Secondary State Girls’ School)

This observation captures my surprise at the high levels of extracurricular activity that some girls were engaging in, in contrast to the prevailing view of girls’ physical (in)activity. The school, situated in the outer suburbs of London, was attended by relatively affluent, middle-class students. The visit began an early realisation in my research that the popular characterisation of a “problem” of girls’ sports participation functions as an oversimplification of a complex configuration of discourses, practices

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and identities surrounding the idea of how and what young people should be achieving at. Taken together, the contradictory statements from the PE teacher and my observation that girls seemed to be doing “too much” suggest that girls can rarely, if ever, “get it right,” and that those who may be appearing to do so are often privileged economically and operating under pressure to achieve in all aspects of their lives, including sport (Pomerantz and Raby 2017). Although the previous excerpts allude to some broader structural issues around the organisation of sport and PE, they also privilege an individualised understanding of girls’ sports participation in which girls themselves are expected to make the right “choices” around their sporting and schooling trajectories.

The Aims of this Book In this book I seek to challenge the view that girls are not “doing enough” to keep fit and healthy as well as exploring the reasons why some girls might be inclined to opt out of sport and how some girls experience this participation. Rather than arguing that girls are doing too much or too little sport or attempting to focus on who is to “blame” for girls’ underrepresentation, I use a feminist poststructural analysis to focus on understanding the wider meanings that frame girls’ participation and the ways in which this participation is itself a process of constructing young femininities. I argue that girls’ intensive participation in sport, and their disengagement, can be seen as intimately related effects of the same question—what it means to be a “successful girl” within a postfeminist context and how one might go about accomplishing this within a particular set of gendered, classed and racialised constraints. I draw on a wide body of research, which suggests that girlhood can be seen as an ongoing project in which girls might seek to accomplish themselves as socially recognisable subjects within particular contexts and patterns of gendered hierarchy (Kehily 2002; Bettie 2003; Shain 2003; Renold 2005; George 2007; Paechter 2007; Pomerantz 2008; Ringrose 2013; Pomerantz and Raby 2017). The title, “Sporty Girls,” alludes to one of the myths I seek to challenge throughout the book: captured in the idea that some girls are “sporty,” and others simply are not. Instead, I draw attention to

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the construction of gender as it intersects with race, class, age, sexuality and ability so that some girls are better able to take up the fluid identity of “sporty girl” than others, even as this identity remains fragile and subject to interruption. In doing so, I aim to highlight the multiple ways in which many girls are discouraged and discriminated against, the ways in which sport came to regulate experiences of girlhood, and the forms of participation that were pleasurable and enjoyable for some girls.

The Studies Throughout the book I draw on two qualitative studies where I carried out research into girls’ sports participation. In each of these studies, I asked girls, their parents, coaches and peers about this participation in sport and what it meant to them. Girls who took part in the research were between the ages of 10 and 17 and from white, black, and Asian heritage, as well as from working-class and middle-class backgrounds. Further attention to the manners in which these identity categorisations are fluid, contested, and strategic is provided in Chap. 2. The diversity of the participants reflects the multicultural population of London, where the studies took place, and the range of schools they attended. The girls were involved in a number of physical activities including athletics, football, running, netball, figure skating, trampolining and tennis among less organised pursuits such as active play or local bike rides. More information about the studies, my methodology and the girls themselves is provided in Chap. 3. Overall, their experiences suggest that sporting participation is often complicated and contradictory for many girls, including those who may pursue it at quite intense levels. For those girls who continued with their sports participation into their teenage years, this engagement was not as straightforwardly beneficial and positive as policy often suggests. My analysis focuses in particular on some of the challenges and contradictions for a selection of “sporty girls” as they simultaneously attempted to practise their chosen sports, socialise, achieve at school and balance family responsibilities—all within the context of a competitive schooling system and broader gender structures. By drawing on longitudinal

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research carried out with groups of girls over a number of years, I am able to provide a glimpse into the shifting, complex processes whereby their sporting engagement became more or less doable, thinkable and realisable at this key point in their lives. My research is therefore able to offer new insights into the ongoing construction of gender through sport within the context of girls’ wider schooling trajectories, over a period of time where many girls discontinue with sport. It offers significant insights into what sport might come to mean within girls’ lives situated within broader social processes such as postfeminism and the intensification of competition and achievement agendas in both schooling and sports contexts. It thereby illuminates the ongoing pressure and contradictions many girls face in attempting to balance their sporting, gendered and educational identities within wider policy imperatives and cultural shifts that have come to strongly influence what and how we view “successful girlhood.” In so doing, the book contributes to the fields of girlhood studies, educational studies and studies of physical culture by considering in further depth how sport is understood and managed in girls’ lives through nuanced analyses of gender, identity school culture and sporting practices as intimately related projects of girlhood. I argue that girls are often using sport and their bodies to engage in projects of “successful girlhood” where they are also expected to achieve highly and to constantly work on themselves and their bodies through fitness or health-related goals. The research also found that these bodily projects are often more accessible for girls privileged through classed and racialised societal structures, and I consider the pressures incumbent on girls from various backgrounds to constantly set goals and make achievements in the pursuit of social “success.” Accordingly then, I argue that girls’ sports participation must be understood in the context of an increasingly competitive schooling system (and wider gender order) that often sees girls as positioned “on top” (McRobbie 2007). My findings also suggest that increasingly girls are able to recognise and to challenge many of the inequalities that frame their participation including harassment, sexist or racist interactions that devalued their participation and power dynamics that gave them little say over their activities. Despite these inequalities, girls used sport to challenge learned incapacities, to form bonds with others and to experience

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bodily pleasures that were not necessarily related to predetermined achievement outcomes. At the same time, individualised choice narratives frequently encouraged girls to see any failure to participate as their own and to constantly weigh up their participation alongside the educational achievement imperative. By exploring these narratives, the book offers insights into girls’ complicated engagement with sport in their gendered constructions of self and the social contradictions inherent in this engagement.

Summary of Chapters In Chap. 2 I set out my understanding of the key concepts of postfeminism, healthism, gender and body pedagogies, which frame my analysis throughout the later findings chapters. I suggest that postfeminism and healthism in particular contribute to forms of identification and engagement in the construction of new sporting femininities in schools and wider extracurricular provision. My outline of the literature suggests that despite the continuing disenfranchisement of women from sport, the “successful girl” may now be expected to achieve across both academic and sporting pursuits whilst embodying a fit, toned heterosexy femininity (Azzarito 2010; Pomerantz and Raby 2017). I further consider how expectations of health, gender and achievement can be understood as moral invocations that shift the responsibility for sports participation onto girls themselves. Chapter 3 draws together my methodological and theoretical perspectives to consider how the practice of carrying out research with girls constituted both myself and the participants as “bodies that matter” (Butler 1993). I elaborate the longitudinal process of carrying out research with girls over a period of time and describe the ways in which longitudinal research can provide insightful diachronic analyses of change over time not rooted in static portraits of the subject as somehow fixed. I draw on Butler’s concept of legitimacy to consider how constructions of gender, sport and physical ability were manifest in the research process as dynamic illustrations of the subject in process as located within social relationships.

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In Chaps. 4, 5, 6 and 7 I apply a feminist analysis of postfeminism as “critical object” (Gill and Scharff 2013) to empirical data from the longitudinal project described in Chap. 3. In Chap. 4 I consider girls’ sports participation as part of their wider schooling trajectories within conceptualisations of a “good education.” I look at the transition to secondary school for three girls in particular and consider how the girls attempted to balance investments in sporting, schooling and family commitments as part of their ongoing gender projects of “successful girlhood.” These gender projects were found to be mediated by two key processes at this transition: first, the notion of “seriousness” located within ideas about growing up; and second, the relevance of family projects as bound by affective relations and imagined futures. Chapter 5 examines the importance of “being good at sport” as framing girls’ participation through constructions of ability and talent in particular. I again focus on the transition to secondary school and the ways in which ideas about ability were translated through processes of team selection, progression into a larger pool of competitors, emphases on performance outputs of sporting “success” and “personal bests,” and ongoing expectations of set athletic development. Although some girls were sometimes able to hold onto notions of themselves as “good at sport,” they did so under considerable expectations and specific conditions, whilst for others this identity remained fragile and easily interrupted. Chapter 6 considers the idea of health as an enactment of successful girlhood within girls’ ongoing responsible body projects. I explore how, for girls in the research, sport and physical activity became understood as the obligations of responsible, “healthy” subjects both at school and in other contexts. I consider how this was both enabling and restrictive for girls by locating these health practices within the peer hierarchies of their school and friendship cultures as framed by normative pedagogies around body size, appearance and behaviours. In Chap. 7 I again take up a postfeminist lens in order to consider girls’ engagement in running through their participation in a girls’ group at an athletics club. The data for this chapter arose from my involvement in the running group following my disillusionment with girls’ running provision in other clubs as part of my previous research. The chapter focuses in particular on the difficulties and complexities of setting up a

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participatory girls’ group in a club framed heavily through elite physical performances of white masculinity. The data, collected several years after the completion of the first project, suggests a complex interaction of both feminist and postfeminist discourses within girls’ embodiment of changing physical capacities and affective rage as rooted in perceptions of ongoing inequalities in sport. The concluding chapter revisits my arguments and findings in order to outline themes around power, identity and relationships within girls’ constructions of new sporting femininities. I again emphasise the contradictions for many girls in taking up “sporty girl” identities within a postfeminist landscape and the constraints around doing so within an achievement standards agenda in education. Finally, I consider the possibilities for imagining sport otherwise for young people through perspectives that pay more detailed attention to the complexity of their lives and identities.

Notes 1. In the interests of consistency, I have chosen not to capitalise “Blackness” and “Whiteness” but would still wish to recognise their politicised, constructed status. This is in keeping with the work of Mirza (Mirza and Joseph 2013) on black British feminism and its tradition of the lower case. 2. Junior Parkrun and the Daily Mile both free events which operate on a voluntary basis. https://www.parkrun.org.uk/events/ juniorevents/#geo=2.62/53.04/-­3.04, https://thedailymile.co.uk/

References Azzarito, L. (2010). Future Girls, transcendent femininities and new pedagogies: Toward girls’ hybrid bodies? Sport, Education and Society, 15(3), 261–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2010.493307. Bäckström, Å., & Nairn, K. (2018). Skateboarding beyond the limits of gender? Strategic interventions in Sweden. Leisure Studies, 37(4), 424–439. https:// doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2018.1462397.

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BBC News. (2015, April 15). Council sports budgets cut by £42m. BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-­england-­31624412 Bettie, J. (2003). Women without class: Girls, race and identity. University of California Press. Butler, J. P. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of “sex”. Routledge. Capel, S. A., & Piotrowski, S. (2000). Issues in physical education. Psychology Press. Chawansky, M. (2012). Good girls play sports: International inspiration and the construction of girlhood. Feminist Media Studies, 12(3), 473–476. Chawansky, M., & Hayhurst, L. (2015). Girls, international development and the politics of sport: Introduction. Sport in Society, 18(8), 1–5. Cockburn, C., & Clarke, G. (2002). “Everybody’s looking at you!”: Girls negotiating the “femininity deficit” the incur in physical education. Women’s Studies International Forum, 25(6), 651–665. Department for Education and Employment. (1997). White paper: Excellence in schools. Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment by Command of Her Majesty (testimony of Department for Education and Employment). Retrieved from http://www.educationengland. org.uk/documents/wp1997/excellence-­in-­schools.html Depper, A., Fullagar, S., & Francombe-Webb, J. (2019). This girl can? The limitations of digital do-it-yourself empowerment in women’s active embodiment campaigns. In D. C. Parry, C. W. Johnson, & S. Fullagar (Eds.), Digital dilemmas: Transforming gender identities and power relations in everyday life (pp.  183–204). Springer International Publishing. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­95300-­7_9. DoH and DCSF. (2008). Healthy weight, healthy lives a cross government strategy for England. Department of Health and Department of Children, Schools and Families (testimony of DoH and DCSF). Retrieved from https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100407220245/http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/ Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/ PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_082378 England, S. (2018). Active lives children and young people survey: Academic year 2017/2018 [Report]. Retrieved from https://www.sportengland.org/ media/13698/active-­lives-­children-­survey-­academic-­year-­17-­18.pdf Evans, J., Rich, E., Allwood, R., & Davies, B. (2007). Being “able” in a performative culture: Physical education’s contribution to a healthy interest in sport? In I.  Wellard (Ed.), Rethinking gender and youth sport (pp.  51–67). Routledge.

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Flintoff, A., Foster, R., & Wystawnoha, S. (2011). Promoting and sustaining high quality physical education and school sport through school sport partnerships. European Physical Education Review, 17(3), 341–351. https://doi. org/10.1177/1356336X11416731. Flintoff, A., & Scraton, S. (2001). Stepping Into Active Leisure? Young women’s perceptions of active lifestyles and their experiences of school physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 6(1), 5–21. Foster, D., & Roberts, N. (2019). Physical education, physical activity and sport in schools (Briefing Paper No. 6836; p. 28). UK Parliament. Retrieved from https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-­briefings/sn06836/ George, R. (2007). Girls in a goldfish bowl: Moral regulation, ritual and the use of power amongst inner city girls. Sense Publishers. Gill, R., & Scharff, C. (2013). New femininities: Postfeminism, neoliberalism and subjectivity. Palgrave Macmillan. Gove, M. (2010, October 20). Open letter to Baroness Sue Campbell. Retrieved from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ u p l o a d s / a t t a c h m e n t _ d a t a / f i l e / 3 2 2 2 6 1 / S o S _ l e t t e r _ t o _ Y S T-­ october_2010.pdf Green, K. (2010). Key themes in youth sport. Routledge. Harris, A. (2004). All about the girl: Power, culture, and identity. Routledge. Helm, T. (2019, July 7). Ofsted chief: Pupils’ wellbeing at risk as sport is squeezed out of schools | Ofsted | The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/07/ ofsted-­boss-­pupils-­wellbeing-­at-­risk-­as-­sport-­squeezed-­out-­of-­schools HM Government. (2016). Childhood obesity: A plan for action (p. 33) [Policy]. Retrieved from www.gov.uk/dh Kehily, M. (2002). Private girls and public worlds: Producing femininities in the primary school. Discourse, 23(2), 167–178. McRobbie, A. (2007). Top girls? Young women and the post-feminist sexual contract. Cultural Studies, 21(4–5), 718–737. Mirza, H. S., & Joseph, C. (2013). Black and postcolonial feminisms in new times: Researching educational inequalities. Routledge. NICE. (2009). Physical activity for children and young people (Public Health Guideline No. PH17; p.  79). National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Paechter, C. (2007). Being boys, being girls: Learning masculinities and femininities. Open University Press Notebook 7, entry 1 (chapter 2 & 3), have chapter printed out.

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Pomerantz, S. (2008). Girls, style, and school identities: Dressing the part. Springer. Pomerantz, S., & Raby, R. (2017). Smart girls: Success, School, and the myth of post-feminism. Univ of California Press. Renold, E. (2005). Girls, boys and junior sexualities: Exploring children’s gender and sexual relations in the primary school. Routledge Falmer Own the book. Ringrose, J. (2013). Postfeminist education? Girls and the sexual politics of schooling. Routledge. Shain, F. (2003). The schooling and identity of Asian girls. Trentham Books Notebook 1, Entry 1. Sport England. (2015). This girl can. This Girl Can. Retrieved from https:// www.thisgirlcan.co.uk/ Thorpe, H., Toffoletti, K., & Bruce, T. (2017). Sportswomen and social media: Bringing third-wave feminism, postfeminism, and neoliberal feminism into conversation. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 41(5), 359–383. https://doi. org/10.1177/0193723517730808. Wright, J., & Dewar, A. (1997). On pleasure and pain: Women speak out about physical activity. In G. Clarke & B. Humberstone (Eds.), Researching women and sport (pp. 80–95). Macmillan Press ltd.. Wright, J., & Harwood, V. (2009). Biopolitics and the “Obesity Epidemic”: Governing Bodies. Routledge. WSFF. (2012). Changing the game for girls: Policy report [Report]. Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.womeninsport.org/wp-­ content/uploads/2015/04/Changing-­the-­Game-­for-­Girls-­Policy-­Report Youth Sport Trust. (2014). Girls active | Youth sport trust. Retrieved from https:// www.youthsporttrust.org/girls-­active YST. (2018). PE provision in secondary schools 2018: Survey Research Report (p. 8). Youth Sport Trust. Retrieved from https://www.youthsporttrust.org/ system/files/resources/documents/PE%20provision%20in%20secondary%20schools%202018%20-­%20Survey%20Research%20Report_0.pdf

2 Embodying Sporty Girlhood: Exploring Perspectives on Girls’ Sporting Participation Through Postfeminism

In this chapter I explore what being a “sporty girl” has come to mean within a distinctly postfeminist and neoliberal context where education has become a key socio-political agenda. I draw on McRobbie’s work in outlining an understanding of postfeminism as a cultural sensibility in which young women are incited to become a particular kind of “successful girl” through embodied performances set within the contexts of their schooling and sporting projects. This is further elaborated through the concept of body pedagogies, which have been understood as modes of translating particular knowledges and understandings of girls’ bodies in school. I go on to examine previous research on girls’ participation in physical activity and sport, and to highlight recent research which has situated the role of the school as a site for constructing young femininities. This research suggests that although girls have traditionally been excluded from sport, postfeminist expectations have heightened incentives for girls to take part within contradictory discourses of health, achievement, performance and ideals of heterosexiness. I focus on two key agendas that have come to shape girls’ relationships to sport and physical activity in schools in perpetuating these discourses: the health agenda and the achievement agenda. I therefore suggest that girls’ © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Clark, Sporty Girls, New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67249-2_2

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participation in sport can be further understood as part of their projects of self in embodied performances of successful girlhood within the context of their schooling trajectories.

What Is Postfeminism? Postfeminism has increasingly been situated as a key context for understanding the construction of young femininities (Gill and Scharff 2013; Ringrose 2013) and more recently young sporting femininities (Rich 2018; Toffoletti et al. 2018). It has come to characterise contemporary understandings of a cultural gender order in which the aims of feminism are seen as having been achieved. In one sense, postfeminism has been conceptualised as a form of backlash against the accomplishments of second wave feminism since it comprises popular discourses that feminism has gone “too far” and is now disadvantaging men and boys. In this book I draw on Angela McRobbie’s (2007, 2009) alternative perspective that postfeminism as popular discourse can be considered as a form of “cultural sensibility” in order to analyse how gender relations and patterns are constructed within a competitive neoliberal meritocracy. McRobbie (2007) examines the effects of claims that women and girls’ gains in the workplace and in education are evidence of their newly achieved position as “top girls” no longer in need of emancipation or anti-sexist legislation. In this analysis, postfeminism can be seen to operate as “a set of discourses and politics” that have come to frame sexual relations in specific contexts including schools (Ringrose 2013, p.  1). Gill and Scharff’s (2013) work aligns postfeminism with neoliberalism in its cultivation of choice narratives and the individualisation of accomplishments and responsibilities. New understandings of gender articulated within postfeminism have been situated within broader social processes of detraditionalisation and individualisation as shaping late, neoliberal societies. Neoliberal economic policies urge a free market approach, the privatisation of public services and a reduction of the welfare state, thereby emphasising features of choice, competition and individualism (Gibbons 2018). Sociological accounts of such changes (Beck 1992; Giddens 1991) have emphasised the effects of rapid social shifts to create conditions of

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uncertainty, thereby necessitating individuals to navigate their lives through less fixed routes in relation to notions of risk. Risk has been highlighted as an increasingly important means of managing and understanding such changes where attempts at individual control in an ever-­ changing climate are carried out through reflexive modernisation realised in individual lifestyle choices and bodily practices (Beck 1992). This work suggests that processes of individualisation are made possible in a society where individuals have been supposedly freed from structural constraints such as gender and class roles. However, critiques of this thesis have considered how particular groups of people are unequally dis/ advantaged in these socioeconomic conditions through structural inequalities that continue to mediate their lives and “choices” despite weakening collective identities (Furlong and Cartmel 2006; Walkerdine et al. 2001). McRobbie (2009) focuses on the regulative dimensions of this shift to individualisation and reflexive modernisation realised in discourses of personal choice and self-improvement. She contends that young women in particular have been positioned as able to negotiate such risks, now supposedly free from the gendered barriers that once constrained their choices. At the same time, rising expectations of young women are met with new and ongoing inequalities. McRobbie’s cultural analysis traces a convergence of meanings around young women through notions of “capacity, success, attainment, enjoyment, entitlement, social mobility and participation” that insert young women into economic participation within the new meritocracy (2007, p. 721). Postfeminist “new femininities” are thereby constructed through choice narratives used to justify individual accomplishments and responsibilities. In this new formulation of gender, young women are expected to achieve and seek empowerment as part of their ongoing development of self (Gill and Scharff 2013; McRobbie 2009; Toffoletti et al. 2018). Within a postfeminist context, young women in particular are incited to consume, achieve and become productive wage earners through continuous refinement of their “endlessly perfectible selves,” which includes work on the body (McRobbie 2007, p. 718). The role of schooling and employment in this imagined trajectory is key since legal changes have opened up these opportunities for young women in particular (McRobbie

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2007, p. 719). Therefore, young women have been positioned as able to take up new opportunities enabled through equality legislation in an idealised trajectory of educational and career distinction. In this cultural understanding, young women are positioned as “free to choose” their life trajectories at the same time as they are invited to “evidence” their emancipation through the correct set of choices linked to education, their bodies, careers, consumption practices and intimate relationships which indicate successful femininities. This requires girls to become adept choice biographers and entrepreneurs of their own lives (Aapola et al. 2005). Important critiques of postfeminism have suggested that in setting up expectations of “success” and achievement, postfeminism comes to govern young women’s understandings of themselves and their bodies through incitement. Regulation comes into effect not through restrictions “about what young women ought not to do” but instead around “what they can do” (McRobbie 2007, p. 721). Power in girls’ lives comes to operate not through constraint but through a series of invitations to be a certain kind of “successful,” entrepreneurial girl continually working on the project of self. Young women’s insertion into new social and economic arrangements operates on a “sexual contract” requiring the performance of a “feminine masquerade,” which seeks to downplay women’s foray into traditionally masculine domains (McRobbie 2007, p.  725). Girls and women are free to “choose” how to live their lives, and yet, if they fail to live up societal expectations, they have only themselves to blame. Therefore, as discourses of freedom and equality proliferate, they facilitate a “retrenchment of gender norms and traditional gendered relations” by denying that structural barriers continue to constrain individuals (McRobbie 2009, p.  55). As Riley and Evans (2018, p.  21) argue, postfeminism operates on the basis of a “post-sexist, post-racist, classless world,” free of structural constraints and where all women have access to the same resources. Therefore, postfeminism serves to set up expectations which claim to be equal and inclusive and yet are constructed within gendered, classed and racialised understandings of belonging and citizenship based on exclusion. Postfeminism has been linked to wider schooling agendas that come to influence how girls are positioned and understood within discourses of deprivation and othering. Mirza and

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Meetoo (2018, p. 228) describe multiculturalism as aligning with postfeminism in schools to construct the Asian Muslim girl as the “oppressed other,” in need of “empowerment” and “protection” articulated in wider Islamophobic panics. Concerns around Muslim girls’ participation in sport and PE have similarly echoed this problematisation through an expectation that girls can and should be participating within the dominant cultural model of sport that does not sufficiently account for racism and Islamophobia as informing such contexts (Benn et  al. 2011). Therefore, postfeminism can be seen as a form of both categorisation and incitement which dictates what kinds of girls should be playing sport and within which particular parameters. My interest lies with the extent to which girls may come to subscribe to postfeminist ideals within their sports participation and particularly with how these interact with other discourses proliferating in schools and elsewhere, such as health.

Healthism and Postfeminism Postfeminism has also been linked to healthism as holding particular implications for young women’s understandings of their bodies and thus their participation in physical activity and sport. Healthism represents a cultural shift in our understandings of health as an increasingly personal and individualised responsibility. It draws on a particular model of preventative health in which the individual is expected to manage their body through physical activities, eating patterns and other health-related behaviours such as the cessation of smoking (Tinning and Glasby 2002). Healthism is justified within a biomedical model of health where medical and scientific discourses posit continuous links between obesity rates, cardiovascular diseases and physical inactivity (Gard and Wright 2005). Healthism can be seen to underpin growing anxieties around obesity in the UK and the developed world more broadly. Such concerns have created increased public attention towards the regulation of children and young people’s bodies in particular through heightened interest and intervention into their lifestyles, physical activities and eating patterns (Wright and Harwood 2009). Crawford (1994) has argued that a key

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feature of healthism has been the operation of a regulatory moral code through its juxtaposition between the healthy and unhealthy “other.” In this juxtaposition, individuals who are seen to work on the body in the “correct” ways are seen as responsible while those who do not uphold bodily ideals are cast as irresponsible, lazy and a social burden. Healthism has provided heightened justification for young people’s involvement in physical activity as a means of preventing obesity by functioning as a kind of moral responsibility. Riley and Evans’ (2018, p. 207) elaboration of the “transformation imperative” suggests that both postfeminism and healthism hold particular incitements for young women to “be a certain kind of person” where careful diet and exercise are viewed as enactments of a responsible subjectivity. They thus argue that postfeminism, as an incitement to be “sexy, desirable and feminine,” seamlessly combines with the healthism incitement to cultivate and display a “fit, toned body” through physical bodily work (Riley and Evans 2018, pp. 207–208). This analysis provides further understanding of the ways in which girls are expected to perform and shape their bodies as ongoing projects of “healthy” girlhood. Moralised concerns around the body are also seen to converge around intersections of age and gender where categorisations of “girlhood” and “youth” are constructed in relation to notions of risk.

Sporty Girls and “Risky” Girlhoods What it means to be a girl in the contemporary context can be seen as shaped by “diverse ways of thinking and talking about girls” linked to ongoing social changes and anxieties about this change (Driscoll 2002, p. 4). Within these wider representations of girlhood, girls have been seen as both “carriers of and defenders against social change” so that anxieties around such changes are taken up in the figure of the “girl” (Harris 2004b, p. 3). Harris suggests that contemporary representations of “can do” girls who display neoliberal traits of optimism and self-invention with their positive attitudes are reliant on the construction of the “at risk” girl who renders herself vulnerable through ill-considered choices (Harris 2004b). Harris points out that just as girls have been positioned as at the vanguard of recent social changes and as the “winners” of globalisation,

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so too have they been characterised as particularly vulnerable and the subject of moral concern. The at-risk/can-do juxtaposition is evidenced in binary representations of girlhood as in crisis/celebration where girls are presented as either empowered consumers or vulnerable victims in recent media analyses (Ringrose 2013). As Renold and Ringrose (2013, p. 247) argue, a disjointed yet growing number of risk imperatives invoke the “girl” as socio-political project with gendered implications. Ringrose’s (2013) work outlines how these moral crises around girlhood function further as evaluative judgements through media panics such as sexualisation and bullying, which function to further regulate girls’ bodies in schools. Therefore, discourses of crisis and celebration simultaneously uphold moralistic ideas about how girls are expected to manage their lives alongside cautionary tales of what might happen if they do not make the correct choices. As Harris (2004b) suggests, choice narratives are expected to be pursued through the cultivation of a do-it-yourself (DIY) project which requires both careful planning and vigilance. In this analysis, girls’ participation in physical activity can be enabled through a logic of self-improvement that connects fitness and bodily vigilance with gender empowerment as a means of “crafting the self ” by preventing the risk of ill health. Physical activity, sporting achievements and bodily maintenance function as investments in the self only as they are related to notions of risk embedded in a fear of ill health and overweight. As Shilling (2010, p.  155) describes, bodies act as “thoroughly daily affairs to be reflected upon, worked upon and routinized as an integral part of everyday life.” Therefore, although young women are constructed as rational, choice-­making citizens free to choose physical activity, they do so within a set of imperatives guarded against “risky” outcomes as abject subject positions. Girls, as positioned in relation to categories of both “youth” and “girlhood,” have been particularly governed by constructions of risk within a “proliferation of risk” designations amidst youth policy in England and elsewhere (Turnbull and Spence 2011). Peter Kelly (2001) argues that the regulation of risk operates in governing youth through what he describes as “responsibilization” and “individualization” processes, which rely on notions of good citizenship through imagined futures. In recent years, young people have been subject to a range of “discourses of anxiety”

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(Tsaliki 2015) around their health, wellbeing, relationships and educational futures which seek to weigh up various risks and the “correct” way of doing things. As Turnbull and Spence (2011) note, youth policy approaches to risk based on cultural selection have been used as a tool of blame across educational, health and wider youth provision services. In the UK, designations such as “Neet” (not in education, employment or training), “Asbos” (anti-social behaviour orders), “teenage mums” and others have come to represent particular categories of concern around youth as documented in both government policy and popular discourse.1 The avoidance of “risk” in this context by taking up responsible practices and identity work such as sports participation and weight management may thus be one means of constructing versions of “successful girlhood” set against the risk of “problem” girlhood (Lloyd 2005). Indeed, justifications for girls’ physical activity participation have been variously constructed through anxieties about obesity, physical inactivity, low self-esteem and sexual promiscuity which have often driven policy responses targeting young women through sport (Chawansky and Hayhurst 2015). Invocations for young women to take part in sport both condemn “risky” behaviours and urge young women to take responsibility for their health and wellbeing within a discourse of self-­empowerment. Yet these invitations to take part in sport operate despite sport remaining a white male preserve requiring classed capital and resources (Adjepong et al. 2014). In the next section I elaborate on how the body, in particular, is implicated in constructions of successful girlhood. This allows a further understanding of the production of gendered subjects who may or may not incorporate sport as part of their ongoing projects of self.

 mbodied Performances of New E Sporting Femininities My analysis makes use of poststructural understandings of gender as an embodied performance where available discourses of girlhood both frame and are shaped by ongoing bodily projects (Butler 1993, 1999; Connell 2002). In this conceptualisation, gender is both fluid and multiple as it is

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inflected through differences including race, class and ability and as it is played out in particular moments and contexts including schools and the policies and discursive imperatives governing these environments. An intersectional analysis further illuminates how “the categories of girlhood are cross cut with axes of social differentiation and power including gender, race, class, age and sexuality” (Ringrose 2013, p. 59). This analysis posits a mutual constitution of these unequal structures, which do no impact equally on girls at any one point. Rather than describing a single, ideological femininity or masculinity, poststructuralism allows a conceptualisation of multiple femininities and masculinities performed and enacted in various settings and times and inflected through structural processes and differences. Butler’s analysis of gender takes up the idea that gender is never “fixed” or certain but is instead established through the particular deeds through which it is continually enacted. She thus describes gender as a “repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (Butler 1999, pp. 43–44). Butler (1999, p. 13) characterises this regulatory frame as the “heterosexual matrix”: a set of hegemonic cultural discourses predicated on the binary construction of normative links between sex, gender and sexuality which assume both heterosexuality and cisnormativity as a given. It is these social processes which interpellate or “call women into being,” and thereby “produce them as subjects” rather than simply describing them (McRobbie 2007, p. 13). This process of subjectification therefore sets out both the processes and conditions through which young women are rendered culturally intelligible. Connell (1995, p.  101) elaborates further on the bodily process of learning intelligible genders, which straddle the agency and creativity of “gender projects” within and against “the intractability of gender structures.” This account emphasises how young people learn how to “do” gender over time in particular ways as a form of identity work that continues throughout their lives. The body is highly implicated in this process since, as Connell argues, gender can be understood as a social relation that is “both realized and symbolized in bodily performances” (1995, p. 54). Connell’s formulation of “body-reflexive-practices” provides a further elaboration of the processes of gendering bodies. According to

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Connell, these performances take place within particular contexts where their repetition over time inculcates the body towards specific habits, dispositions, shapes and contours. This requires an understanding of how ideas about the body circulate through particular sites to produce physical cultures which in turn are productive of bodies. Physical cultures have been defined as comprising “those activities where the body itself-its anatomy, its physicality, and importantly its forms of movement- is the very purpose, the raison d’etre of the activity” (Hargreaves and Vertinsky 2007, p. 1). Physical cultures can be seen to produce gendered bodies within the institutionalised practices and habits of physical activities traditionally undertaken by those bodies. For example, fitness classes and weightlifting as physical cultures respectively have been seen to condone and shape idealised gendered bodily forms. Connell (2002) suggests that the shaping of masculine bodies through practices such as body-building comes to sustain the creation of muscular bodies, thus reinforcing male superior strength. Such practices provide a “circuit” or loop of recognition in which gendered meanings, bodily activity and physical shapes interact and reinforce one another, wherein “particular versions of masculinity [or femininity] are constituted in their circuits as meaningful bodies and embodied meanings” (Connell 1995, p.  64). Gender is therefore understood as an embodied practice or “bodily technique” that is “felt, enjoyed and suffered through a literate body, which learns the postures, movements and social ‘scripts’ of masculine and feminine bodies” (Bailey and Pickard 2010, p. 374). The embodiment of gender is highlighted in Iris Marion Young’s (2005) work which draws attention to the cultural means by which many young women come to understand and locate their bodies as they learn to “throw like a girl.” Her analysis particularly implicates the cultural objectification of women in their embodied reluctance to move into and take up space as objects of the male gaze. Young’s analysis both centres the body as the locus of social experiences as well as a site of social reproduction of inequalities. Young’s analysis also suggests some of the ways in which the female sporting body is often read simultaneously as both insufficiently feminine and as insufficiently skilled—thus lacking in its cultural legitimacy as able sporting body. Recent work has built on this by examining how women’s participation in particular physical contexts have managed to shift or challenge understandings of what both

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masculine and feminine bodies can do (Boyle 2005; Evaldsson 2003; Laurendeau and Adams 2010). This research demonstrates that normative performances are not inevitable, even as the role of the body is key in the construction and reproduction of a sense of capacity and legitimacy within specific social settings. Power and the hierarchies perpetuated through processes of both inclusion and exclusion are therefore key to understanding how gendered bodies are experienced, shaped and situated. Embodied gender projects therefore take place over time and as part of the daily identity work undertaken by gendered subjects within particular contexts such as schools, sports clubs and families. A range of work has examined how schools as important social institutions are heavily implicated in disciplining bodies by creating racialised, gendered and classed student subjects (Kirk 1993; Oliver and Lalik 2000; Paechter 1998; Youdell 2006). Body projects are enacted within the social hierarchies and peer relations that constitute bodies and constrain participation (Evans 2006; Hills 2006). Physical education in particular, as a highly gendered curriculum area, has the capacity to shape bodies and physical identities by constructing distinct forms of masculinities and femininities through specific gendered performances (Paechter 2003). Physical education continues to operate on a notion of “complementary difference” between boys and girls, thus constructing varying expectations and bodily performances (Wright 1996). Understandings of “ability” in physical education classes continue to be predicated on performances of an exclusive masculinity based on physical power and assertiveness (Wellard 2006). In this understanding of gender, “being” a sporty girl is an embodied performance bound by the physical spaces, objects, discourses and relationships that come to define its movements. The designation of “sporty girl” is thus fragile—easily subject to interruption and rejection as it is enabled through various signifying frames and forms of bodily capital within dynamic physical cultural settings.

Body Pedagogies I make use of the concept of body pedagogies to theorise further the relationship between schooled bodies and normative discourses around gender, health and achievement which circulate within and around them

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(Evans et al. 2008b; Rich 2010; Shilling 2010). Body pedagogies can be seen as a form of cultural bodily learning that influences individuals’ “embodied actions” within particular contexts (Shilling 2008, p.  44). Body pedagogies translate “how social norms and policy initiatives are variously filtered, mediated and re-contextualized within the [educational] field.” As normative modes of instruction, body pedagogies demonstrate the powerful ways in which schools and physical education and health curriculum are heavily implicated in constituting bodies. Evans et al. (2008a, p. 390) characterise these pedagogies as consisting of messages around health, the body and physical activity that take on status as “regimes of truth,” backed by media claims and government health incentives, entering schools as “frameworks of expectation.” Their work suggests that within the performative, hierarchical and achievement-­ based milieu of schooling, body regimes can have damaging consequences for young schooled subjects. Idealised “slender” bodies can serve as markers of distinction and accomplishment within competitive peer hierarchies perpetuated by the school where “the pursuit of a bodily ideal becomes something to be pursued with effort and dedication” (Shilling 2010, p. 159). Body pedagogies therefore take place within a “corporeal ethic, a socially regulative moral code” (Evans and Rich 2011, p. 365) that dictates how young women understand their participation as healthy and therefore “good” practices, within a process of othering. As Sykes (2011, p.  17) suggests, “the pedagogical phantasy of the athletic and healthy child relies upon, even as it excludes the presence of fat, slow and clumsy bodies.” Body pedagogies therefore act as normalising forces that operate through processes of both exclusion and incitement. Evaluations both of girls’ bodies and of their ability to invest in appropriate projects of the self form an ongoing form of surveillance or extended normative gaze within schools and the wider pedagogical field of extracurricular sports. In this context, schools and sport settings are important sites for analysing a set of individualised discourses by which young people become responsible for their own health and wellbeing within the health imperatives that have come to frame such activities (Rich and Evans 2013). Body pedagogies thus attempt to capture the normative codes through which bodies are lived and understood in schools and sports settings.

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Affective Bodies In order to explore the embodied physical and emotional changes that seemed to take place for many girls as they engaged in sports participation, I also draw on ongoing feminist research which has explored the interaction of social relations and affect within women’s sport, where intensified affects of competition, shame, self-mastery, frustration and sometimes rage come to the fore (Pavlidis and Fullagar 2013; Rich 2018). As Pavlidis and Fullagar (2013, p. 423) contend, an analysis of affect as intersected by difference allows an exploration of “how ‘felt’ power relations are negotiated amongst women [in sites where] both leisure and gender identities are played out.” Gendered hierarchies of participation are thus played out in affective practices realised as emotions of incompetence, shame, pleasure and mastery, where “bits of the body get patterned together with feelings and thoughts” (Wetherell 2012, p. 14), and which can be seen to arise in and through girls’ bodily participation in sport. This perspective allows a consideration of the role of the affective on the active, moving body in a process of becoming. Active bodies are understood “as occurring in relation to other lived bodies, materialities, practices and discourses within assembled relations” (Rich 2018, p.  744) which come to constitute successful femininities through particular practices such as health behaviours. Affect can be understood as a form of “embodied meaning making” (Wetherell 2012, p.  4) that traces links between emotional states and the social and material assemblage that comes to signify their relevance. Rich (2018, p. 742) further highlights how “particular affects towards the desire to become fit, thin and healthy” constitute many girls’ relationships to sport as a form of corporeal ethic. Walkerdine accordingly suggests that ideas of affect can expand our understanding of moving bodies beyond the regulatory discourses that come to govern them. She notes that a focus on governmentality may not capture the complexity of relations between bodies in spaces such as the gym, running track or physical education lesson where such bodies are both scrutinised and constituted. A focus on affect can attempt to capture a sense of fear, failure, guilt or responsibility that may assemble around physical activity and weight loss practices. Walkerdine (2009,

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p. 206) thus points to the unspoken “other” of the subject of biopower— the fat body, the irresponsible subject, whose presence continues to haunt ongoing body projects. I draw on these ideas in attempting to conceptualise the affective field of the body as it is caught up in moments of desire, fear, anger and shame that simultaneously frame physical investments in the body through social and material encounters with the world around it.

From Exclusion to Sporty Alpha Girls This section outlines a history of feminist intervention into sport in order to trace how girls’ participation has shifted in line with a postfeminist ethic. I outline feminist interventions into the study of sport before considering how this has been translated through the notion of equal opportunities in school and PE settings. Although earlier perspectives highlighted gender ideologies as framing girls’ participation, recent research has suggested that the role of the school is particularly important for girls’ understandings of their bodies and their participation in physical cultures. Accordingly, the framing of education within a postfeminist ethic can be seen to have shifted girls’ relationships with sport and physical activity towards health and achievement discourses. Feminist interventions into the study of sport have documented the systematic exclusion and disenfranchisement from sport that women and girls have experienced as a result of its construction as a “masculine” practice (Choi 2000; Hargreaves 1994; Scraton 1992; Theberge 1986, 1987). A key argument in this literature has implicated entrenched gender ideologies as contributing to women’s ongoing exclusion. Historical analyses have documented how sport and other physical activities since Victorian times have been viewed as both unsuitable to women’s physically inferior dispositions and as potentially damaging of a woman’s reproductive capacities (Hargreaves 1994). This disenfranchisement was self-­ perpetuating, since, as Hargreaves notes, the fainting and pallor that middle-class “feminine regimes” induced were then used to justify claims that women had naturally weak and fragile constitutions (Hargreaves 1994, p. 47). Such ideas supported institutionalised resistances such as the Football Association’s ban on women’s football in England for over

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50  years (Newsham 1997). It was not until 1984 that women were allowed by the all-male International Olympic Committee to compete in the 3000 metre and marathon distance races at the Olympics because these were considered to be “too strenuous” (Choi 2000, p.  14). Accordingly, an “ideology of femininity” has been seen to contrast with the demands of sporting participation in the association of passivity and fragility with femininity and activity and strength with masculinity. This has meant that sport as an active pursuit has been less appealing to girls and women due to a “fear of masculinization” (Choi 2000; Cockburn and Clarke 2002; Flintoff and Scraton 2001). Therefore, male dominance through sport and debilitating ideology of femininity have been identified as key problems in participation that have been perpetuated within the schooling system as physical education developed in line with girls’ education. In the UK, girl’s physical activities were initially taken up through the Ling system of gymnastics developed across England by Madame Bergman-Osterberg (Fletcher 1984). The success of these programmes was seen as paving the way for the social acceptance of moderate physical training and activities for girls, leading to the adoption of team sports practiced across boys’ public schools. Yet, despite their appeal, traditional male sports were modified within girls’ public school curriculums in order to account for girls’ “weaker” physiology (Scraton 1992). Traditional boys’ games were adapted or foreshortened into girls’ versions such as netball and hockey in order to avoid physical contact and the appearance of “vulgarity” (Scraton 1992, p.  29). Despite noting the barriers and inequalities affecting girls’ participation in sports, it was believed that a feminist revisioning of traditional competitive sports could both challenge gendered bodily inhibitions and provide opportunities for female friendship and bonding during much-deserved leisure time (Graydon 1997; Theberge 1986). Women’s participation in sport, whilst constrained by other factors, seemed to hold out the potential for both individual and collective liberation. Outlining a feminist intervention into sport, Theberge (1987, p. 393) wrote: “the liberatory possibility of sport lies in the opportunity for women to experience the creativity and energy of their bodily power and to develop this power in the community of women.”

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The feminist critique of sport translated into interventions in school PE rather late, following on from earlier concerns about girls’ educational opportunities. The introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975 and the 1988 Education Reform Act both legislated against sex discrimination in schools with unfolding implications for physical education through the implementation of equal opportunities policies (Scraton 1992; Weiner 1985). The National Curriculum Council in 1991 identified equal opportunities as a cross-curricular dimension which should permeate all subjects. However, research at the time suggested that there was confusion in schools over the interpretation of equal opportunities policies and that these could be considered as watered-down versions of anti-sexist arguments (Weiner 1985). The implementation of these strategies was hampered by both a lack of political and social will and an insufficient understanding of complex gender issues (Flintoff 1996; Kirk 2000). The exemption of sport in this legislation and its conflation with PE created uncertainty among schools where equal provision could still mean football for boys and hockey for girls since these were interpreted to be comparable activities (Milosevic 1996, p. 33). As Hargreaves (1994, p. 29) noted of equal opportunities, “there is a powerful tendency in this perspective to divert attention away from the gender-linked value system of mainstream sports and to accept the dominant ideologies that support them.” Therefore, although schools felt compelled to increase girls’ participation, the forms of provision and the strategies for doing so were contentious as they sometimes perpetuated gender stereotypes. Despite noting the role of masculine domination in sport, some research also emphasised the role of heteronormative constructions of femininity on girls’ sports participation. Hargreaves (1994, p.  156) argued that during adolescence, girls may be at pains to invest in a “cult of adolescent femininity” which is premised on the development of a “trendy,” “sexy” persona that is adverse to sports participation. Cockburn and Clarke (2002, p.  653) stressed girls’ positioning in popular youth culture where emphasised heterosexual femininity is the “only sanctioned option for girls” and where sports participation is deemed to be a hindrance, rather than an asset, to participation in this overtly gendered culture. While boys were seen to be able to gain prestige and confidence through sport, girls’ sports competence was said to be only valued within

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the particular field of sport itself (Gorely et al. 2003). PE has been seen as particularly problematic in girls’ constructions of emphasised femininities since by participating, girls are asked to “unadorn” themselves through tying back hair and removing jewellery while simultaneously performing under scrutiny of the “male gaze” (Cockburn and Clarke 2002). This has been seen to generate conflict and tension for girls and to persuade many girls to either withdraw or half-heartedly take part. It might be fair to say that schools faced with the “dilemma” of girls’ withdrawal from sport alongside the policy push to enable girls’ participation were keen to find quick solutions. However, these solutions did not sufficiently interrogate the dominant ideologies that underpinned both constructions of sport and young people’s own constructions of their gendered identities (Hargreaves 1994). An ongoing debate in physical education has revolved around the provision of “female-friendly” activities that were seen to appeal to girls’ constructions of young femininities as opposed to more competitive activities traditionally coded as masculine (Bailey et al. 2005; Kirk 2000; Scraton 1992; Vilhjalmsson and Kristjansdottir 2003). This was based in part on interpretations of equal opportunities that translated as co-education within a mixed curriculum that tended to be dominated by competitive games (Flintoff 1996; Williams and Woodhouse 1996). As Ennis (1999, p.  32) wrote, “No curriculum … has been as effective in constraining opportunities and alienating girls as that found in co-educational, multi-­ activity sport classes.” Cooky and McDonald’s (2005) research revealed that simply moving girls into traditional male model sports continued to position them as continually lacking in relation to male players and without the critical tools to interrogate the hierarchies that are reinforced through traditional sports participation. Alternatively, the provision of “female-friendly” activities such as dance, fitness classes and cheerleading were seen to be more attractive to girls, despite their possible reinforcement of gender binaries (Adams and Bettis 2003). In their overview of gender and physical activity, Bailey et al.(2007, p. 4) argue that rather than looking for ways to make activities more “girl-friendly,” providers should be trying to make activities more “youth friendly” by focusing on experiences of pleasure and fun through movement of bodies rather than on competitive sporting

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outcomes. Similarly, Scraton (1992, p.  84) has argued that gendered experiences were not inevitable in physical activity and “when gender stereotypes are challenged, less gendered outcomes can be achieved.” Accordingly, Gorely et  al. (2003, p.  442) have suggested that physical education should have the express aim of encouraging physical empowerment through challenging “aspects of physical culture that are oppressive for particular groups.” These later perspectives sought to openly challenge gendered outcomes and processes through a form of feminist intervention. Unfortunately, equal opportunities legislation was not in practice able to sufficiently challenge these outcomes, steeped as it was in a liberal approach that simply seemed to advocate getting more girls into sport. Ringrose (2007, p. 472) has argued that within a postfeminist climate in educational policy, “specific forms of liberal feminism are recuperated to sustain a neoliberal climate of educational reform.” In the context of physical education and physical activity, it would seem that similarly equal opportunities policies became subsumed by a postfeminist orientation that positioned sports participation as innately empowering but did not sufficiently challenge the models on offer. Various studies have addressed the specific context of girls’ participation in PE, detailing factors that go beyond a “fear of masculinization” towards understanding how power and hierarchies perpetuated in schools mediate these experiences (Flintoff and Scraton 2001; Hills 2006; Williams and Bedward 2002). In this analysis, schooling and the gendered patterns constructed within this setting represent a major part of the problem in girls’ participation. Girls’ lack of power in schools has been evidenced in a combination of discipline, performance on display and lack of choice that has characterised PE provision in schools (Williams and Bedward 2002). Girls’ own accounts of their PE experiences have highlighted both sexist policies in schools and the emotive everyday realities of PE participation. Girls have described inappropriate kits that expose their bodies to both the elements and the male gaze, enforced communal showers, boredom, lack of choice, harassment from male peers and feelings of incompetence generated through hierarchies of ability (Coakley and White 1992; Ennis 1999; Flintoff and Scraton 2001). Many of these complaints centre around an exposure of the body on display in which feelings of shame and humiliation have left permanent

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damage (Wright and Dewar 1997). Moreover, while teacher stereotypes may continue to underestimate girls’ interests and abilities in sport, girls themselves often hold different views and may see themselves as more or less skilful than their teachers assume (Flintoff and Scraton 2001; Williams and Bedward 2002). The views and perspectives of girls themselves also vary considerably, and while some girls may see competitive games as unappealing, others may resent that they are not given the opportunity to play games such as rugby and football (Hills 2006). Accordingly, girls may have very different experiences of sport in and outside of school with the latter often proving to be more positive. Recent research suggests that sport is increasingly becoming a site for the production of “successful alpha femininities” through achievement discourses and the opportunity to work on the self within aims of aspiration and accomplishment (Azzarito 2010; Chawansky 2012; Cooky and McDonald 2005; Heywood 2007). As Chawansky and Hayhurst (2015) describe, the “girling” of sport globally has translated into a range of female-specific sporting initiatives frequently framed around discourses of both achievement and empowerment. This postfeminist ethic rests upon an egalitarian notion that gender barriers are no longer relevant to girls’ sports participation since equality has been achieved through previous feminist legislation. These notions are taken up in postfeminist media representations of female athletes as “active, visible and autonomous” despite the persistence of inequalities “across sporting institutions and practices” (Thorpe et  al. 2017, p.  360). Representations of sporty girlhood have been embedded in new formulations of the “Alpha Girl” and “Future girl” whose participation in sport signals a means to achieve personal and physical success in order to meet the demands of the new economy. Such representations can be seen to “emblematically represent new femininities, self-made, ambitious and independent girls, to whom sport and career paths are the most important areas of self-definition and of success in society” (Azzarito 2010, p. 266). Azzarito contends that such representations both embed sporting participation within models of neoliberal economic participation and are upheld through monocultural discourses of whiteness and class privilege that repeatedly shape girls’ opportunities to take part in sport and physical activity. As Chawansky and Hayhurst (2015) argues, sport is increasingly expected of young women within a

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moralistic framework that binarises “good girls” who play sport, and those “others” who do not. The reframing of sport as an empowering opportunity within a postfeminist ethic has important implications for young women’s sports participation since it shifts the model in which this participation takes place and thus girls’ understandings of themselves within it. In the context of Riley and Evans’ (2018) research into fitness-oriented social media posts, the transformation imperative proved particularly compelling for young women seeking visual recognition and validation through their investment in and display of feminine fit, toned, and thus “healthy” bodies. In a postfeminist climate, “sexy, sporty personas” have been understood as a way of marketing the self within an “unproblematic celebration of individualism, bodily capital and consumer choice” (Thorpe et  al. 2017, p. 370). Marketing of the self takes on particular significance within the peer cultures and hierarchies of schooling, where “becoming someone” involves a process of shaping one’s identity in relation to the ongoing culture and politics of the school (Bettie 2003; Evans et  al. 2004; Pomerantz 2008).

 chools and the Enactment of Successful, S “Healthy,” and Achieving Femininities Schools have been understood as key sites for “doing girlhood” and therefore for the enactment of successful femininities amidst the perpetuation of powerful body pedagogies which translate ideas about the body. They therefore serve as an important pedagogising site in girls’ negotiations of complex and contradictory femininities (Azzarito 2010). Just as the body has become increasingly important to ongoing projects of the self, so too has academic achievement become a marker of self-development. In the current climate, educational achievement and investment have become endowed as key components in the upholding of constructions of “successful girlhood” within a young woman’s choice biography (Harris 2004b; McRobbie 2009). At the same time, as Paechter’s (2006, 2007) work suggests, schools continue to operate within a Cartesian mind/body split

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that privileges students’ mental capacities in their abilities to produce examination results towards high educational standards. As a result, many schools strive to ignore the physical body, seeing it as a hindrance to educational aims. “Where bodies intrude into school they are seen as disruptive. The good body is self-excluding; the well-disciplined student effaces the body entirely” (Paechter 2007, p. 113). This formulation suggests a significant contradiction in terms of how schools, and accordingly how girls themselves, have come to understand their participation in physical education and sport within ongoing educational policy imperatives. I argue that this contradiction has been highlighted in two key policy imperatives of health and achievement, which have been particularly relevant to girls’ understandings of their bodies in school as inflected through the ongoing “successful girls” discourse. These represent an important contradiction since within a health imperative, girls have been positioned as insufficiently active, given their lower rates of participation in physical activity. However, within an achievement imperative, a successful girls’ discourse has positioned girls as “overactive” in line with media reports of their educational achievements in relation to boys (Ringrose 2007). Therefore, the role of sport within girls’ educational trajectories is both ambiguous and contradictory since although extracurricular accomplishments (such as sport) can act as markers of “well-­ rounded” subjects in a competitive educational context, they can also be seen to detract from overvalued educational achievements as conceptualised in the notion of academic “ability” (Jackson 2006). Girls’ capacity to navigate these contradictions is inevitably bound up with privileges clustered around divisions of “race,” gender, age and sexuality within a schooling system that continues to perpetuate social inequalities. In Chaps. 4, 5, and 6, I more specifically situate the interaction of the postfeminist “successful girls” discourse with the health and achievement agendas in schools as an important framework for understanding girls’ engagement with sport and physical activity. I seek to highlight the role of girls’ wider schooling projects in its implications for girls’ sports participation in relation to recent policy shifts and school directives. Increasingly over the past several decades, schools have become subject to a growing number of directives, incentives and forms of regulation driven through government policies and broader discourses about education.

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Stephen Ball (2008, p. 4) has argued that educational reform over the past 20 years has been subject to “policy overload” as it is caught up in a series of “complex economic and social expectations” about the role of education in the national and globalised economy. Ball outlines the operation of what he describes as “policy technologies” as steeped in the language of choice, performance and competition in line with a neoliberal economic model taking hold within the education system. He suggests that such policy technologies are notable not only for their deployment of organisation and procedure but in their reconstitution of social relations as they come to shape roles, positions, identities and values within the education system. Where education is increasingly invested in notions of the “knowledge economy,” schools have further served as sites of regulation through a cacophonous set of policy initiatives and interventions seeking to both manage and cultivate the bodies of young people for insertion into the economy. Social debates around sexuality, obesity, delinquency, citizenship and economic prosperity have invariably pointed to schools as both source of the problem and potential solution to these broader anxieties. My interest is in how policy technologies and the debates framing them may come to influence girls’ participation in sport through constellations of ideas about gender, health and achievement which have become increasingly important educational agendas. Girls’ engagement within sport and physical activity in a postfeminist context is therefore caught up in a series of contradictions around performance, appearance and health. Garrett’s (2004) research found that girls came to frame their bodies in dominant understandings of health as located in the idealised, slender body understood as the “good body.” Similarly, Lunde and Gattario (2017) describe the contrasting framing of girls’ bodies within physical activity between the “performing body” competing within prescribed notions of physical ability and the “objectified body” available for evaluation within the male gaze. Drawing on her own and others’ research, Rich suggests that young women are now approaching work on the body as a “boundaryless project” continually invested in health imperatives (Petherick, 2015 quoted in Rich 2018, p. 741). However, although there is an increasing pull towards physical activity as a body work practice linked to cultural ideals, this framing is not inevitable. It competes with other experiences of the body as a locus

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of reflexive pleasure incorporating both the individual and social context (Wellard 2012). As Rich (2018) argues, the effects of a postfeminist ethic on girls’ understandings of their bodies through physical activity can be seen as neither wholly empowering or oppressive but as bound up in contradiction. She writes that “girls and young women may be subject to neoliberal and postfeminist imperatives of constant reinvention and optimisation, while at the same time, utilise the same technologies to open up spaces for resistance to body norms” (Rich 2018, p. 737). This contention emphasises both creativity and resourcefulness within physical culture participation as well as a disjunction between sporting possibilities and experiences (Azzarito and Solomon 2005), Therefore, an analysis of girls’ participation in physical activity must pay attention to those contradictions as they play out within the discursive frameworks that contextualise such experiences. In summary, a postfeminist analysis of girls’ participation in physical activity suggests that this participation has shifted towards ideals of postfeminist “capacity” as a means of achievement and of working on the self within ongoing expectations of an embodied feminine performance. My examination of previous research into girls’ sports participation recognises how sport has traditionally excluded women due to its coding as a masculine practice and that this has had particular implications for girls’ participation in both school PE and extracurricular sport. However, recent research suggests that postfeminism may have shifted girls’ relationships with sport towards the cultivation of gendered body projects. Processes of responsibilisation inherent within ideas of risk have further increased expectations that girls will keep fit and achieve at school and in extracurricular activities alongside maintaining peer relations as part of their ongoing constructions of successful femininities. I therefore situate the role of the school in its perpetuation of health and achievement discourses as body pedagogies which interact with postfeminism in creating particularly gendered implications for girls’ participation. I suggest that despite sport and physical activity becoming more in line with the construction of young femininities through achievement and health discourses, these imperatives operate alongside and often in contradiction with ongoing expectations of elite, competitive performance and cultural ideals of compulsory “heterosexiness” (Thorpe et al. 2017).

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Within a postfeminist context, girls are expected to keep fit and achieve at school and in extracurricular activities alongside maintaining peer relations as part of their ongoing constructions of successful girlhood. However, these expectations rest alongside feminised expectations of the body in which physical activity becomes an ongoing project of self. This means that becoming a “sporty girl” requires a careful balance of moralised achievements across multiple postfeminist expectations—to look good, feel good and be good at doing sport—and to carry out such performances within the wider project of schooling. Girls’ participation in physical activity, their construction of physical identities and their investment in models of healthy citizenship are inevitably set within this overarching background and more specifically within the contexts of their particular schools and the ways in which schools engage in these discourses. Some research has suggested that this careful balancing is only achievable for a select and privileged set of girls whose own engagement with sport has shifted towards achievement and performance goals. It is in this context that my research explores the possibilities and contradictions for girls as they engage with sport as part of their ongoing constructions of “successful girlhood” set within their schooling contexts. I therefore consider how girls understand their sports participation within these conflicting versions of participation and what possibilities of joy, pleasure and reimagining the body exist within these practices.

Note 1. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/young-­p eople-­n ot-­i n-­ education-­employment-­or-­training-­neet-­uk-­may-­2019. https://www.gov.uk/civil-­injunctions-­criminal-­behaviour-­orders. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/teenage-­pregnancy.

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Heywood, L. (2007). Producing girls: Empire, sport and the neoliberal body. In J.  Hargreaves & P.  Vertinsky (Eds.), Physical culture, power and the body (pp. 101–120). London: Routledge. Hills, L. (2006). Playing the field(s): An exploration of change, conformity and conflict in girls’ understandings of gendered physicality in physical education. Gender and Education, 18(5), 539–556. Jackson, C. (2006). Lads and Ladettes in school: Gender and a fear of failure. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Kelly, P. (2001). Youth at risk: Processes of individualisation and responsibilisation in the risk society. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 22(1), 23–33. Kirk, D. (1993). The body, schooling and culture. Geelong: Deakin University Press. Kirk, D. (2000). Promoting girls’ participation in physical education and sport: The girls in sport partnership project. In The British Journal of Physical Education, 31(1), 27–29. Laurendeau, J., & Adams, C. (2010). “Jumping like a girl”: Discursive silences, exclusionary practices and the controversy over women’s ski jumping. Sport in Society, 13(3), 43–447. Lloyd, G. (2005). Problem girls: Understanding and supporting troubled and troublesome girls and young women. Abingdon: Routledge Falmer. Lunde, C., & Gattario, K. H. (2017). Performance or appearance? Young female sport participants’ body negotiations. Body Image, 21, 81–89. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2017.03.001. McRobbie, A. (2007). Top girls? Young women and the post-feminist sexual contract. Cultural Studies, 21(4–5), 718–737. McRobbie, A. (2009). The aftermath of feminism: Gender, culture and social change. London: Sage. Milosevic, L. (1996). Gender issues in physical education. The British Journal of Physical Education, 27(1), 32–33. Mirza, H. S., & Meetoo, V. (2018). Empowering Muslim girls? Post-feminism, multiculturalism and the production of the ‘model’ Muslim female student in British schools. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39(2), 227–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2017.1406336. Newsham, G. J. (1997). In a league of their own! London: Scarlet Press. Oliver, K. L., & Lalik, R. (2000). Bodily knowledge: Learning about equity and justice with adolescent girls (Vol. 11). New York: Peter Lang. Paechter, C. (1998). Educating the other: Gender, power and schooling. London: Falmer Press.

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Paechter, C. (2003). Masculinities, femininities and physical education: Bodily practices as reified markers of community membership. In C. Trau Vincent (Ed.), Social justice; education and identity (pp.  137–152). New  York: Routledge. Paechter, C. (2006). Reconceptualising the gendered body: Learning and constructing masculinities and femininities in school. Gender and Education, 18(2), 121–135. Paechter, C. (2007). Power, knowledge and embodiment in communities of sex/ gender practice. Women’s Studies International Forum Article Filed, 29(1), 13–12. Pavlidis, A., & Fullagar, S. (2013). Narrating the multiplicity of ‘Derby Grrrl’: Exploring intersectionality and the dynamics of affect in roller Derby. Leisure Sciences, 35(5), 422–437. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2013.831286. Pomerantz, S. (2008). Girls, style, and school identities: Dressing the part. New York: Springer. Renold, E., & Ringrose, J. (2013). Feminisms re-figuring ‘sexualisation’, sexuality and ‘the girl. Feminist Theory, 14(3), 247–254. https://doi. org/10.1177/1464700113499531. Rich, E. (2010). Body pedagogies, education and health. Sport, Education and Society, 15(2), 147–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573321003683760. Rich, E. (2018). Gender, health and physical activity in the digital age: Between postfeminism and pedagogical possibilities. Sport, Education and Society, 23(8), 736–747. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2018.1497593. Rich, E., & Evans, J. (2013). Changing times, future bodies? The significance of health in young women’s imagined futures. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 21(1), 5–22. Riley, S., & Evans, A. (2018). Lean light fit and tight: Fitblr blogs and the postfeminist transformation imperative. In K.  Toffoletti, H.  Thorpe, & J.  Francombe-Webb (Eds.), New sporting femininities: Embodied politics in postfeminist times (pp. 207–229). Springer International Publishing. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­72481-­2_10. Ringrose, J. (2007). Successful girls? Complicating post-feminist, neoliberal discourses of educational achievement and gender equality. Gender and Education, 19(4), 471–489. Ringrose, J. (2013). Postfeminist education? Girls and the sexual politics of schooling. Abingdon: Routledge. Scraton, S. (1992). Shaping up to womanhood: Gender and girls’ physical education. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.

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Shilling, C. (2008). Foreword: Body pedagogics, society and schooling. In J. Evans, E. Rich, B. Davies, & R. Allwood (Eds.), Education, disordered eating and obesity discourse: Fat fabrications (pp. ix–xv). London: Routledge. Shilling, C. (2010). Exploring the society–body–school nexus: Theoretical and methodology issues in the study of body pedagogics. Sport, Education and Society, 15(2), 151–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573321003683786. Sykes, H. (2011). Queer bodies: Sexualities, genders and fatness in physical education. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Theberge, N. (1986). Towards a feminist alternative to sport as a male preserve. Sociology of Sport Journal, 3. do not have article, 193–202. Theberge, N. (1987). Sport and Women’s empowerment. Women’s Studies International Forum, 10(4) have article, notebook 5, entry 19, 387–393. Thorpe, H., Toffoletti, K., & Bruce, T. (2017). Sportswomen and social media: Bringing third-wave feminism, Postfeminism, and neoliberal feminism into conversation. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 41(5), 359–383. https://doi. org/10.1177/0193723517730808. Tinning, R., & Glasby, T. (2002). Pedagogical work and the “cult of the body”: Considering the role of HPE in the context of the “new public health”. Sport, Education and Society, 7(2) Notebook 5, entry 56, 109–119. Toffoletti, K., Thorpe, H., & Francombe-Webb, J. (2018). New sporting femininities: Embodied politics in postfeminist times. Springer. Tsaliki, L. (2015). Popular culture and moral panics about ‘children at risk’: Revisiting the sexualisation-of-young-girls debate. Sex Education, 15(5), 500–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2015.1022893. Turnbull, G., & Spence, J. (2011). What’s at risk? The proliferation of risk across child and youth policy in England. Journal of Youth Studies, 14(8), 939–959. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2011.616489. Vilhjalmsson, R., & Kristjansdottir, G. (2003). Gender differences in physical activity in older children and adolescents: The central role of organized sport. Social Science & Medicine, 56. Notebook 3, entry 10. Have article, filed, 363–374. Walkerdine, V. (2009). Biopedagogies and beyond. In J. Wright & V. Harwood (Eds.), Biopolitics and the “obesity epidemic”: Governing bodies (pp. 199–208). New York: Routledge. Walkerdine, V., Lucey, H., & Melody, J. (2001). Growing up girl: Psychosocial explorations of gender and class. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Weiner, G. (1985). Equal opportunities, feminism and girls’ education: Introduction. In G. Weiner (Ed.), Just a bunch of girls (pp. 1–13). Milton Keyes: The Open University Press. Wellard, I. (2006). Able bodies and sport participation: Social constructions of physical ability for gendered and sexually identified bodies. Sport, Education and Society, 11(2), 105–119. Wellard, I. (2012). Body reflexive pleasures: Exploring bodily experiences within the context of sport and physical activity. Sport, Education and Society, 17(1), 21–33. Wetherell, M. (2012). Affect and emotion a new social science understanding. Sage. Retrieved from https://www.dawsonera.com/guard/protected/dawson.jsp?name=https://idp.goldsmiths.ac.uk/idp/shibboleth&dest=http:// www.dawsonera.com/depp/reader/protected/external/AbstractView/ S9781446253656. Williams, A., & Bedward, J. (2002). Understanding girls’ experiences of physical education: Relational analysis and situated learning. In D. Penney (Ed.), Gender and physical education: Contemporary issues and future directions (pp. 146–159). London: Routledge. Williams, A., & Woodhouse, J. (1996). Delivering the discourse: Urban adolescents’ perceptions of physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 1(2), 201–213. Wright, J. (1996). The construction of complementarity in physical education. Gender and Education, 8(1) Have article. notebook 3, entry 20, 61–79. Wright, J., & Dewar, A. (1997). On pleasure and pain: Women speak out about physical activity. In G. Clarke & B. Humberstone (Eds.), Researching women and sport (pp. 80–95). London: Macmillan Press Ltd.. Wright, J., & Harwood, V. (2009). Biopolitics and the “obesity epidemic”: Governing bodies. New York: Routledge. Youdell, D. (2006). Impossible bodies, impossible selves: Exclusions and student subjectivities. Dordrecht: Springer. Young, I. M. (2005). On female body experience: “Throwing like a girl” and other essays. New York: Oxford University Press.

3 Becoming a Sporty Researcher: Gender, Legitimacy and Bodies That Move

In this chapter I look at the embodied experience and process of carrying out physical culture research where both my own and the participants’ bodies-in-motion “came to matter” (Butler 1993) within the research field. This account is situated within wider methodological calls to consider the embodied physicality of both the researcher and the researched by centring the “tacit, sensuous body, its fleshy sinews, its movement and its (in)activity” (Francombe-Webb 2017, p. 183). Accordingly, I engage with my own process of “becoming a sporty researcher” as a particular gendered project located in the nexus of relationships, locations and temporal shifts that characterised the research process. I emphasise the importance of my own body-in-motion as observant participant through the question of legitimacy in and on the field and as materialised through constructions of age, gender and physical ability in particular. I elaborate further on the concept of legitimacy as a means of thinking through how bodies were understood and materialised in the playgrounds, sports fields, gymnasiums and other physical culture settings I researched at, thus drawing together my methodological and theoretical perspectives. This allows me to analyse both the participants’ bodies and my own body as a “locus of politics and praxis” (Giardina and Newman 2018, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Clark, Sporty Girls, New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67249-2_3

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p. 63) within a feminist ethics of power relations. The research is based on two distinct qualitative projects that took place at different points on my research “journey” through my ongoing interest and involvement in girls’ physical cultures and activity settings. Within what follows I firstly consider the role of the body in methodological accounts of feminist and physical culture qualitative research before outlining the qualitative methods used in each project. I then go on to examine the often-­ contradictory ways in which my body and girls’ bodies interacted and were understood as we moved both physically and relationally in the field. Since the research took place in various physical settings, this account of the “research field” as traditional site of ethnographic inquiry is also often literally set in the playing field or playgrounds where the “practices and politics of physically active female bodies” were enacted (Thorpe et al. 2011, p. 107). I take up Francombe-Webb’s (2017, p. 183) suggestion that an embodied analysis of moving methods “opens up potential methodological positions that deal with power relations through which bodies … are (re)productive and (re)producing.” My analysis of such research encounters suggests that my body and the girls’ bodies were bound by hierarchies of age, gender and ability within particular settings. However, the moving interaction of these bodies seemed to open up further spaces of gender criticality as well as enabling further relationships of trust and reciprocity between the researcher and the researched binary, thus troubling this division in some ways.

 ituating the Researcher Through Reflexive, S Moving Bodies Although qualitative methodological approaches to research have long entailed “in depth” accounts of people’s lives through involvement, analysis and discussion, feminist poststructural accounts have further sought to implicate the gendered subjectivity of the researcher within this process (Breeze 2015; Pomerantz 2008; Renold 2005; Skeggs 2002; Youdell 2006). These perspectives have specifically sought to highlight or make transparent the process of self-narration in research accounts through an

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ongoing reflexivity that is attentive to power dynamics as embedded in gendered and other social structures. In so doing, feminist accounts have troubled the idea of a coherent self whose account is able to approximate the “truth” of its perspective. As Skeggs (2002, p.  350) suggests, it is “through the telling of the self that social processes are put into effect.” Therefore, the narrativisation of the research process simultaneously constructs the researched and the researcher. Indeed, the self-narration of my own sporting history is necessarily constructed through the reflections I gathered throughout the research and my relationships with the girls I worked with, where our bodies were located both historically and biographically. Where poststructural perspectives have perhaps been less attentive to the role of the body in research, some accounts have advocated a consideration of fantasy, desire, affect and defences as relational processes in understanding the co-construction of subjectivity within research. Walkerdine et al. (2001, p. 181) suggest that affective readings of their research encounters into gender and class offered insights into how “historically specific subject positions are held in place and the relations, conflicts and contradictions between them experienced both by the subject and as producing the subject.” In research with girls who would be understood as children when I first met them, such an account must simultaneously engage with the process of what Lærke (1998, p.  5) describes as “re-membering” childhood experiences in encounters constituted by size, age and the hierarchies framing these divisions. Children’s and young people’s bodies within social research are often an “absent presence” (Paechter 2006), and methodological accounts within studies of education have more commonly implicated the body through a description of bodily difference within children’s spaces (Epstein 1998; King 1984). Laerke’s (1998) ethnographic account further engages her body through attempting to locate herself at the children’s level both physically and spatially. In the process she writes that her “body was re-arranged, re-­ inscribed with sensations, perspectives and movements which I associated with my childhood” (Laerke 1998, p.  3). This “re-arrangement” provided new insights into the striking power differentials that defined school settings in particular as well as to the pleasures and rituals that characterised children’s physical interactions.

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 mbodied Approaches to Physical E Culture Research Qualitative accounts of physical cultural settings have increasingly centred the body both methodologically and theoretically within a critical, corporeal turn in empirical research (Giardina and Newman 2018; Macphail 2004; Mullins 2014; Orr and Phoenix 2015; Wacquant 2004). Giardina and Donnelly (2017, p. 5) describe this shift as attending to the “carnal, corporeal, and material complexities” through research into bodies that move. In such accounts, research is understood as an embodied activity where physical bodies are located alongside others, drawing attention to the “positioning, visibility and performance” of bodies in these sites (Coffey 1999 quoted in Giardina and Newman 2018, p. 5). Feminist researchers have specifically advocated a politicised account of the body as a means of understanding gendered subjects’ “embodied becomings” as embedded within power relations through which bodies are materialised (Francombe-Webb 2017, p. 183). Such accounts therefore emphasise the pedagogical and political processes in which researchers and research subjects learn about and through their bodies such as neoliberal individuality or the mediated “body beautiful” (Markula 2014). Brown’s account of an action-oriented “hip-hop feminist pedagogy” describes dancing with marginalised black girls as both research method and politicised project, as enacting “so much more than dancing” within a racist, heterosexist social context (Brown 2009, p. 104). Bodily learning within physical culture research therefore emphasises “the nexus of relations” between bodies and context through “culturally distinct ways of moving” and being within such settings (Bailey and Pickard 2010, p. 368). My own physical research encounters of being hit in the face by a ball, of tripping in the mud or of being shouted at by an angry PE teacher sat on a hard gymnasium floor were thus translated through the power relations of these settings and my own feminine, white, “able,” heterosexual body. I experienced this body on the playground, track or sporting event as varyingly “authoritative,” “unable,” “intrusive,” as subject to sexualised scrutiny and sometimes also as cold, tired or otherwise physically uncomfortable. Here I want to explore these

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embodied research encounters as a means of tracing the “assemblage of affective, material and everyday experiences of the moving body” in order to offer up potential methodological insights into how both my own and the girls’ bodies were constituted through power relations (Francombe-­ Webb 2017, p. 183).

Legitimacy, Shame and Gendered Recognition In order to accomplish this I apply Butler’s conceptualisation of legitimacy as a means of linking both gendered and sporting recognition alongside Probyn’s (2000) analysis of shame as the corollary of pride. Probyn suggests that the affective pull of shame and pride underpins the constitution of sporting bodies so that sport in particular offers up a means of connecting “shame, sexuality and the visceral nature of the capacities of the body” (2000, p. 14). Butler (1993, p. 9) conceptualises legitimacy as a form of gendered recognition in which bodies are produced in “a process of materialization that stabilizes over time to produce the effect of boundary, fixity, and surface we call matter.” These acts of recognition (and misrecognition) can be seen to take place within gendered regulatory schemas set within organised sport or more informal playground dynamics infused by power relations including coach/athlete, male/female and able/unable participant among other classifications. As outlined in the previous chapter, the question of sporting legitimacy is a distinctly gendered site of ongoing contestation and struggle based on the sociohistorical exclusion of women from sport and their construction as “other” within this domain. Butler asks how such gendered constraints “not only produce the domain of intelligible bodies, but produce as well a domain of unthinkable, abject, unlivable bodies”(1993, p. xi). This question therefore pertains to which bodies are accorded “value” in particular physical cultures and settings (Evans et al. 2007; Hill and Azzarito 2012). Butler’s conceptualisation of the abject or unlivable attaches to Probyn’s affective analysis of “shame” as underpinning attempts to achieve gender legitimacy and recognition within physical culture and sport settings. As Probyn points out, sport is ultimately a competitive venture that creates comparisons through the construction

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of winners and losers constituted through pride and shame. Probyn describes shame through losing as the “structuring principle of sport,” which produces a constant lack of recurring incompleteness, “the ever-­ incomplete athletic body is a symptom of the logic, the structure of competing” (Heikkala 1993, quoted in Probyn 2000, p. 20). Both gender and sporting legitimacy are intimately tied together in constituting bodies in school and sporting contexts. Being recognised as “the fastest boy in Year 6” or a runner whose prospects were “promising” within an athletics club therefore could convey legitimacy but were set against the fear and shame of being “the last girl to be picked on the team,” a runner whose progress was deemed “disappointing” or a child whose gender was “incorrectly” determined based on their sporting performance. Shame, failure and gender (mis)recognition are thus simultaneously caught up within gendered subjects’ ongoing struggles to define themselves within sporting frameworks from which their bodies have been actively excluded and devalued. In this chapter I focus in particular on my own bodily negotiation of legitimacy within the research settings in an attempt to think through how these spaces worked as sites of contestation, recognition and othering. Just as young women’s bodies within the context of sport as a male-­ dominated practice are frequently read as out of place, “unable,” and fraudulent “space invaders” (Adjepong et al. 2014), so too was my legitimacy as participant and researcher negotiated through my adult, white, female body as interpreted and materialised in the settings. The girls I worked with in both projects occupied a range of Asian, Muslim, white and black British positions that variously intersected with their gender, social class and age within their schooling and sporting projects. Clearly the categorisation of these racialised and ethnicised positions is problematic and lacking in nuance, and yet I employ them here in order to acknowledge their politicised status within a postcolonial context where racialised designations continue to confer privilege, and disadvantage and exclusion (Mirza and Joseph 2013). My own “white other” status (my new category in the British census) was designated by my Canadian “expat” background as a former subject of the British commonwealth who has varyingly benefitted from the privileges bestowed through ongoing postcolonial power relations. I had moved to the UK only six months earlier, in fact, on a rather straightforward visa application. In the research

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settings, however, my accent, whiteness and cultural unfamiliarity contributed to an ongoing insider/outsider negotiation of the customs, practices and assumptions of UK schools and sports clubs, which were both familiar and very different to me in multiple ways. The participants and settings are discussed in further detail after a description of each project and its specific methods.

 roject 1: Girls’ Participation in Sport P Over Time The first research project entailed a qualitative, longitudinal investigation into girls’ participation in sport and physical activity in contexts both in and out of school. Qualitative longitudinal research has come to be recognised as a distinct approach able to capture transitions in people’s lives through moving portraits of processes that occur over time (George 2004; McLeod and Thomson 2009; Saldaña 2003; Thomson 2007). I was able to collect this longitudinal data through my involvement in an earlier Economic and Social Research Council project directed by Carrie Paechter into “Tomboy Identities”1 at primary schools where I worked with children over a year-long period. I subsequently followed up this research with my own investigation into six particularly “sporty” girls from the project as they moved into secondary school. This allowed me to gain key insights into this important transition in many girls’ lives at a point when many girls discontinue their sports participation. In addition to active playground games at the primary schools such as tag and British Bulldog, the girls I worked with were involved in a number of more organised sporting activities including karate, football, cross-­ country running, swimming and cycling, some of which they continued with into secondary school. The ongoing research therefore involved tracing their sports participation as they moved from Year 5 (10–11 yo) to Year 8 (13–14 yo) in schools at divergent locations across London. I negotiated access at their secondary schools having asked each girl if she would like to continue the research. Accessing the schools often involved contacting multiple “gatekeepers” through delayed and protracted

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attempts to collect permission forms from the girls and to gain access from busy teachers who would kindly let me sit in on their PE lessons and extracurricular sport sessions. My role as “observant participant” involved a shifting mix of activities including playtime chase games, hanging out on the playground, accompanying the girls on runs around their local areas and informal participant observation in their afterschool activities including football and a competitive athletics club. Over the following two school years, I carried out 46 observations at PE lessons, school sporting competitions, after school sports clubs and playtimes with each visit lasting at least one hour and sometimes most of the day. I also interviewed each girl approximately twice yearly for a total of 36 interviews and had both interviews and more informal conversations with the girls’ peers, their parents, friends and coaches at their primary and secondary schools as well as various sports clubs. When the girls were in Year 7 (ages 12–13), I interviewed them in groups with friends of their choosing. This involved nine other girls, three of whom went on to do individual interviews with me. Interviews in general explored issues around the girls’ sports involvement including reasons they had left or joined new clubs and teams, their experiences and feelings about PE and sports, and their relationships with coaches and teachers. The longitudinal nature of the research meant being able to develop a rich and empathetic understanding of changes and decisions over time as the girls matured and shifted schools, friendships and interests. After our Year 7 interviews, I noted how much the girls had grown physically, suddenly seeming to look more like young women. Over the years I watched their transitions and choices with admiration and sometimes dismay, when they described uncomfortable or upsetting situations they had experienced. Over this period I also experienced many changes myself across my own sporting, personal and academic relationships. I gave up football following a knee injury and turned to running instead. I subsequently trained as a running coach and coached a girls’ running group before stopping due to maternity leave, later attempting to squeeze in my own training around bedtimes and my first full-time academic position. By carrying out research over a key transition in many young women’s lives, the empirical data collected provides valuable and significant

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insights into the “processual and temporal themes” that come to frame girls’ sports participation as it unfolds over time (Thomson 2011, p. 15). As Thomson (2011) suggests, qualitative longitudinal research such as this allows a shift in thinking from synchronic or “static” portraits of social structure towards diachronic analyses that prioritise themes of social change. She describes a process of “walking alongside” research subjects as they make choices that reflect the interaction of “agency, structure and serendipity” (Thomson 2011, p. 14). Thomson argues that longitudinal research can specifically capture the individual, reflexive “subject in process,” as situated in wider projects of schooling, families, gender and other social processes (Thomson 2011, p.  16). Drawing on this framework, I am able to explore themes of risk, familiarity, responsibility, relationships and changing gender dynamics within a postfeminist landscape that is challenging our understandings of what it means to be both a “sporty girl” and a “girl” more broadly. Through particular and ongoing attention to the experiences of these six girls over four years as well as their friends and peers, I examine the complexities of wider issues around girls’ sports participation as they occurred within gendered and educational pathways. This book therefore involves a revisiting of some data that has been previously published, however, with renewed attention to girls’ individual narratives as they unfolded over time through perspectives grounded in “depths, contradiction and trust” (Thomson 2011, p. 17). I have further drawn on previously unpublished data that attempts to add a more rounded portrait of each participant as well as adding insights from a second project that emerged out of the first. The second project involved interviews and observations with girls and coaches involved in a running group that I had helped establish after the first project. Details of the methods for this research are described in more detail in Chap. 7, which also outlines some of the findings of this project.

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 ata Analysis and Feminist Dilemmas D in Transformative Agendas In each project, interview and observation data was transcribed and then coded thematically using NVivo in the first project, and written coding and highlighting in the second. The translation of girls’ “voices” in interviews, as subsequently transcribed and analysed by feminist researchers, raises multiple questions around authorship and ownership which relate to a feminist ethic of care (Currie et  al. 2007). In later interviews I attempted to follow up with themes through “recycling descriptions”(Lather 1991, p.  61) in a cyclical process of concept refinement (Strauss and Corbin 2005). Rather than seeking data “saturation,” a longtitudinal approach allowed me to build up increasingly “thick” descriptions in a process that “resists analytic closure” (Thomson 2011, p.  25). While firmly situated in a feminist critique of gendered power relations, my first research project did not explicitly seek to “empower” girls, even if our mutual insights and understandings shifted over the process of both enunciation and interpretation. Feminist approaches to research have consistently interrogated power relations within the research process and have advocated reciprocity as a means of “giving something back” to participants in the form of sharing information or small material benefits (Lather 1991; Oakley 2005). Currie et al. (2007) explore the meaning negotiation that took place in their research with girls who rejected a “feminist” label, yet held actions and beliefs that often revealed a feminist sensibility and critical orientation. Rather than attempting to effect change in their participants, the authors attempt to justify girls’ self-­ positionings and to highlight their already critical stances towards gender inequality or stereotyping. Similarly in my own research, I found that engagement with participants was both pressing and potentially problematic, and I was reluctant to initially identify myself as a feminist to girls in each study. I have been involved coaching girls’ games, taking them to practise outside of school and volunteering in community sports programmes designed for girls, yet did not position my research as overtly “empowering.” The girls also knew about my own involvement in football and running and often

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asked me about it. Over the course of the research, I suggest that the girls were aware of the feminist intent of my research and picked up on comments and perspectives of mine without the need for explicit detailing. This was evidenced through their reporting to me of racist and sexist incidents they perceived in their schools and clubs, for example. On one occasion when I explained my research to the Year 7 PE class who I would be observing, one girl anxiously asked what I would say if I found that “girls aren’t doing enough sports.” Her concerns echoed individualised accounts of girls’ activity participation circulated in media and policy discourses. One of my key participants who was in the class interjected, “Sheryl wouldn’t do that,” thus attempting to justify the girl-centred approach that I myself had never explicitly marked out to participants. The girls’ evolving understanding of my research aims also stood in contrast to the interpretations of my research by some of their coaches or teachers—who seemed to interpret my research agenda as “coach in training” or as someone who would solve for them the problem of individual girls’ engagement. Sharing my findings and initial analyses did sometimes lead to further discussion, if not explicit action. During an interview, I suggested that the school might be hypocritical in claiming to be a “healthy school” but not providing the girls with outdoor space to run around on at break time. The idea of hypocrisy seemed to chime with Nirvana when I checked back on some of my analyses. Nirvana: Yeah, I think that all makes sense. Like you’re telling me things that I didn’t actually realise. Yeah, that’s really interesting. Sheryl: Like what? Nirvana: Like they’re being hypocritical. I didn’t see it that way, I just thought they were being really mean. But yeah, that makes sense. (Year 8 interview, age 14) I note later that I felt slightly uncomfortable, “probing” Nirvana for responses to my initial analyses. If she did not agree with me, would she say so? The imposition of a particular analysis seemed to demand of her an enlightened response to my criticism of her school’s practices. Later,

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Nirvana reflected further on the notion of hypocrisy, relating the situation to the wearing of inappropriate school kit on a cold day which she felt was similarly unjust as it highlighted the power differential between the girls and their teachers. Yet despite my desire to point towards structural and institutional issues around their involvement, the girls were often keen to accept personal responsibility for any decisions they had made, thus confirming their agency. My task was therefore to produce an analysis that continued to “grant full subjectivity” (Lather 1991) whilst situating these accounts with the overriding contexts and discourses that limited and constrained those choices. In their process of joint analysis with girls, Oliver and Lalik (2001, p.  33) describe their attempts to respect girls’ views “even when they were quite different from what we had hoped they would be.” As their account of the research process entails, the negotiation of meaning is never simple or straightforward. Similarly, Skeggs (1997) emphasises the ultimate authority and responsibility for the feminist text as remaining with the researcher. Attempts to discuss ideas and interpretations with her participants led to new insights and understandings but were also divided by differential access to an academic framework. As Skeggs (1997) concedes, the women’s interpretations did not always accord with her own and she could only approach the negotiation of meaning through an ethical stance anchored in honesty and humility, as I also attempted.

Ethical Considerations Perspectives in childhood and feminist studies have consistently argued that research with children and young people bears specific ethical and methodological considerations that take into account power differentials (Alderson and Morrow 2004; Darbyshire et  al. 2005; Morrow 2008; Punch 2002; Thomson 2008). Although research was carried out in accordance with the British Educational Research Association (BERA) guidelines and the research protocols of the University of London, ethical issues around representation, reciprocity and informed consent are considered throughout the methodological discussion as they were present throughout the research. Pseudonyms have been used for all schools,

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settings and participants in order to ensure confidentiality. In the first project, girls chose their own pseudonyms at the age of ten, and these names represent both their creativity and interests at the time, though not necessarily their ethnicity as one Asian participant chose an “anglicised name.” The racialised power dynamics that may informed such choices are explored further in Chaps. 4, 5, and 6. Young people have been considered a “vulnerable” category due to their position both as minors and as research participants (BERA 2018; McCarry 2005). Kirsch (2005) makes a useful distinction between friendship and “friendliness” in feminist fieldwork, particularly as it relates to young women who may be eager to please. I often found the girls keen to help and had to take care that they were not forced to mediate my role in the schools. In each project, the participants provided verbal consent to their participation and written consent was obtained from each girl’s parent or guardian. Permission for classroom observations was sought via the school, which meant the head teacher in each case. Feedback to the schools was generalised to the extent that individual girls were not recognisable or attributed with any particular comments. A special consideration in longitudinal research involves the continual negotiation of consent and a responsibility on my part to ensure that girls felt able to withdraw at any point should they wish to. This both involved me checking in with the girls on their feelings about the research and also renegotiating access so that they could unobtrusively withdraw without having to justify this to me to a great extent. One girl decided to discontinue the research at the end of Year 7, but agreed that I could still feature her story until that point. Thus, ethical considerations were ongoing, as is demonstrated in the following sections in which I map out an embodied feminist ethics grounded in the question of legitimacy.

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 odily Difference and Physical Legitimacy B on the Playground Butler (1993) contends that bodies come to matter or materialise within sets of regulations situated in particular sociohistorical contexts where they are varyingly valued and legitimised. She writes that “bodies only appear, only endure, only live within the productive constraints of certain highly gendered regulatory schemas” (Butler 1993, p. xi). Accordingly, I attempt to outline here the particular schema of bodies at my research settings before exploring further how my own body figured or was materialised in these settings. Playgrounds, athletics tracks and other settings where physical cultures are enacted can be seen to materialise bodies in particular ways as these bodies sweat, trip or fall, submit to disciplined training, experience pain or joy, and move and sometimes collide with one another. The lined tarmac, dirt, grass, and wire mesh and vertical bar fences of these research spaces simultaneously contain, constrain and reproduce bodies that run, kick balls, chase each other and hide or seek solace in vantages where they can observe others or try to avoid being observed. The longitudinal project was conducted initially at two primary schools both located in London. The first school, Benjamin Laurence, was an inner city located in an imposing Victorian building and serving an ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged intake of students. The playing fields had long since been sold off and replaced by gated tarmac with designated play areas dominated by lined football pitches. The second primary school, Holly Bank, was located in a wealthier outer suburb of London in a new building surrounded by wide playing fields and including designated football pitches within the playground where other games took up the periphery of this space. Various research on school playgrounds have described these sites as particularly marked out by divisions of size, gender and status and as subject to gender “transgressions” (McGuffey and Rich 1999) as well as ongoing gender “border work” (Thorne 1993). Playground football in particular has been seen to mark out designations of an “exclusive hegemonic masculinity” based on performances of bodily skill and aggression (Clark and Paechter 2007;

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Renold 2006; Swain 2000; Wellard 2012, p. 105). At each school playground, football took up most of the outdoor space and female players were positioned as inconvenient interlopers or as honorary “tomboys” (Paechter and Clark 2007). The secondary schools were located nearby to the primaries and served similar intakes. At the two mixed secondary schools, football was confined to a caged area, whereas at the single-sex girls’ schools active play was actively discouraged at break times since no running was allowed. As part of the longitudinal project and then for the second research project, I also worked with two athletics clubs: here named Champions AC and Beckton AC.  Both clubs trained at local athletics tracks in London and focused on a number of track and field events. Champions AC had a much larger youth division and was able to rely on the financial and practical support of middle-class parents for fees and transport. Beckton AC was located in a more deprived borough of London and had a much less-structured youth division although one coach ran a group comprising up to ten boys competing at high levels in longer distance races. The prestige of both clubs rested on the elite performances of (mostly) adult, male bodies and operated through racialised distinctions between the primarily black sprinting groups and the primarily white distance training groups (Adjepong et  al. 2014). The clubs were also structured through the protective and surveillant relationships engendered through adult/child interactions and hierarchies including safeguarding procedures and adult investments in competitive performances (MacPhail et al. 2003; Stafford et al. 2015). My moving body can be seen to have materialised in these settings in particular ways in relation to the ongoing gender and age regulations at each site and the ways in which legitimacy was understood here within insider/outsider negotiations (Silverman 2006). The body was central in these negotiations, and my interactions were further inflected by the differing relationships with the young people there and the adults who mediated these settings. My attempt at navigating this differential was initially reflected in my difficulties in deciding what to wear. Girls would frequently comment on my clothing as a bonding exercise, asking me where I had purchased them and expressing their admiration. In her research into girls’ identity and dress, Pomerantz (2008, p. 2) describes

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clothing as a form of “social skin” and thus similarly describes agonising over what to wear in her research into girls’ dress where “how you look” was equated with “who you are.” Although I initially attempted a look that would accord me some kind of professional legitimacy, this made it more difficult to interact with the children, and I quickly found that this clothing was inappropriate for joining in with their playtime games. On one occasion at Champions running club, I arrived straight from a conference in make-up and smart clothes only to receive flirtatious overtones from one of the coaches. I decided to come the next time bare faced in a track suit and trainers, allowing me to join in with the girls on their warm-up runs. The older girls’ ability to run with straightened hair, full make-up and belly button rings flashing on exposed midriffs often surprised me and was duly recorded in my notebooks in some detail. Male coaches at the club had complained that girls’ dress contributed to the harassment the group had experienced while warming up in the local area, where older men had called out inappropriate remarks. The gendered regulatory schema at Champions AC was therefore framed around an uncomfortable tension between objectified and performing bodies (Lunde and Gattario 2017) within a heteronormative imperative which concurrently straddled a vulnerable/seductive binary characterising discourses of children’s sexuality (Renold 2005). Girls’ bodies, which often ran very quickly past male onlookers and casual joggers, disrupted assumptions about those bodies and their physical capabilities by simultaneously citing and rearticulating the active/passive binary which regulates gender in physical cultural settings. My attempts to shift the gaze, in this setting, were somewhat paradoxically linked to attempting to gain sporting legitimacy—to shift from passive to active body by changing my clothing and thus my ability to take part in the training. Girls at the schools and the athletics club also often asked me about my sports participation as a means of both establishing common ground and attempting to understand my research intentions. In the changing room where we were sheltering from the wind before practice, Jessica asked me “so you do triathlon?” I was surprised she knew that. In fact I have only signed up for one. I had mentioned it to [Spirit’s mother] the other

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week and she must have told Spirit who told her friend. (Fieldnotes, Champions Running Club)

Legitimacy in the running club was thus interpreted on the basis of sporting interests and a hierarchical valuing of skilled physical performances. Although sporting ability held a similar form of recognition and legitimacy in the primary school settings, this was interrupted somewhat by age hierarchies. At Holly Bank School my involvement in football was initially “outed” by a male school governor who had also coincidentally refereed a football match I played at the weekend. Shortly afterwards, he posted a photo of me in full match kit with my football team on the research classroom wall. I had not thought to tell the children that I played football, and they seemed suitably impressed. Much to my surprise, the highest status boy in the class asked me several questions about the photo and my position on the team. This was a rare moment of interaction with this child whose status in the class largely revolved around his footballing abilities. However, although dress and accounts of sporting participation seemed to confer some kind of legitimacy in the field, these interactions shifted as I engaged more physically in the settings.

The Moving Researcher As time passed in each setting, I became increasingly comfortable with setting aside my notebook and participating in activities alongside the children or young people. Concurrently, my moving, active body became increasingly “organized, represented, and experienced in relation to the operations of power” (Andrews 2008 quoted in Giardina and Donnelly 2017, p. 4). I suggest that as my moving body became increasingly participatory in these settings, these power operations shifted somewhat my interactions with the young people, in particular, and provided different glimpses into how bodies were legitimised in these settings and which identity “markers” were particularly significant in setting up these distinctions. At the primary schools, my interactions with the children frequently involved observing their games at playtime where I was occasionally

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roped in as referee or commentator and sometimes as participant when they were short of a player. At Holly Bank School I never felt comfortable joining in the playground football which was dominated by boys in a fiercely guarded enforcement of playground boundaries. I did, however, become caught up in a series of playground races that had been instigated in the lead-up to sports day. Boys in particular would often challenge me to a playground race, and although I initially resisted these challenges, I finally gave in on one particular occasion. After racing [several children] in a series of playground races, Lucy wants to see me race Humphrey. They pull him over from relay training and challenge him to a race with me. By this time I have sprinted four races and it’s hot and I’m getting tired but they are keen on having us race as the “ultimate” test of my speed. We agree on a finish line and although I touch the fence just ahead of Humphrey his friend announces that we have “tied.” However, when I go into the classroom to get my water bottle Spirit says she saw me beat Humphrey with a big smile on her face. Several children similarly congratulate me on my “victory” and Joanna calls to me “Sheryl, come here. You beat Humphrey in a race? Oh my God!” (Fieldnotes, Holly Bank School)

I later wrote about my embarrassment over the incident and the indignity of competing against children when failure might signal ineptitude and victory an over-investment. I did not, at that point, reflect on Humphrey’s possible shame in this experience or on the children’s collective, gleeful pride in shaming a classmate who they complained in interviews had frequently bullied them. Probyn (2000) argues that shame is something meant to be hidden and therefore its exposure only heightens its affective intensity. She draws on Tomkins who alludes to the formative experience of shame in forging childhood biographies of loss and disappointment. He writes, “the child must hide shame lest he [sic] betray his [sic] lack of persistence and lack of will to achieve and succeed” (Tomkins and Alexander 1995, quoted in Probyn 2000, p. 22). It is, of course, unsurprising that a researcher in her twenties might be able to beat a child of 11 in a race, and yet, the incident took on an almost legendary status in the school because of his high social status and reputation as the “fastest boy in Year 6” and several boys continued to challenge me to subsequent races.

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Shame in this instance therefore marked boundaries between adult/child but also victory/loss located in the affective field of (in)competence/mastery and the peer hierarchies and power struggles that characterised daily interactions for the children. At Benjamin Laurence School where girls’ presence on the football pitch was much more accepted, an impromptu game of shots on goal with another girl was met with an incredulous “you kick like a boy!” directed at me. This gender troubling similarly took place at a football tournament, where children shouted “that’s a girl?!” at a particularly skilled child on the other team whose hat hid their hair and thus attempts at immediate gender classification. Adult attempts at joining in with children are, of course, subject to challenges of physical legitimacy and many of the activities the children did I could not physically manage such as sliding down narrow playground slides or swinging upside down on the monkey bars as many of the girls liked to do. When a group of girls invited me to their swimming birthday party at the weekend, I was summarily reminded of the limits of my participation in their friendship and physical cultures and had to regrettably decline. However, in the racing and kicking examples my adult body seemed less a limitation in my participation and it was my gendered body which was read as “out of place” within such interactions. In the intensely competitive settings of the school playground where sporting ability also conveyed social status, performances of sporting ability were simultaneously coded as masculine and thus unavailable or remarkable for a female body. In these instances, physical ability was not legitimised through the female body and therefore skilled female bodies were read as unintelligible. However, although gendered bodies were marked out in particular ways, their capacity to take up space, to run quickly or to kick a ball can be seen to trouble the normative gender schema in some ways by, as Butler (1993, p. 3) suggests, disrupting and thereby “rearticulat[ing] the very terms of symbolic legitimacy and intelligibility.” The movement of bodies in the spaces of playground and playing fields can be seen as one way in which these terms were being negotiated and creatively reworked.

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 hysical Competence in a High-Stakes Context: P Bodily Learning on the Track The relative ease with which I was able to demonstrate sporting competence within the primary schools was not then reflected in the competitive running club that I began researching when the girls entered Year 7. Some of the difficulties in establishing myself there as a credible researcher seemed to rest in my assumptions that it would be much like observing in a school. Teachers and students alike, who were used to having various observers around at any time, often overlooked my presence in schools, along with my notebook. At the running club, however, the use of a notebook seemed to add to the already intense surveillance in perhaps uncomfortable ways, and I found participation in some running drills and a “helper” role as more suited to the context than overt note-taking. In fact, I never really found a comfortable “role” at Champions running club, and I began to feel sick to my stomach each week as the hour approached for my visit. At the time I credited this to my failure as a fieldworker in establishing rapport and access. Later, I began to reflect on the pressure, surveillance and defensiveness of the environment that was not conducive to hospitality and acceptance as its overriding ethos. The overt competitiveness of the club made both parents and girls suspicious of one another, and the relentless pressure to achieve running results made it difficult to relax or be friendly to newcomers and perceived outsiders. Out of this initial displacement, the issue of physical competence or “running ability” took on a growing importance in my attempts to establish myself at the club. My own running pursuits and recent membership in a local athletics club seemed potentially useful in proving my “credentials,” but I was also a novice at this sport. In a strange encounter that brought my research and personal lives together, I found myself running my first cross-country race in the same league as some of the girls in my study. As we stood in our vests and running shorts waiting for the starting gun, arms bared and goose pimpled in the cold, I looked over to see a mother and assistant coach standing next to me. “How long have you been running?” she asked. Suddenly I felt I could somehow “prove” myself to the members of a club where I

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had thus far felt awkward and intrusive through “performance credentials” as described in Macphail’s (2004, p. 233) ethnography of an athletics club. I set off much too fast and found myself ill and disappointed in both my folly and my race strategy afterwards. This was a self-imposed pressure but one that might be said to stem from my ongoing discomfort at the club and the difficulties of establishing myself as a “credible” researcher there amidst the demanding parents and performance-oriented coaches. This competitive, performance-based ethos was clearly evident at the club where young people were sorted into “pacing” groups and entered into races based on their most recent performances. During my observations I frequently heard coaches complain about girls who were not performing to the standards they expected with concerns expressed that poor performances were “an embarrassment” to the club or that a particular girls’ progress was “disappointing.” The girls overtly sensed these hierarchies and told me indignantly that their head coach “clearly picks favourites based on who’s fastest.” They contrasted this with an assistant coach they claimed “gives everyone a chance.” Their claims seemed to register a concern that they be recognised as individuals rather than as competitive, performing bodies. Research has documented how young people’s experiences of competitive sport are frequently framed by adult investments in success that expose children to a “negative culture” of criticism and harm (Stafford et al. 2015). At the time I found it difficult to imagine running under that kind of scrutiny and would surely have given up under similar pressure. This competitive ethos similarly haunted my attempts to bond with the girls through participation in their drills where I was keen to downplay my abilities lest I fall short of expectations. After suggesting it to their coach, I tell the girls I’m going to come along on their warm-up but add that they’re “probably faster than I am.” “We’re not fast” one of the girls tells me. We take a long route around the park, cutting through the woods at one point and then back around the park area. Finally, the parent coach has us do “catch up sprints” where we run in a line of two and have to sprint to catch up to the front when we get to the back of the queue. To my surprise, he pairs me with one of the girls and we run alongside

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one another. I am caught somewhere between wanting to keep up and not wanting to go too fast so that it looks like I’m showing off. As the younger girls finish their set, their coach comments on the difficulties of motivating and pushing the girls. “They have to hurt” he tells me. (Fieldnotes, Champions Running Club)

The emphasis on pain here is a clear feature of the performative body model where winning and performance are prioritised above wellbeing (Shilling 2008; Theberge 2006). Reflecting back on this excerpt, I am struck by how my attempt to downplay my running abilities was often echoed by the girls who were frequently reluctant to declare their running competence and were more likely to express embarrassment or modesty over very impressive physical achievements. Here the girls are quick to also downplay their abilities “we’re not that fast” in a sort of competitive humility with me. Humility as a gendered effect has been linked to a “tyranny of niceness” amongst girls (Hey 1997) and is here deployed as a strategy to avoid the shame of “not being fast enough.” Humility is thus bound up in the provisionality and illegitimacy of female bodies within male-dominated sporting contexts. My decision to participate in the warm-up run on this occasion was, however, strongly mediated by the parent coach who decided to effectively have me race against the other girls, thus positioning me as novice runner rather than adult researcher. That the girls were frequently pitted against each other in this overtly competitive environment made this occasion particularly problematic since it involved potentially “showing up” the girls, whom I was hoping to bond with. On another occasion when no parent coaches were available, I was asked to step into this alternate role by leading the girls around the park. I did not actually know the route and therefore simply accompanied the girls in what became a much less fraught interaction. In the woods I trip on a root or something and fall, grazing my knee and getting dirty in the process. Two of the girls carry on but the others ask me if I’m okay. I don’t answer at first and then say that I’m fine, just embarrassed and Jessica says “Don’t worry, it’s nothing any of us haven’t done.” (Fieldnotes, Champions running club)

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Here falling, and its connotations of incompetence, initially seemed to contrast with my role as adult helper in this scenario, thus engendering feelings of shame for me amidst the mud and roots. Yet Jessica’s empathetic intervention seemed to signal a shift in the power dynamics that normally characterised girls’ interactions with their coaches and helpers. Coaches frequently stood on the periphery of the girls’ movements, shouting out their times and encouraging them to speed up in performative judgements set against their peers. In this instance, however, the girls lead me through the forest and Jessica “coaches” me through a shared identification whereby falling, and failure, are frequent and normalised features of the long distance, cross-country runner. In her conclusion, Probyn (2000, p. 25) suggests that shame is not simply a negative, paralysing or guilt-inducing affect, but it can also operate as “the principle by which our bodies can be felt in their materiality and multiplicity.” This reflexive possibility she suggests, of “experiencing of the self by the self,” opens up a space for empathy, by sensitising us to dignity and shame of others within an “ethics of existence” (Probyn 2000, p. 24). My experience of falling seemed to shift, at least momentarily, my positional relationship with the girls from evaluative observer, or competitor, towards a body that could also experience shame, judgement and failure.

Discussion and Conclusion This chapter began with the suggestion that a reflexive account of the researcher’s embodied physicality within the research process might attend more carefully to the ongoing micropolitics of bodies as they are constituted through hierarchical relations within a feminist ethics of power. These insights also offer up a glimpse into the interconnectedness of the findings and the methodology, which wove together inextricably through the writing process. I suggest that although my own and participants’ bodies were constituted within the regulatory gendered schemas of each research site, our shared movements and physical interactions continuously worked to reconstitute these spaces through our material bodies. My (re)narrativised experiences clearly reflect some of the hierarchies that regulated

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children’s bodies but also reveal some of the possibilities of how the moving body might interrupt or otherwise trouble gendered norms. The various research settings and the insights gathered there provide a clear indication of the importance of context and place within girls’ physical activity participation. In the primary schools where football provided such an important means of hierarchy and status, my physical performances of sporting “ability” in football and running were read as particularly out of place and surprising. These interactions therefore document the ongoing significance of heteronormativity in mediating young people’s take-up of physical activity as well as suggesting some of the ways in which these constructions might be challenged. In the athletics club the coaching and training structure meant that girls were more overtly pitted against one another through consistent competition and the threat of demotion, rendering their own confidence in their abilities unstable and often at odds with their tentative relationships with one another. As “county champs” the club invested heavily in adult models of sporting success, often propping up male coaching egos in the process. My abilities in running were more overtly called into question by both the coaches and myself at the club, and this seemed to echo the girls’ constant habit of downplaying their own abilities. The research examples speak to some of the gendered struggles of physical legitimacy within the masculinised domain of sport including impractical clothing and footwear, the pressure of performance and the enduring presence of the heteronormative gaze. The analysis of affective relations of shame within the settings provides insights into the processes through which bodies are mutually constituted in physical cultures where distinctions between object and subject become blurred. This allows an alternative conception of embodiment, with “an eye to the intricate reflections of the relation of body to body, self to self, shame to pride” (Probyn 2000, p. 25). Following Probyn’s suggestion, I have attempted to ground conceptual arguments about embodiment in daily experience through the lens of shame and legitimacy by prioritising connections among bodies in relations of shame or other under-acknowledged affective registers. The research also suggests that the limitations I experienced in attempting to embody legitimacy within the research settings were more strongly tied to gender than age, confirming that physical activity participation is

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a particularly gendered construct. The children at school and even the girls at the running club were often keen to include me in their activities and would even overlook my age in their assessment of my abilities. However, the gendering of my body as female proved to be more significant in the construction of a sense of both capacity and legitimacy within both the primary school settings and the running club. This suggests that gendered and sporting legitimacy in the field is something that must be continually demonstrated as it remains subject to interrogation. Finally, the research offers up some ethical considerations about the practice of carrying out research in contexts where children are strongly regulated by adult hierarchies and power imbalances. I hoped that what I saw as my position as advocate of the girls (in whatever choices they made about their sporting participation) came across to them particularly in my refusal to “blame” girls for their sporting disinvestment, which is an approach too often taken by mediating adults. Yet, this is unlikely for all of the participants I came into contact with. The “ethical body” and its bids for legitimacy can, in Probyn’s (2000, p.  24) words, “refigure the connections between bodies, subjectivities and politics” by calling into question the processes whereby young people’s bodies in particular are constituted as docile, lacking or otherwise “out of place.” The following chapters describe girls’ attempts to navigate these physical cultural settings where their bodies were subject to similar and ongoing interrogations of legitimacy and where their non-adult status did not allow them to opt out as easily as I could or did on occasion.

Note 1. “Tomboy identities: the construction and maintenance of active girlhoods.” ESRC project number RES-00-22-1032.

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Markula, P. (2014). The moving body and social change. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 14(5), 483–495. https://doi. org/10.1177/1532708614541892. McCarry, M. (2005). Conducting social research with young people: Ethical considerations. In T. Skinner & M. Hester (Eds.), Researching gender violence: Feminist methodology in action (pp.  87–104). Abingdon and New York: Routledge. McGuffey, C.  S., & Rich, B.  L. (1999). Playing in the gender transgression zone: Race, class, and hegemonic masculinity in middle childhood. Gender and Society, 13(5), 608–627. McLeod, J., & Thomson, R. (2009). Researching social change: Qualitative approaches. London: Sage. Mirza, H. S., & Joseph, C. (2013). Black and postcolonial feminisms in new times: Researching educational inequalities. London: Routledge. Morrow, V. (2008). Ethical dilemmas in research with children and young people about their social environments. Children’s Geographies, 6(1), 49–61. Mullins, P. (2014). The commonplace journey methodology: Exploring outdoor recreation activities through theoretically-informed reflective practice. Qualitative Research, 14(5), 567–585. Oakley, A. (2005). Interviewing women: A contradiction in terms? In A. Oakley (Ed.), The Ann Oakley reader: Gender, women and social science (pp. 217–231). London: The Policy Press. Oliver, K., & Lalik, R. (2001). The body as curriculum: Learning with adolescent girls. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 33(3) (Have article. Notebook 3, entry 21), 303–333. Orr, N., & Phoenix, C. (2015). Photographing physical activity: Using visual methods to “grasp at” the sensual experiences of the ageing body. Qualitative Research, 15(4), 454–472. Paechter, C. (2006). Reconceptualising the gendered body: Learning and constructing masculinities and femininities in school. Gender and Education, 18(2), 121–135. Paechter, C., & Clark, S. (2007). Who are tomboys and how do we recognise them? Women’s Studies International Forum, 30(4), 342–354. Pomerantz, S. (2008). Girls, style, and school identities: Dressing the part. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Probyn, E. (2000). Sporting bodies: Dynamics of shame and pride. Body and Society, 6(13), 13–28.

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Punch, S. (2002). Research with children: The same or different from research with adults? Childhood, 9(3), 321–341. Renold, E. (2005). Girls, boys and junior sexualities: Exploring children’s gender and sexual relations in the primary school. New  York: Routledge Falmer Own the book. Renold, E. (2006). “They won’t let us play...Unless you’re going out with one of them”: Girls, boys and Butler’s “heterosexual matrix” in the primary years. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27(4), 489–509. Saldaña, J. (2003). Longitudinal qualitative research: Analyzing change through time. Walnut Creek, CA: Rowman Altamira. Shilling, C. (2008). Changing bodies: Habit, crisis and creativity. London: Sage. Silverman, D. (2006). Interpreting qualitative data (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Skeggs, B. (1997). Formations of class and gender: Becoming respectable. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Skeggs, Bev. (2002). Techniques for telling the reflexive self. In T. May (Ed.), Qualitative research in action (pp. 349–375). London: Sage. Retrieved from http://research.gold.ac.uk/13712/. Stafford, A., Alexander, K., & Fry, D. (2015). ‘There was something that wasn’t right because that was the only place I ever got treated like that’: Children and young people’s experiences of emotional harm in sport. Childhood, 22(1), 121–137. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568213505625. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (2005). Grounded Theory Methodology: An Overview. Handbook of Qualitative Research. Swain, J. (2000). “The Money’s good, the Fame’s good, the girls are good”: The role of playground football in the construction of young boys’ masculinity in a junior school. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 21(1) In notebook 3, entry 1. Have article, 95–109. Theberge, N. (2006, November 28). ‘It’s not about health, it’s about performance’: Sport medicine, health, and the culture of risk in Canadian sport. Physical Culture, Power, and the Body; Routledge. https://doi.org/10.432 4/9780203014653-­18. Thomson, R. (2007). The qualitative longitudinal case history: Practical, methodological and ethical reflections | social policy and society | Cambridge core. Retrieved from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/social-­policy-­and-­ society/ar ticle/qualitative-­l ongitudinal-­c ase-­h istor y-­p ractical-­ methodological-­and-­ethical-­reflections/9C3A6A83FDC2B0477D2A1DAC 5A22745B.

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4 A Good Education: School Achievement, Sport and Becoming a Successful Girl

This chapter focuses in particular on girls’ educational and sporting trajectories at the transition to secondary school as embedded within family relations and future expectations. Sport, education and family are here seen to operate as “fields of existence” or spaces through which projects of self are constructed as they acquire and hold significance in young people’s lives (Thomson 2011, p. 45). As girls in the research attempted to navigate the transition to secondary school with their families, the role of sport in their understandings of “successful girlhood” came particularly to the fore. I locate these understandings within what the girls and their parents commonly described as “a good education,” which held conceptions of available pathways and choices. In Chap. 2 I outlined how ideas of a “well educated girl” have shifted significantly over the last century from those of marriageability to those of capability, as embodied in the “can do” successful girl (McRobbie 2007, 2009). Within this formulation, education has become a key endowment of constructions of “successful girlhood” and thus an important personalised project through which young women are expected to forge their own “choice biographies.” Here these biographies are further explored through the girls’ accounts of schooling, sport and “growing up.” This chapter focuses in © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Clark, Sporty Girls, New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67249-2_4

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particular on the narratives of Lindsay, Gazza and Spirit and their attempts to balance affective investments in sporting, schooling and family commitments through their ongoing gender projects located within/ against a notion of “successful girlhood.”

 uccessful Girls and the Achievement Agenda S in Schools Over the past several decades, a successful girls discourse has come to dominate popular understandings and school policy into gender and education within an increasingly performative educational climate (Arnot et al. 1999; Francis 2000; Ringrose 2013). Its construction rests upon the instrumentalisation of girls’ academic achievements in order to claim that girls are no longer in need of anti-sexist policies since they are outperforming boys academically (Ringrose 2007). Multiple critiques of the successful girls’ discourse have pointed out that in fact only some girls are achieving well in certain subjects; however, the effect of this discourse has been to create the expectation that all girls will/should achieve academically as “ideal” students. Therefore, some research has considered how the construction of a successful girls discourse has been juxtaposed simultaneously with constructions of “problem girls” who have failed to take the merits of education seriously (Lloyd 2005; Tamboukou and Ball 2002). Recent feminist research has also begun to focus on the role of education in securing “can do” subjectivities within a postfeminist landscape focused on personal accomplishments and academic achievements (Allan 2009; Baker 2010; Gonick 2003; Jackson 2006; Ringrose 2013). Ringrose’s (2013, p. 1) work traces further the operation of postfeminism in schools as it has shaped policies and media analyses of gendered debates in education within what she terms the “sexual politics of schooling.” She argues that this discourse has functioned to individualise girls’ achievements while at the same time deflecting attention away from the ongoing sexual violence and objectification girls face in schools. Pomerantz and Raby’s (2017) research in Canada explores the construction of “smart girl” subjectivities among intensively pressurised young women attempting to

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balance “well-rounded” achievement through good grades, voluntary work, sporting or other extracurricular achievements and social popularity. They focus both on the social/psychic toll on girls who attempt to manage this near impossible feat of endless and seemingly effortless achievement and the structural inequalities that make this much easier for some girls than others. This body of work has therefore both implicated the classed and racialised inequalities that beset access to educational “success” as well as exploring the effects of gendered expectations on individual girls. Achievement discourses and the ways in which they are gendered can be further contextualised through what Ball (2003b, 2008) describes as the “performative” climate of schooling environments. Ball suggests that as schools have been increasingly subject to neoliberal reforms, a managerialist emphasis on achievement and performance has come to dominate understandings of value and purpose within education. As Evans and Davies (2004, p. 10) note, “schools today are increasingly steered by the barren managerial mantras of liberal individualism—achievement, assessment and accountability.” Ball emphasises the role of performativity in this process of regulation as it comes to define both schools and the identities constructed within them. He defines performativity as a regime of accountability in which quantified measures of “quality, judgment, and productivity” come to “stand for, encapsulate or represent the worth, quality or value of an individual or organisation within a field of judgment” (Ball 2008, p. 58). Accordingly, measures of a school’s academic achievements, as tracked through competitive league tables, have become increasingly important to external evaluations of a school. This has meant that schools themselves are increasingly invested in the academic achievements of their students as “performances” of quality. Girls’ academic achievements can thus be read by schools as both potentially advantageous as well as problematic, since they may disrupt normative expectations. Achievement itself is a particularly gendered discourse since, whereas the “successful girls” discourse positions girls as better able to achieve in education, girls have also been read as educationally “other” within the context of schooling (Paechter 1998; Walkerdine 1990). Evans and Davies (2004) suggest that achievement discourses have become particularly important to schools and students alike as they translate codes of

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“performance” and “perfection.” An emphasis on academic achievement in schools has been evidenced through a range of policies and programmes focused on both identifying and nurturing “excellence” from very young ages (Lucey and Reay 2002). Some research has also considered the role of sport as a form of achievement within gendered processes of “concerted cultivation,” which serve to distinguish individuals in a competitive education system (Allan 2007; Maxwell and Aggleton 2013; Vincent and Ball 2007). Yet as this research attests, such achievements are set within narratives and expectations of privileged young people set to carve out exceptional trajectories of educational “success.” Not all young women have access to the forms of capital required to carry out such projects. Therefore, although sport as a form of achievement can act as a complementary form of concerted cultivation in the project of successful girlhood, it can also be viewed as a form of distraction and as overly time consuming given the growing requirements of educational expectations. The transition to secondary school in particular has been regarded as a key point at which young women need to make important decisions about their educational futures in order to carve out successful educational trajectories, and this may contribute to girls’ decisions to drop out of sport at this point.

Transitions and Choices When I approached the idea of following up with a selection of “sporty girls” at the schools I was working with, the girls were in Year 6 and were beginning to think about secondary school and the upcoming transition. This anticipatory lens, of “looking-forward” to the future brought on a reflective (re)configuration of how they might understand themselves, others around them and the role of sport in their lives within a period of intensified identity work marked by educational change. This chapter considers in particular the nuances within which choice biographies were forged as decisions around secondary schooling were worried over and weighed up within the complexities of family wishes, housing needs, a stratified educational market and ongoing gendered identity projects. Practical issues of transport, sports facilities and study time were aligned

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within a consideration of the role and value of sport in future possibilities. Girls reconciled ideas about “successful girlhood” with the wishes/ hopes and sometimes pressures of their parents, schools and peers alongside expectations about where they might “fit in” and “feel comfortable” alongside other “girls like me.” Two key processes were found to mediate girls’ ongoing projects of “sporty girlhood” at this point. The first was the intensification of age-related norms and the notion of “seriousness” and responsibility this entailed in constructions of “hurried up girlhood.” The second was the relevance of family projects as set within affects of anxiety, happiness and sacrifice, which came to the fore in constructions of a “good education.” Sporting practices came to align and interact with educational trajectories as an important means by which girls continued to work on their gendered, embodied projects of self.

Hurried Up Girlhood: Fun Versus Seriousness A key theme that weaves across the girls’ narratives is the relevance of a fun/seriousness binary as marking the temporal concept of “growing up” and becoming an adolescent girl. The transition to secondary school was seen as a point at which girls were expected to mature, to take things more seriously and thus to make difficult decisions that would impact on their futures. Girls’ sporting and physical pursuits were frequently constructed as “merely fun” and somewhat frivolous, and therefore as something which might need to be put aside, alongside other childhood pastimes. Nancy Lesko (2001, p.  35) suggests that a temporal “development-­in-time” discourse has become a key mechanism through which young people “are known, consumed and governed” in modern times. Constructions of puberty, age-graded schools and the transition between phases of schooling have thereby come to function as “an intensification of age and related norms” (Lesko 2001, p. 49) in young people’s lives. The materialised procedures and practices of schooling have been seen to “inscribe temporal dimensions in the child’s body” as children come to learn the schedules, the routines and the daily monotonies of schooling (Hultqvist and Dahlberg 2001, p. 7). A critical postfeminist analysis of the temporal provides insights into the processes by which

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“hurried up girlhoods” figured within girls’ imagined futures and the role of schooling and sport within this. Within a postfeminist discourse, responsibilisation processes seemed to entail an intensification of expectations for girls to manage their time, to make productive use of it and most importantly, to consider the future in their ongoing considerations of efficacy and effort (Jenks 2001). Girls in the study, in a spirit of “can do” subjectivity, accordingly conceptualised adolescence as a point of change and heightened responsibility where they were expected to “grow up” through continuing investments in their projects of self located in/ alongside changes in their physical bodies.

Family Education Projects and Being Happy As education has become increasingly competitive and invested with significance through the notion of meritocracy, families have become key to the facilitation of educational projects. The idea of education as a “family project” moved across these narratives as caught up within affective ties of sacrifice, aspiration and happiness. Happiness has been described as a means of orienting the subject towards future expectations through what Ahmed (2010, p. 2) describes as “the promise of happiness.” Therefore, happiness can be seen to operate as an affective “glue” linking school choices and family expectations through the promise of a happy life as a reproduction of the family and its inheritances (Ahmed 2010, p.  45). Issues of school choice and educational pathways emotively invoke family projects which “embed the child in an imagined future, in a sense of what they could and should aspire to, in the form of a normal biography” (Ball 2003a, p. 108). School choice and the stratification of the schooling and higher education system in the UK has been linked to the reproduction of social inequalities through constructing/constraining routes into elite universities and occupations (Ball 2003a; Boliver 2011; Burgess and Briggs 2010; Reay et al. 2005). However, an analysis of these transitions over time reveals the affective and uncertain unfolding of young lives as inflected by personal projects within intersecting forms of difference (Thomson 2011, p. 9).

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Within this chapter I examine more closely intersections of gender, ethnicity and social class as they figured in the material-discursive and emotive resonances of “a good education” and its relationship to active girlhood. The girls in this study were making difficult decisions about education and sport which were situated within a temporal framing of future opportunities as resting on significant “choices” including where to attend school. While some girls and their parents viewed secondary school as a point at which to curtail extracurricular activities in order to focus on their studies, others simply wanted to cut back by placing particular emphasis on one sport or musical hobby as an individualised form of achievement and investment in the future. The notion of happiness seemed to mediate these decisions as girls and their parents attempted to reconcile past, present and future considerations of a “good life” through everyday practices of girlhood, sport and schooling.

Lindsay: Aspiration Amidst Sacrifice I focus initially on Lindsay who attended Benjamin Laurence Primary School, located in multicultural inner-city London in an area of relative economic deprivation. Lindsay was a pretty, popular girl who wore her headscarf with fashionable clothing and was well liked by both her male and female classmates. She had two older sisters, an older brother and a younger sister. Her parents had migrated from Pakistan and her father stocked shelves for a supermarket chain while her mother, whose English was limited, was a stay-at-home parent. Lindsay was interviewed with her best friend Nilay, who was also Muslim and whose parents had emigrated from Turkey. There was a large contingent of second- and first-generation migrant and Muslim children at the girls’ primary school where children’s friendships were mixed and headscarves were unremarkable on the playground. Both girls joined the school netball team and Lindsay was known as the “fastest girl in Year 6” for her performances in school races. As they discussed the upcoming transition to secondary school, the girls initially framed their cautiousness around continuing football with the changes they anticipated in their bodies.

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Sheryl: Lindsay: Nilay: Lindsay: Nilay:

So do you think you’ll still play football at secondary? I might change because my mom won’t let me play football because I’ve grown up and it’s just a bit weird playing with the boys, and like … I don’t know I might. You know when you start up? Yeah you know that kind of stuff, where you improve on your body and all that kind of stuff? Get your period. (Year 5 interview, age 10)

For Lindsay and Nilay, primary school football had been situated within a playful discourse of childhood “innocence” where children’s interactions were not perceived as overtly coded in heteronormative regulations (Renold 2002). Lindsay’s football and running abilities had brought her status in the class, even if girls’ participation in playground football was certainly not unproblematic (Clark and Paechter 2007). The shift to secondary school was expected to alter these possibilities and Nilay’s anticipation of this led her to decline ongoing participation in the study. Here the girls’ participation in football seemed to be caught up in an anticipatory “unknowingness” around bodily changes, parental permission and expectations of heteronormative “propriety.” However, later in the interview the girls somewhat reluctantly framed their concerns primarily around educational achievement which precluded sport. Both girls envisioned an amplification of work in secondary school in line with a sense that it would increasingly “matter” and thus need to be taken more seriously. Lindsay: ‘Cause my sister says if you try hard at primary school then it can be easier at secondary school. That’s why I try my hardest, but sometimes I’m not good, sometimes I, sometimes I leave my homework till Sunday. (Year 6 Interview, age 11) Achievement is here grounded in self-responsibility within a popular schooled construction of “good girl” femininities invested in conscientiousness and “niceness” discourses (Francis 1998; Hey 1997). Lindsay’s attempts to be “good” in this excerpt are presented as at risk of derailment and she must remain vigilant in the trajectory of educational achievement through ongoing diligence. Lindsay relied on older siblings and cousins to guide her but ultimately viewed her success in schooling (and

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the prospect of higher education) as linked to her ongoing individual efforts from primary school onwards. This notion of constant vigilance was simultaneously rooted in the sacrifices her family had made and the idea that she should pursue opportunities not available in her parents’ country of origin. Almost two years into secondary school, Lindsay explained that although she had little idea of the kinds of formal requirements needed for applying to university, she was nonetheless still committed to pursuing higher education. Lindsay: Sheryl: Lindsay: Sheryl: Lindsay:

‘Cause in Pakistan they don’t let the girls work. Like, be educated. They let the boys go off and do their things and the girls stay home and work. Right. And how do you feel about that? That’s sad, ‘cause I think it should be fair. But here my dad wants us to be educated and like get a job and everything. Do you think your parents want you to go to university? Yeah my dad really, cause my sisters are in college, second year. And he wants them to be really good, and us as well. He wants us to get a job and everything and not be uneducated. (Year 8 interview, age 13)

Following the aspirations and sacrifices of Lindsay’s parents, education was conceptualised as the stepping stone towards a professional career and the security and status this would bring for future opportunities (Abbas 2007). The disjunction between her father’s past status in Pakistan (where he had worked as a diplomat) and their current economic position attested to sacrifices made within the collective family project of education as invested in a younger generation. The notion of goodness in Lindsay’s account also suggests a moralised form of invocation where Lindsay’s participation in education is bound within her family’s aspirations of “a happy life, a good life” (Ahmed 2010, p.  37). The family’s experiences of their local neighbourhood were tainted by racialised harassment, attesting to the high costs of moving to a new country. This movement and aspiration can be seen to characterise “a family culture of self-improvement arising from the experience of migration” (Thomson 2011, p. 53) simultaneously bound through affective ties. Lindsay and

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her family’s educational aspirations are also set in opposition to an “uneducated” Other who seems to represent the lost opportunities Lindsay must now pursue. Lindsay’s account takes up recognition of herself as a supposedly “privileged subject of social change” now experiencing opportunities not previously available (McRobbie 2007, p. 722). Following McRobbie’s (2007, p. 728) analysis of the new meritocratic social contract, Lindsay’s willingness to remain diligent might allow her to “step forward as an exemplary black or Asian young woman, on the basis of an enthusiasm for hard work and in pursuit of material reward” set against recognition of other possibilities. Although previous research has similarly documented an aspirational discourse among Asian Muslim girls (Archer 2003), Mirza and Meetoo’s (2018) research suggests an ongoing positioning of the Muslim “other” as underpinning postfeminist discourses within schools. Lindsay’s narrative is temporally framed by the past of parental sacrifice, the “pull” of her sisters’ forward journey and an affective anxiety of being/becoming an uneducated “other.” As McRobbie (2007) points out, the new “career girl” of the affluent west finds her counterpart in the “global girl” factory worker of the so-called Third World. Lindsay’s educational trajectory here appears haunted by the spectre of the global girl as she continues to carve a path of diligence and hard work towards future skilled participation in the market economy. Football, in this equation, is constructed as a somewhat inconvenient pursuit, last in a list of upcoming house moves, schooling shifts and academic priorities. Lindsay:

Sheryl: Lindsay:

Because if we’re going to move, then I might move to their secondary school, maybe a Muslim school, I’m not sure I don’t know. There might be football there and I’ll start playing IF my mum lets me. So you’re not sure if your mum’s going to let you. Yeah but I like to play football. ‘Cause I like it. I just love it. (Year 6 Interview, age 11)

“Growing up” in Lindsay’s narrative involved both the prospect of ongoing hard work, a setting aside of childhood pastimes, and recognition of a femininity more strongly contrasted with an active masculinity.

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Ultimately, Lindsay’s parents relocated to a more affordable area and the decision was made for her to commute each day with her brother to the mixed comprehensive he attended in their former area. In addition to being a diligent student, Lindsay travelled over an hour each day by city bus to attend school, and the long distance also meant that she was unable to attend girls’ football training after school, as she had hoped to do. The requirement to give up football can also be understood as an important sacrifice mirroring her parents’ sacrifices towards her education. Lindsay’s narrative seemed to straddle the tensions between family investments, the physical pleasure she expresses within football, “I just love it,” and her perception of normative gendered performances within a sense of “misplacement” and dislocation. Shain (2003) has argued that the construction of Asian femininities at school rested on the contrasting positioning of “successful girlhood” and capable learner against a “passive” Asian identity which her participants struggled against in various ways. At secondary school, Lindsay became one of the few covered Muslim girls where girls were already in the minority, thus amplifying a sense of “difference,” which she articulated in later interviews. The prevalence of ideas around single-sex schools as educationally “better” for girls commonly impacted the gender distribution at mixed schools, which came to doubly minoritise Muslim girls at these schools including Lindsay. The prospect of further disrupting norms by taking part in masculinised football proved too difficult a pursuit.

Spirit: Concerted Cultivation and Being Pushed I shift now to Spirit, whose account both echoes and differs from Lindsay’s in representing a more “reproductionist” view of social class, gender and schooling. However, its unfolding over time suggests some of the struggles and anxieties accompanying this process and as situated within Spirit’s individual project of self as a girl who “just loves running” and “being crazy.” Spirit attended Holly Bank Primary School where her presence was inconspicuous. I described her in my notes as a girl of average height and build with light brown hair past her shoulders, a ready smile and a quiet manner. She came from a white Scottish background and had

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a brother ten years younger than herself. Throughout primary school, Spirit was involved in a wide number of extracurricular activities including basketball, karate and cross-country running. In Year 5 she was seen as one of the fastest runners in her class, thus gaining accolades from teachers and coaches, as well as interest from Champions youth running club. In our Year 6 interview, Spirit, like Lindsay, also spoke of parental aspirations on her behalf as a result of opportunities missed or gained, and these were similarly linked to her sporting pursuits. Her parents’ facilitation of her interests and schooling can also be situated in a family project of education although in this case it involved reproducing her father’s middle-class trajectory. Yet, Spirit’s educational project was not so much forged out of sacrifice as weighted with expectations to “inherit the demand to reproduce” her family’s form in a process of cultivation grounded in privilege (Ahmed 2010, p. 46). While her mother regretted not having attended university, her father had attended an elite university, gained professional qualifications and went on to become the director of a large company. He thereby secured a large house in a gated community, fees for lessons and overseas holidays for the family. Her mother Siobhan described this cultural and economic privilege in terms of the “opportunities” for extracurricular pursuits it afforded her children and the idea of future possibilities that might be embedded within these interests. Siobhan: Like for me I wanted, there’s just so many opportunities I think for children nowadays, that I wanted Spirit well it’s just my way, of trying as much as you can to, to work out what you really like. And therefore I wanted to offer her as wide a scope, and I think we’re really fortunate to be in a position where we had so much on offer that we could choose from— (Interview with Spirit’s mother) Spirit had attended Holly Bank Primary School, which her parents described as a “good school” in a “good area” which they had moved to for this reason. The school was located in the leafy outskirts of London and had a primarily white, middle-class contingent of families. The vast playing fields and organised infrastructure provided many opportunities for physical activity, and Spirit in particular took to cross-country

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running. Her enjoyment of running led to future career aspirations which she contrasted with her parents’ expectations for her. Spirit:

Sheryl: Spirit:

The thing is my Dad went to [Oxbridge College] yeah, and he just wants me to get into a really good school. So that I can carry on, and like get a really good job. I don’t want to be an accountant like my dad is. What would you like to be? [whispered] An Olympic runner. (Year 5 interview, age 10)

Spirit’s aspirations for the future at this relatively early point already seemed to be weighted down by the trajectory set by her father as a route to social success. Her dream of Olympic glory was muted and conspiratorial as she whispered this response to me. Spirit’s interviews and those with her parents marked a clear contrast in their descriptions of ambition set in a trajectory of delayed gratification and future “opportunities” and possibilities. The future happiness promise of “a good life” rested on a valuing of particular pathways in which “some forms of happiness are read as worth more than other forms of happiness, because they require more time, thought and labour” and must therefore be cultivated and prepared for (Ahmed 2010, p.  13). This notion of future benefits and possibilities was used to justify the busy schedule Spirit pursued in addition to studying for selective entrance exams into secondary school from Year 4 onwards. In our interview, Spirit’s mother Siobhan described the “balance” of attempting to hone Spirit’s ambitions and achievements against the pressure this might entail. Siobhan explained to me, “We don’t want to be pushing her, if she doesn’t want to do something but we want to be there to encourage her and support her for achieving what she wants to achieve.” The idea of “pushing” is here set against practical support as emotional poles through which the invested parent must guide their child. Ahmed (2010, p. 48) argues that being encouraged can also “be a way of being directed toward someone else’s wants” through their assessment of what is in our best interests and future happiness. Siobhan’s aspirations for her daughter take up a middle-class discourse of parental “investment” in children’s educational future as family project set to guard against

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downward social mobility (Maxwell and Aggleton 2013). In an interview with her close friend Nirvana (who also participated in the study), Spirit’s words provide an uncomfortable juxtaposition set against her own analysis of tutoring and the expectation of where she would attend school. Spirit:

And they’re just like pushing me and pushing me. Yeah the thing is they want me to go to [selective, fee-paying school] but I’m like—I want to go to a normal school where I can be with my friends. Normal friends, not anything that’s like stuck up or anything. Nirvana: Geeks. Spirit: I don’t really want an all-girls school ‘cause then they might be like, boring. Cause you know boys they always like play and everything. They do things that are fun. (Year 6 interview, age 11) Spirit here contrasts vividly her own desires with those of her parents located within an expectation of future prospects and educational achievement. Expectations of higher education for middle-class young people, in particular, have been situated within a widespread fear of educational failure (Thomson 2011, p. 5). The affective anxiety generated in this juxtaposition, of hopes for opportunities set against the prospect of failure, is consistently played out within Spirit’s narrative and contrasted against her own understanding of herself as a “normal” girl who is “not stuck up or anything.” Her phrase conveys a discomfort with the imagined class subjectivities of future classmates, as “stuck up geeks” who she sees as unlike her current peers at the state primary school she was attending. The concept of fun also seemed to juxtapose Spirit’s expectations of schooling and the process of “growing up” this might entail. Perceptions of girls-only schools have been particularly tied to academic achievement based on the view that boys are both a distraction and unwelcome competition (Jackson and Bisset 2005). Spirit here seemed to contrast this discourse with an active masculinity that is “fun” and “playful” and where perhaps she envisioned an escape from the relentless pursuit of achievement. Similar to Lindsay, fun was located as a childhood pastime and as associated with an active masculinity but not with a “grown up”

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femininity. Her reluctance towards attending an all-girls school might also be read as a means of resisting the impending constraints of femininity which she envisioned for herself as she took up new positions and responsibilities. Spirit did, in fact, go on to the all-girls selective school of her parents’ choosing, where she continued to take up the intensified schedule and expectations set for her. Extracurricular activities have been found to characterise a particularly middle-class expectation of a “well rounded” education which further functions to shore up class privileges through a process of concerted cultivation (Allan 2009; Maxwell and Aggleton 2013; Vincent and Ball 2007). Vincent and Ball’s (2007) work suggests that middle-class parents are particularly prone to view extracurricular activities (including sport) as key investments against downward class mobility and to view their children as projects in the making. Spirit’s commitment to running increased to several nights a week and on weekends at Champions Athletics Club. At secondary school, she described a careful balancing of these activities and her negotiation of boundaries across these fields of her life. Spirit:

Spirit:

So I always try and get my homework done by lunchtime, in break time, because I don’t want to do it at home because of all my running nights, like Tuesday/Thursday. And I don’t want to be doing everything on Saturday like tightly squeezed in, ‘cause it’s just not really … But when I’m finished with my work I go down there [to the school canteen] and I go crazy. (Year 7 interview, age 13)

Spirit’s academic work and extracurricular running were both characterised by individualised achievement discourses set in a notion of ongoing work on the self and delayed gratification in pursuit of future goals. There seemed to be a delicate yet frenzied maintenance of achievement outlined in Spirit’s account. In this description, the notion of “going crazy” seemed to mediate the ongoing control and discipline required of the productive, neoliberal project of self. Similarly, Walkerdine et  al.’s (2001) work highlights the discursive investment in concepts of “failure” and “success” in relation to social class and education in describing the

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impact of class anxieties on the schooling of middle-class and working-­ class young women. Some research has suggested that psychological anxieties relating to class location are “aggravated” for middle-class parents during the transfer to secondary school (George 2004; Lucey and Reay 2002). Lucey and Reay propose that the concept of “delayed gratification” is used to justify the pressures middle-class parents put on children to gain acceptance at a good school, and point out middle-class parents’ higher likelihood of guiding such a choice for their child. Ball (2003a, p. 163) suggests that models of commitment and improvement heavily structure ideals of middle-class subjectivity that centre on “making something of yourself, realizing yourself, realizing your potential.” Importantly, some work (Evans et  al. 2004) has highlighted the physical and emotional costs of this pressure to succeed on middle-class young women embedded in “perfection and performance codes” at their schools. Like Lindsay, Spirit subscribed to these technologies of self deployed through ongoing dedication, and yet she was expected to manage this alongside her sporting achievement, as facilitated through fees and lifts carried out by her parents. Despite expressing her unhappiness to me about running at the club, she remarked in our interview on her reasons for continuing. Running, as an extracurricular activity which featured both performance and achievement discourses of participation, had come to represent a special talent or dedication where devotion and aptitude justified continuing participation. Well I’ve got a lot of history behind it, obviously. It’s like, I don’t know I just keep it up. Plus it keeps me fit, which I like. Cause I like knowing that my body feels good as well. But then I dunno, it’s just ‘cause I’ve got such. ‘Cause in my old school all the PE teachers were like “You’re doing really well. Don’t stop, just keep going.” So I kind of don’t want to stop ‘cause I don’t want to let anybody down and stuff. It’s like, I just don’t think about stopping. (Year 7 interview, age 13)

Within Spirit’s reasoning, it seemed impossible to stop running given her ongoing commitment sustained over many years. The time and effort she had put into running, along with past accomplishments in the sport, precluded the idea of dropping out or even taking a break, despite the

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intense rise in commitment at her running club and her expressed unhappiness at the pressure her coach was putting her under.1 Spirit decided to discontinue the research after our Year 7 interview, and I attributed this in part to the pressurised environment at both her running club and private school, which had not agreed to my access. In our telephone conversation, her mother used the phrase, “she’s just growing up” to describe Spirit’s lack of ongoing interest in being interviewed. Given the ongoing expectations of her time, efforts and achievements, it is perhaps unsurprising that Spirit subsequently resisted what may have been perceived as an additional task for her.

Gazza: Happiness and Angst I move now to a focus on Gazza, who attended primary school with Lindsay and carried on to the same mixed-sex comprehensive secondary school where they became closer friends. In common with Lindsay and Spirit, Gazza anticipated the transition to secondary school through a temporal lens that required a process of “hurried up girlhood” which necessitated decisions about two sports she particularly enjoyed—football and karate. Gazza was white British and lived with her parents and sister in a flat within walking distance of both Gazza’s secondary and primary schools in inner-city London. Her mother worked as a teacher’s aide and her father worked in an administrative position. At primary school Gazza was bright and conscientious and as a result did very well in school. In Year 5, she tied back her long brown hair each day and wore jeans and hooded jumpers over her slender frame. Her teacher described her as an “always child” inclined to angst who “always does her homework, always helps out” and who always seemed to be pleasing others. Her mother added to this, telling me, “If it could be worried about, Gazza would worry.” This anxiety and eagerness to please others might betray what Skeggs (1997) describes as an ongoing project of “respectability” within a working-class subjectivity. Although Gazza’s parents supported her educational and extracurricular pursuits, they were reluctant to impose the kind of “intensive scheduling” and expectations that framed Spirit’s biography. Gazza had taken up after-school karate in Year 4, and

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both her teacher and mother felt that karate had affected Gazza positively. Gazza was the only girl in her class who carried on with karate into Year 6, which had seemed to dispel some of her previous angst and to increase her overall confidence. Yet despite the positive implications of karate for Gazza, the upcoming shift to secondary school and the requirement to find a new karate club was met with some ambivalence. Gazza:

Sheryl: Gazza:

I might try to find a new club but I might just give it up altogether. But I don’t want to give it up altogether. To where I’ve got now, I feel a little bit proud of myself. ‘Cause I’ve only been doing it for two years and I’ve got four belts. So you wouldn’t want to give it up then? That and, I just … that just makes me feel a little, a little bit proud of myself, but not as if I’m really pleased with myself. (Year 6 interview, age 12)

Martial arts seemed to operate as a field of existence which gave rise to “resources of the self” as described in Thomson’s (2011, p.  62) research. Similar to Spirit, Gazza described her participation in karate within an ongoing achievement narrative in which “giving up” anticipated disappointment from both others and herself. Achievement and the techniques of discipline and commitment required within karate translated into what her teacher described as “esteem” and improved confidence as well as validation. Mr Whiting: But I’ll tell you what’s quite interesting as well, is that in this year five class there are three kids, there are others as well but there are three in particular who have really taken to karate. And that has raised the kind of esteem levels in those children. Both in the way they perceive themselves and the way they’re perceived by other children. (Interview with Year 5 teacher, Benjamin Laurence School) Despite accolades from her teachers and peers and the sense of satisfaction she expresses here as “a little bit proud,” Gazza was keen to underplay her abilities and sense of accomplishment, framing these within a feminised humility which was characteristic in girls’ descriptions of their sporting pursuits. Her reticence to claim these accomplishments might

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also be compared to her descriptions of secondary classrooms, where she was reluctant to put her hand up lest she be seen as overly invested in achievement (Jackson 2006). Gazza often lacked confidence in her abilities and conveyed surprise that her teachers thought she would do better in her Scholastic Aptitude Tests than she envisioned. Gazza and her parents did not particularly strategise around her schooling, and she anticipated attending the local mixed comprehensive where boys significantly outnumbered girls. Gazza:

I would want to go to [comprehensive girls’ school], but that’s my second choice it’s only a girls’ school. Because Adlington’s, that’s like six minutes away from my house in the morning walk. So that won’t take me long to get there and my two cousins go there. (Year 6 interview, age 11)

Like Lindsay, Gazza applied localised knowledge to decide on her secondary school and prioritised convenience above the school’s results. Their choices contrast with the frenzied strategies employed in Spirit’s school choices which engage fully with the increasingly stratified educational “marketplace.” In our interview Gazza expressed frustration with her classmates’ disruptive behaviour as impacting on her ability to engage with her work (Draper 1993). This same disruptive behaviour had come to frustrate her experiences of karate, which was held at the school after hours and where she was the only girl who participated. At the transition to secondary school, Gazza did not continue football or karate. During our interview, Gazza’s mother described her constant anxiety in relation to her daughter, and her consequent unwillingness to direct her daughter’s choices or ambitions. Barbara:

You know, and so I don’t know where she’s going to end up. But she’ll end up where she ends up. Sheryl: Yeah. And um, is that somethingBarbara: No Sheryl: —that you’re concerned aboutBarbara: No Sheryl: —With her continuing football or …? Barbara: No Sheryl: No? Even though you said it’s changed her personality?

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Barbara:

No. Do you know what? I spent so many years worrying about Gazza for not eating, for this, for that. Sheryl: Yeah Barbara: But now I don’t. (Interview with Gazza’s mother, Year 6) This slightly uncomfortable excerpt and the interaction between Gazza’s mother and myself seems to convey somewhat my own investment in Gazza’s participation in football and desire for her to continue. Her mother’s withdrawal from the investment role is reflected in Gazza’s choice of secondary school and her disaffection from sports. Walkerdine et al. (2001) reason that working-class parents, who had often had negative schooling experiences, were more likely to prioritise their child’s (present) happiness at school and resisted pushing or pressuring their children in relation to their schooling. Similarly, Lareau (2011) contrasts middle-class perspectives with those of working-class parents who relied on a child’s “natural” growth and did not focus on drawing out children’s particular skills and talents. This is evident in perspectives on “pushing” children within extracurricular pursuits where long-term benefits are prioritised above short-term wishes. Yet the insistence not to worry here seems to enact a direct resistance to the intensified demands of the family project and its responsibilisation of mothers as “guiding” decisions based on expectations of future gains. As Spirit’s account confirms, these demands have come to characterise normative educational expectations of middle-class mothers in particular as an enactment of anxiety through increasingly pressured schedules and standards of achievement (Reay 1998). Barbara’s decision not to intervene or worry suggests a prioritisation of wellbeing directly in contrast to a “happiness promise” which might seek to justify such anxieties for future expectations of gain. The suggestion that working-class parents are less intent on “making up” their children through extracurricular activities also does not account for the financial and time-consuming aspects of such endeavours. Barbara expressed elsewhere in our interview that her carer responsibilities for her own mother amidst other conditions meant that she could not make sport a priority in their lives. Gazza later reflected on her departure from karate once she was at secondary school.

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Gazza:

But I wouldn’t like to blame it all on sensei that I quit karate or all on my coach that I quit football. Sheryl: No. Gazza: ‘Cause it ain’t his fault. It was nobody’s fault and I kind of went on my own. (Year 7 interview, age 12) Here Gazza was keen to take on responsibility for her sports participation as an exercise of agency and rejected the idea that it was anyone else’s “fault” that she left karate. Gazza continued to do well at school and was popular with her classmates, although she also continued to express frustration with disruptive behaviour at her school. The attendant narrowing of her sporting ambitions can be read against a capability model of girlhood which demands confidence, diligence and a sense of entitlement honed through privilege (Maxwell and Aggleton 2013).

Challenging Aspirational Discourses The girls’ narratives are set against a backdrop of political meritocracy in which aspiration (or its lack) have been attributed to the successes or failures of particular racialised, classed and gendered divisions of young people. Although the girls’ narratives might be said to “speak to” these wider generalisations, they simultaneously challenge many of the assumptions within a straightforward “reproductionist” analysis of educational gains and losses. I have attempted to demonstrate in this chapter the strongly interlinked relationships between girls’ sporting and educational trajectories in a context where education is seen to structure and determine future possibilities. Their narrativised accounts thus suggest some of the ways in which “successful girlhood” is mediated by girls’ ongoing understandings and constructions of a “fit” within these trajectories as a sense of authenticity and a working out of particular projects. Spirit’s perception of herself as a “normal girl” who is “not stuck up,” Gazza’s sense of being “a little bit proud” but “not too pleased with myself ” and Lindsay’s claim of “trying my hardest, but sometimes not good,” all reveal a kind of striving towards recognition within uncertain projects of girlhood which straddled various expectations, judgements and

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self-­perceptions. Their narratives both mirror and contrast with one another in provocative and interesting ways, problematising in particular an “aspirational discourse” as the route to success as well the notion of education “investment” as embedded in the project of schooling reproduced through the family. Recent educational discourses have attributed a “lack of aspiration” to a problematised white working class. However, Gazza and her mother’s account of choosing to attend the local comprehensive and to quit karate more readily seem to problematise the “intensification” of both educational and parenting projects which characterised Spirit’s account. I examined initially how girls envisioned the transition to secondary school and then how they balanced sports participation with their schooling. The girls’ involvement in sport seemed to be particularly linked to the type of school they went on to attend and the issue of same-sex versus mixed-sex schools was relevant. For Lindsay and Gazza, who went on to attend a mixed comprehensive secondary, sports participation became increasingly incompatible with their construction of successful girlhood set against peer relations in particular. For Spirit, who went on to attend a private girls’ school, her participation in running shifted towards an achievement imperative as she attempted to reconcile multiple demands on her time and attention. Lindsay’s and Spirit’s narratives echo one another in many ways. Both stories bring across the idea of parental sacrifice and of past opportunities, missed or taken, that could now be pursued by their children. However, the differing access to privilege and educational knowledge translated into attendance at schools with quite substantial academic and sporting discrepancies. At the same time, the girls’ narratives display a certain melancholy as they attended to pressures to study hard, to attend selective schools, to give up frivolous pastimes or to achieve at higher levels of physical performance. Perhaps most importantly, the girls’ narratives suggest the ways in which models of sporting participation shifted over the transition to secondary school towards those embedded in achievement models which echoed and reinforced ideas about schooling “success.” This meant differential access to sport as well as shifting models of engagement based on more individualised notions of progress and development. These are further explored in Chap. 5, where I look at how

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achievement models of sporting engagement were further intertwined with performance models which designated a further prerequisite of sporting participation based on notions of “talent” and “ability.”

Note 1. After a two-week absence at the running club while she was away on holiday with her family, her coach accused Spirit of being a “skiver.” Girls were discouraged from going on holiday, and if they did so they were expected to continue training over holidays and warned of how quickly their fitness would deteriorate if they did not do so.

References Abbas, T. (2007). British south Asians and pathways into selective schooling: Social class, culture and ethnicity. British Educational Research Journal, 33(1), 75–90. Ahmed, S. (2010). The promise of happiness. Duke University Press. Retrieved from https://gold.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://dx.doi. org/10.1215/9780822392781. Allan, A. (2007). Struggling for success: An ethnographic exploration of young femininities in a private, single-sex primary school. [Thesis]. Allan, A. (2009). The importance of “being a lady”: Hyperfemininity and heterosexuality in the private, single-sex primary school. Gender and Education, 21(2), 145–158. Archer, L. (2003). Race, masculinity and schooling: Muslim boys and education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Arnot, M., David, M. E., & Weiner, G. (1999). Closing the gender gap: Post-war education and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Baker, J. (2010). Great expectations and post-feminist accountability: Young women living up to the ‘successful girls’ discourse. Gender and Education, 22(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250802612696. Ball, S. J. (2003a). Class strategies and the education market: The middle classes and social advantage. London: Routledge/Falmer. Ball, S. J. (2003b). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2) Have article, filed, 215–228.

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Ball, S. J. (2008). The education debate. Bristol: Policy. Boliver, V. (2011). Expansion, differentiation, and the persistence of social class inequalities in British higher education. Higher Education, 61(3), 229–242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-­010-­9374-­y. Burgess, S., & Briggs, A. (2010). School assignment, school choice and social mobility. Economics of Education Review, 29(4), 639–649. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2009.10.011. Clark, S., & Paechter, C. (2007). “Why can’t girls play football?” gender dynamics and the playground. Sport, Education and Society, 12(3), 261–276. Draper, J. (1993). We’re back with Gobbo: The re-establishment of gender relations following a school merger. In P.  Woods & M.  Hammersley (Eds.), Gender and ethnicity in schools (pp. 49–74). London and New York: Routledge. Evans, J., & Davies, B. (2004). Introduction: Pedagogy, symbolic control, identity and health. In J. Evans, B. Davies, & J. Wright (Eds.), Body knowledge and control: Studies in the sociology of physical education and health (pp. 1–12). London: Routledge. Evans, J., Rich, E., & Holroyd, R. (2004). Disordered eating and disordered schooling: What schools do to middle class girls. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(2), 123–142. Francis, B. (1998). Power plays: Primary school children’s construction of gender, power and adult work. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Francis, B. (2000). Boys, girls and achievement: Addressing the classroom issues. New York: RoutledgeFalmer. George, R. (2004). The importance of friendship during primary to secondary school transfer. In A tribute to Caroline Benn: Education and democracy (pp. 119–136). London and New York: Continuum Press. Gonick, M. (2003). Between femininities: Ambivalence, identity, and the education of girls. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Hey, V. (1997). The company she keeps: An ethnography of girls’ friendships. Buckingham: Open University Press. Hultqvist, K., & Dahlberg, G. (2001). Governing the child in the new millennium (1st ed.). New York: Routledge. Jackson, C. (2006). Lads and Ladettes in school: Gender and a fear of failure. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Jackson, C., & Bisset, M. (2005). Gender and school choice: Factors influencing parents when choosing single-sex or co-educational independent schools for their children. Cambridge Journal of Education, 35(2), 195–211. https://doi. org/10.1080/03057640500146856.

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Jenks, C. (2001). The pacing and timing of Children’s bodies. In K. Hultqvist & G. Dahlberg (Eds.), Governing the child in the new millennium (pp. 68–84). Abingdon: RoutledgeFalmer. Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life (2nd ed., with an update a decade later). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lesko, N. (2001). Time matters in adolescence. In K. Hultqvist & G. Dahlberg (Eds.), Governing the child in the new millennium (pp.  35–67). Abingdon: Routledge Falmer. Lloyd, G. (2005). Problem girls: Understanding and supporting troubled and troublesome girls and young women. Abingdon: Routledge Falmer. Lucey, H., & Reay, D. (2002). Carrying the beacon of excellence: Social class differentiation and anxiety at a time of transition. Journal of Education Policy, 17(3) have article, notebook 4, entry 8, 321–336. Maxwell, C., & Aggleton, P. (2013). Becoming accomplished: Concerted cultivation among privately educated young women. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 21(1), 75–93. McRobbie, A. (2007). Top girls? Young women and the post-feminist sexual contract. Cultural Studies, 21(4–5), 718–737. McRobbie, A. (2009). The aftermath of feminism: Gender, culture and social change. London: Sage. Mirza, H. S., & Meetoo, V. (2018). Empowering Muslim girls? Post-feminism, multiculturalism and the production of the ‘model’ Muslim female student in British schools. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39(2), 227–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2017.1406336. Paechter, C. (1998). Educating the other: Gender, power and schooling. London and Washington, DC: Falmer Press. Pomerantz, S., & Raby, R. (2017). Smart girls: Success, school, and the myth of post-feminism. Berkeley, CA: Univ of California Press. Reay, D. (1998). Class work: Mothers’ involvement in their children’s primary schooling. Berkeley, CA: UCL Press. Reay, D., David, M. E., & Ball, S. J. (2005). Degrees of choice: Class, race, gender and higher education. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Renold, E. (2002). Presumed innocence: (hetero)sexual, heterosexist and homophobic harassment among primary school girls and boys. Childhood, 9(2) Notebook 5, entry 9. Have article, 415–434. Ringrose, J. (2007). Successful girls? Complicating post-feminist, neoliberal discourses of educational achievement and gender equality. Gender and Education, 19(4), 471–489.

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Ringrose, J. (2013). Postfeminist education? Girls and the sexual politics of schooling. London: Routledge. Shain, F. (2003). The schooling and identity of Asian girls. Trentham Books Notebook 1, Entry 1. Skeggs, B. (1997). Formations of class and gender: Becoming respectable. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Tamboukou, M., & Ball, S. (2002). Nomadic subjects: Young black women in Britain. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 23(3), 267–284. https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630022000029777. Thomson, R. (2011). Unfolding lives: Youth, gender and change. Bristol: Policy Press. Vincent, C., & Ball, S. J. (2007). “Making up” the middle class child: Families, activities and class dispositions. Sociology, 41(6) Have article in electronic format, 1061–1077. Walkerdine, V. (1990). Schoolgirl fictions. London: Verso. Walkerdine, V., Lucey, H., & Melody, J. (2001). Growing up girl: Psychosocial explorations of gender and class. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

5 Being “Good at Sport”: Constituting Bodies Through Competition and Selection Processes

This chapter considers how girls came to learn further about their bodies over the transition to secondary school within competitive performance discourses of sporting achievement. I focus on girls’ embodied performances of sporting “ability” within selective club and school sport designations that came to frame their participation and sporting identifications. In Chap. 4, I suggested that temporal constructions of growing up viewed secondary school and adolescence as a point at which girls needed to “get serious” by putting aside childish pastimes such as playground football, games of chase and other relatively unstructured activities that might detract from their future educational achievement projects. I focused in particular on achievement discourses as realised through academic achievement and located in the notion of a “good education.” Here I turn my attention to both achievement and performance discourses in girls’ perceptions of sport as a practice for those considered “more able.” The girls’ narratives suggest that “sporty girlhood” was a shifting, relational identity situated within wider selective and exclusionary processes institutionalised at the school and sport club settings, which entailed difficulties for many girls in holding onto notions of “being good at sport.” Ability-based body pedagogies were translated through processes of team © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Clark, Sporty Girls, New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67249-2_5

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selection, progression into a larger pool of competitors, emphases on performance outputs of sporting “success” and “personal bests” and ongoing expectations of athletic development. These processes can be seen to emerge from wider policy emphases on sporting talent and development that came to interact with the achievement agenda in schools and its emphasis on excellence through designations of sporting “ability.” The take up of achievement and performance discourses as body pedagogies came to designate who could be considered “good at sport” and which bodies were valued in this process. The findings suggest that evaluations of girls’ bodies in sport took place alongside a hierarchical valuing of bodies in heteronormative peer economies at the school. I explore some of the opportunities girls had in experiencing their bodies as more capable than previously believed as well as experiences that seemed to resist an achievement-based practice. I argue that physical cultures enacted with youth sport clubs and extracurricular sport at the schools are sites within which body pedagogies reflect a postfeminist sensibility of achievement and performance which operated to both pressurise and exclude many girls from sport.

Performing Bodies at School Although schools continue to invest heavily in academic achievement at subjects representing traditionally valued forms of knowledge such as English and Mathematics, research indicates that measures of “achievement” have become increasingly important in schools’ physical education and sporting provision. An emphasis on performance has been translated into PE and sport provision at schools that traditionally have sought to emphasise inclusive participation. The commitment to performance and ability codes is reinforced through the identification with and investment in such codes by mediating adults. Evans and Davies (2004, p. 7) suggest that “teachers, coaches and agents are still strongly attached to performance, body perfection and product, very often shaped by elite attachment or personal desire for all three.” Although schools have individual approaches to physical education and sport provision, a school’s positioning in the league tables, its socioeconomic composition and its

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investment in the standards agenda form an important backdrop to its PE provision and the expectations it holds of students. The increasing emphasis on performance in schools has important implications for girls’ active subjectivities by constructing the ways in which worth and competence are assessed. For example, Evans’ (2006) research suggests that achievement discourses mediated girls’ experiences of their bodies so that girls suffered doubly through a need to appear both competent and heterosexually attractive while participating in sport and physical education classes. Thus within a postfeminist schooling context where achievement discourses are amplified through a “successful girls” discourse, performances in physical education and extracurricular sports may act as simply one more area in which young women are expected to achieve.

Ability I draw on Chris Shilling’s (2007) ideas about the changing body to think about how girls’ embodied actions were configured through designations of ability taken up in the idea of “being good at sport.” Shilling contends that sport provides a useful case study for understanding how embodied actions are culturally learnt within a structured framework that is rule-­ bound but with possibilities for creative action. Shilling suggests that designations of ability in sport have come to be dominated by performance models marked by “elite competition, the rationalization of bodily displays and an imperative of winning as overriding an emphasis on fair play” (Shilling 2008, p. 48). As this shift has taken place in more organised sports settings, so too have our everyday understandings of ability shifted towards those of fixed traits for individual bodies, nonetheless honed through ongoing practice in specific training and sporting regimes. As Hay and Macdonald (2010, p. 1) have suggested, the concept of “ability” often draws upon notions of talent to reflect a “performance-­ orientated perspective” that focuses on output rather than process. Ability distinctions have been linked to performances of hegemonic masculinity as well as normative categorisations of “race,” ethnicity, disability and sexuality; thereby routinely differentiating young people’s PE and sporting experiences (Evans 2006; Evans et al. 2007; Fitzgerald 2005; Sykes

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2011; Wellard 2006). The idea of “being good at sport” therefore represents particular ideals of sporting participation and denotes particular signifiers about who might embody such an identity and what physical performances this requires. Categorisations such as “good at sport” or “talented” are constructed through their opposition to a binary Other— “bad at sport,” thus setting up juxtapositions between participants and forms of participation. However, Shilling (2008, p.  54) suggests that these designations are not fixed and that participation in particular sporting regimes allows for the development of new body schemas within creative and emerging capacities through “experiential transformation.” This suggests that as girls take part in different sports, this may constitute a reconfiguration of bodies, identities and physical cultures as they interact together. “As participants choose to practise and submerge their bodies in the routines and cultures associated with specific sports, they not only acquire distinctive skills and abilities, but become different people” (Shilling 2008, p. 45). I also draw on Probyn’s (2000, p. 20) conceptualisation of sporting “lack,” as a form of “constant or recurring incompleteness” of the athletic body. In this sense, sporting performances of ability require both an affective investment—as a sense of “fit” with dominant ideas of athleticism; as well as an embodied sense of capacity—as a set of skills and competencies gained through participation and practice over time. Within the research, fixed notions of “ability” came to operate as regimes of truth (Evans and Davies 2004) thereby serving as mechanisms of inclusion/exclusion for individual girls. By acting as a pre-requisite for participation and as a common-sense notion justifying why girls might participate in sport, notions of ability deterred some girls from even attempting to take part. Within this chapter I focus on two additional girls—Lucy and Nirvana, and revisit the narratives of Lindsay and Spirit in order to consider their ongoing projects of “being good at sport” as body pedagogies set within wider gender projects, and consider the processes by which this was rendered more or less realisable within their peer, schooling and sporting cultures.

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L ucy: Not Making the Cut and Finding Alternatives Lucy attended Holly Bank primary school with Nirvana and Spirit but played with a different friendship group who invested in “nice” and “good” discourses which involved including one another and complying with school rules (Paechter and Clark 2016). She lived with her parents, twin brother, two older brothers and Labrador dog in what her mother described as “a busy household and it’s not gentle, there’s always something going on.” She came from a white, middle-class background and her family was actively involved in Scouts and other outdoor activities, which took up much of their free time and parental resources. Her mother explained, “When we go on holidays we take canoes, we take bikes, we go horseback riding, we camp, and we muck in.” Lucy herself described her interests as “I like football, running, erm, I like doing adventure courses to give me a challenge. Cycling.” Outdoor and physical activities were thus very much incorporated into Lucy’s sense of self—as a girl who liked a challenge. In our interview, her Year five teacher described Lucy as “extremely gutsy and she’ll fight. She’ll keep going til she drops.” He recounted a story about Lucy beating all of her brothers at an assault course over the weekend, which her mother had conveyed to him during parent–teacher interviews. He added, “Again what I can see of her in any sport is that she tends to be sort of really, sort of throw herself into it” (Year 5 interview). These traits of gutsiness, determination and commitment were contrasted with the teacher’s initial impression of Lucy as “quiet and inconspicuous”—traits seen to characterise “nice girl” identities in school (Reay 2006). At her well-provisioned primary school, Lucy was an enthusiastic participant in the cross-country team as well as netball and tag rugby. In Year 5, she loved active and imaginative games at playtime such as cops and robbers, “I just like running and they’re running games” which her mother suggested sometimes made friendships difficult for her and “at a bit of a loss.” Often Lucy’s friends were not allowed to do the activities she liked to do at the weekends such as cycling.

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I rang Matilda [her best friend] to see if she could go but she’s not really allowed so She’s not allowed to go bike riding? No not without an adult. (Year 5 interview, age 10)

Her mother had similarly reflected on Lucy’s physical freedoms and activities as less curtailed than other female peers, who were subject to risk discourses around their vulnerabilities in outdoor spaces in particular (Clark 2010). In our Year 6 interview Lucy explained, “I like getting the energy out of me and running” and she was often attempting to involve her friends in more active games at playtime, which was occasionally problematic for her friendships. Her mother, therefore, described the decision to send Lucy to an all girls’ secondary school as “a very big decision. And it’s one that you’ll never know really—unless they are desperately unhappy or something.” The family’s deliberations echoed those of Spirit and Lindsay (discussed in Chap. 4) as invested in emotive understandings of happiness and future outcomes. Lucy’s understanding of this transition also echoed the active boys/still girls binary that Spirit had outline in her desire to attend a mixed school. Sheryl: Lucy: Sheryl: Lucy: Sheryl: Lucy:

So how would you feel about being at an all-girls school? I don’t know I think I’d be suffocated. You’d be suffocated. How so? ‘Cause I, all the girls…it’s not fun playing with girls every day. What sorts of games do you think the girls would play? What you do is you walk around linking arms and chat. (Year 6 interview, age 11)

Despite misgivings, eventually the decision was taken to send Lucy to Wellington Gardens, the “sister school” of her twin brother’s all boys school, which was directly adjacent to it. The school itself was well provisioned for extracurricular sports although her mother described it cautiously as a “a very strict school. A very good school. But I’m just not convinced.” Lucy’s mother seemed to be weighing up issues of achievement, physical activity and wellbeing in a project that, like Gazza’s mother, differed slightly from the idea of children as investment. Her

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concerns seemed to rest primarily on Lucy’s friendships and sense of “fit” mediated by the confines of an inactive femininity which Lucy resisted. However, their location in a prosperous area meant that schools nearby were all relatively high achieving. Lucy subsequently found that strict rules at the secondary school meant that girls were not permitted to run around at playtime or lunch, even though boys at the school next to them played football on the fields during break. As unstructured physical activity became less available to the girls at secondary school, joining a team became the dominant option for participating in sport or physical activities. However, at the secondary school level sports teams became more competitive as girls were asked to try out for teams. Lucy’s experience at netball tryouts in Year 7 involved a process of differentiation in which she had not been selected. Lucy: Sheryl: Lucy:

They look at the good people at the start. And then say, “you’re on the team” and then they just concentrate on people on the team. Oh I see. So because you didn’t play last year, is it hard to get into it then? Well, some people, they pick mainly the taller people, but not always because they can reach over people and all the people they chose were actually really quite good. (Year 7 interview, age 12)

Lucy’s claim that her PE teachers only chose girls who were “really quite good” and then “just concentrated on people on the team” constituted an acquired ability as a prerequisite for participation. That she perceived the coaches as picking “mainly the taller people” also adds a physical limitation to the possibility of ability development. Although the girls were still growing, height or the lack of it represented a physical limitation for participation in some sports. Comments from teachers suggested that schools might be aware of ability as a discriminatory sorting mechanism yet felt compelled to perpetuate such cycles due to the ongoing expectations of parents, inter-school competitions and other perceived regulatory mechanisms. This overt emphasis on ability seemed to self-evidently take precedence over a girls’ enthusiasm or willingness to

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take part and impacted not only on Lucy’s enjoyment and opportunity to play but also on her identity as a potential sports participant. In Lucy’s experiences, similar to many girls I spoke with, ability had become an arbiter of participation and concurrently, of self-worth. As Lucy expressed, “you’re rubbish, you can’t” thus contributing to the idea of a “non-able” subjectivity. Lucy remained undeterred and decided to join Champions athletics club which had actively recruited Spirit and was where her twin brother trained. She discovered that expectations at the club were very high and she was “relegated” to the mixed activity group (seen as initial and transitory) since the girls’ running group were unable/unwilling to cater to her running speed. When I asked about her physical activities at secondary school, Lucy made a distinction between activities in which ability was seen as more or less fixed, and those where learning was encouraged. Lucy:

Sheryl: Lucy:

Like running, you don’t have to learn to run, you just sort of do it. But things like sailing or climbing or anything like that you have to learn the technique. So I prefer things like that ‘cause you have to learn it and show your ability and things like that. Mmm, right. Whereas with running it’s just like “right, you’re really good you can go in the competition” or “you’re really rubbish, you can’t.” (Year 8 interview, age 14)

Here Lucy was clearly critical of discriminatory sorting mechanisms and the process of exclusion she was subjected to at the running club. The club’s practice of accepting only girls who already met a certain standard or speed before joining the group indicated to Lucy a fixed notion of ability in which being a good runner was seen as a matter of innate talent rather than a result of practice or training. That the club was unwilling to train girls whose running fell below a set standard suggested a limited view of the potential for development and a clear focus on performance outputs over and above young people’s enjoyment. Lucy expressed a preference for alternative outdoor sports such as sailing or climbing where she envisioned more scope for improvement and where she suggested she

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would have the opportunity to prove herself through “learning the technique” and thus “showing your ability.” Although Lucy seemed to view ability as a bodily skill that could be learned over time, she was also aware that certain sports were unwilling to cater for this process of development and this affected her view of running as something “you don’t have to learn.” This contrasted with Lucy’s previous expression of embodied pleasure through running as “getting the energy out of me,” which seemed to describe a sense of joy unrelated to a particular performance goal. Although coaches at the running club certainly aimed to develop their runners over time and training, their practices of selection suggested a more fixed view of children’s potential as well as an explicit defense of sport as a process of sorting “winners” and “losers.” Lucy’s enthusiasm for running, her stamina and her commitment were unimportant to the running club, who were intent on placing high in league standings and in developing local champions. Young people’s increasing participation in adult-organised community-based sport raises important questions about their experiences of these settings and the models of participation on offer (MacPhail et al. 2003; Stafford et al. 2015). Although Lucy condemned the club’s sorting mechanisms as unfair there was little that she or her parents felt capable of doing about it. Lucy’s experience of school and sporting club exclusion allowed her to articulate a critique of these practices, despite not being able to overtly challenge them. Her family’s resources also allowed her to continue to take part in Scouts and other outdoor activities, thereby not entirely disrupting her “sporty girl” project. Instead she was able to invest in alternative activities that she perceived as less selective and discriminatory, thus allowing her to develop a bodily schema further oriented towards physical activity.

Lindsay: “I’m not a good runner anymore” As outlined in Chap. 4, Lindsay had greatly enjoyed sport and active play at her primary school in activities facilitated through teacher and social interactions. Similar to other girls, Lindsay described primary school and the games she had played there as more “fun” and she recounted

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nostalgically, “in primary we played football, all the girls played football and we all had our own pitch” (Year 7 interview). Lindsay’s skills both in football and in running had served to distinguish her in primary school, contributing to her high status among classmates who avidly cheered her on during class sporting competitions. In our Year 6 interview, Lindsay had anticipated not being able to continue with football once she went on to secondary school. Before beginning secondary school, Lindsay’s family had moved to another home outside the area and much further away. She continued to attend the local mixed secondary comprehensive with Gazza, but this entailed long commutes and meant that she could not go to football training after school because of her parents’ fears for her safety in travelling home. She was not selected for her class relay team on sports day and this seemed to reinforce her belief that she was no longer athletic or “good at sport.” Sheryl: Lindsay: Sheryl: Lindsay: Sheryl: Lindsay:

So what’s changed? I’m not the most athletic girl. You’re not? So is it difficult to think of yourself as a good runner still? I’m not a good runner anymore. And has that stopped you from running? Yeah. ‘Cause you know you can’t run quick, fast enough, ‘cause there’s so many other girls in Year 8 that can run so fast and you feel like you can’t do it. (Year 8 interview, age 14)

Lindsay’s experience of being rejected from the class relay team for sports day and her comparison with classmates served to reconstitute her body as unable and thus lacking in value—“I’m not a good runner anymore.” The evaluation of her body as “able”/“good” is conflated here and although sporting performances or “wins” were still celebrated on sports day, girls were also aware that their bodies were being judged in multiple ways. I attended sports day at each girls’ school and found that only one emphasised “fun” activities such as a spoon and egg race. Several girls mentioned the fear of “coming in last” on sports day and “embarrassing themselves.” Girls who came first in conspicuous events such as 400 m races expressed embarrassment at this, and others explained that they

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preferred field events such as shot put where others were less likely to watch them. Sports day and other PE settings where girls’ bodies were on display also took place within a wider heteronormative gaze which continued to sexualise their bodies in hierarchical peer assessments. During our Year 8 interview, Lindsay lamented that male classmates no longer paid attention to her, something she connected with her wearing of a headscarf. There were very few covered Muslim girls at her secondary school and this contributed to her sense of difference, as she alluded to in our interviews. Lindsay, along with other girls in the study, expressed a sense of betrayal from boys who had previously been their friends but were now “too into football” to play with them. Lindsay: But boys talk about like girls having big tits [laughs, embarrassed]. Sheryl: Do they? Lindsay: They go and hug those girls and it’s like you’re left out. And they go and hug them but if they don’t come to you and hug you then you feel kind of like “yeah, those boys don’t like me and I shouldn’t be with them.” Like I shouldn’t be with these persons. Sheryl: Does it make you worry about the way you look? Lindsay: Yeah, it feels that erm, maybe I’ve got a scarf on, that’s why they don’t come hug me or maybe I’m a bit too religious or blah, blah, blah. (Year 8 interview, age 14) Lindsay’s words convey a hierarchical, heteronormative peer economy in which sexualised bodies were simultaneously revered and harassed in a process also constituting “devalued” bodies through touching/not being touched. Lindsay revealed a growing sense of her body as an object of potential value in relation to the heteronormative economy and yet she felt excluded from this attention because of the symbolic veil which set her apart as “too religious”, as she explained. Just as her body had been judged as failing to meet a pre-determined “ability” or speed, so too was it judged as failing to adhere to an idealised, secular, white femininity (Hill and Azzarito 2012).

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The extract suggests some of the complex gendered contradictions for girls of achieving “value” within hierarchical and heteronormative contexts which construct girls as “girlfriends” more readily than co-players (Renold 2006). The experience of “being hugged” represented both an unwanted and sexualised touch, as well as a process of recognition and value. In this context, the body is both the potential site of value within the heteronormative economy and yet constantly at risk of being deemed unattractive, unacceptable and shameful. As Lindsay moved into Year 9 she stopped wearing her headscarf to school and began to invest more overtly in physical performances of an emphasised femininity through specific clothing and use of makeup, which proved more valuable in the heterosexualised context of her peer culture. Both for Lindsay and Lucy, external assessments of their abilities and the process of selection leading to rejection served to constitute “unable” sporting identities. Both girls struggled to hold onto the identity of “being good at sport,” at least in specific competitive settings, and thus invested their efforts and identifications elsewhere. Their narratives convey both a sense of loss and lack alongside a determination to forge ongoing body projects within their shifting contexts. I turn now to Nirvana, who rather than being rejected from sport, seemed to take on the process of rejection herself by disavowing the role of sport and PE in her interests and the project of girlhood.

Nirvana: “I don’t really care anymore” Nirvana was a close friend of Spirit’s, and they had been interviewed together at Holly Bank School where they attended primary. While Spirit went on to a selective, private girls’ school, Nirvana attended the same comprehensive, high achieving, girls’ secondary school as Lucy— Wellington Gardens. As her self-chosen pseudonym suggests, Nirvana was fond of music and played several instruments. Her rock tastes distinguished her from the pop preferences of her schoolmates. When I asked about her extracurricular activities, Nirvana described an impressive list of interests and accomplishments characteristic of a “well rounded” education as described in Chap. 4.

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Nirvana: Okay, well…this could take a while. Erm, I’m trying to remember everything. I used to do cross-country and netball and maybe that was it, I’m not sure. Oh yeah, badminton. Erm, and I did Orchestra, I did my flute lessons, I did my piano lessons. I had a singing lesson and I did my Youth Music Trust on Saturdays. (Year 7 interview, age 13) With both parents in professional employment and a secure housing and income situation, access to the range of activities described above was readily available and even expected of similar middle-class children at Nirvana’s school. When I asked about whether she still enjoyed sport at secondary school, Nirvana suggested that constructions of “ability” were relevant to her participation. Nirvana: It depends on the sport, because I am rubbish at a lot of sports. Like throwing a ball [giggles]. Sheryl: Really? Nirvana: Yeah ‘cause like, well I told you the story of when we were all on the field and Mr Sebastian made us, he said “Ok, everyone throw a ball.” ‘Cause like he wanted to see the athletics thing. Sheryl: Oh yeah. Nirvana: And ‘cause I was second in the register after Miriam, I threw the ball and it went like two centimetres and he kept shouting at me [laughing]. He made me do it three times and it still went nowhere. Sheryl: Really? Nirvana: It was quite funny. But yeah… Sheryl: Did you feel bad when he shouted at you? Nirvana: No. It was quite funny actually. Sheryl: No? You didn’t mind? Nirvana: Yeah. Sheryl: But it made you think you couldn’t throw a ball? Nirvana: No, I can’t [laughs]. Sheryl: Maybe you just haven’t been taught the right technique? Nirvana: Yeah, but… Sheryl: You don’t think so? Nirvana: No. (Year 7 interview, age 13)

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Nirvana’s account of an event in primary school PE in which her body was both on display and subject to evaluation is here mediated by laughter, perhaps narrating the ways in which she seeks to distance herself from the “seriousness” with which her teacher regards sport. Her teacher’s anger, expressed through shouting, contrasts with Nirvana’s sense that “it was quite funny actually.” Feelings of shame, humiliation and anxiety have been recounted as common affective traces of PE experiences described by participants who did not “fit” the performative and corporeal requirements of school sport and PE lessons (Ennis 1996; Sykes 2011; Wellard 2006). Here, Nirvana seems to disavow herself from the supposed shame of “throwing like a girl” (Young 2005), instead suggesting that it is her teacher’s anger over this which constitutes the absurd. At the same time, she concurs with his definition that she cannot throw a ball and is therefore “rubbish at sport.” My response in this interview perhaps conveys some of my own memories of shameful PE lessons and my sense of injustice on Nirvana’s behalf. However, Nirvana seems to reject the idea that sporting ability is of significance to her as well the idea that throwing a ball is a bodily capacity that can be learned over time through “the right technique” as I put it. Sport became increasingly unimportant to Nirvana’s sense of self as she continued to invest in her musical interests. I continued to attend Nirvana’s PE sessions at Wellington Gardens, where lessons were in line with the National Curriculum and centred on developing particular skills in a limited number of sporting activities throughout the year. Although she continued to take part, she became gradually more disaffected. When the teacher asked the girls to assess their own participation after a session, Nirvana described hers as “below average.” I asked her about this during our Year 8 interview. Nirvana: ‘Cause I don’t really care about PE anymore. It’s just I go there, I do whatever I have to do and then I leave. I just don’t like put any effort into it, apart from something I like, like a netball match. But the rest is just really annoying. Sheryl: What’s changed? Why don’t you care about PE anymore?

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I don’t know. It’s just, [primary school] was so much better. There was more things to do and it was more exciting. I’m not sure but it was a lot more fun. Mm hm. And, yeah. It’s [PE] annoying now and I used to love it. It was well cool. And at break as well we’d always like run around and like play the catching game. It was always exercising. But now it’s just like you sit down and do nothing, lunch, sit down, eat, do nothing. It’s really annoying. (Year 8 interview, age 14)

The instruction in class that day had been about girls assessing their levels of participation but while the teacher’s emphasis seemed to be on physical performance, Nirvana focused on her mental/emotional commitment to physical activity “I don’t really care anymore.” She seemed to be saying that while she is physically “able” to do the tasks her teacher requires, she is no longer engaged or interested in the models of activity on offer. Nirvana also positioned her disengagement in physical education as fitting more broadly within her general activities throughout the day—“it was always exercising.” While models of physical activity at school demanded skilled performances at set times (during PE or as a member of a school team), Nirvana here sees physical activity as being more widely about the freedom to run around at break, have free time after school and have access to local facilities in her community. Like other girls, Nirvana had elsewhere noted the lack of variety of activities offered in PE and the emphasis on skills acquisition over and above “fun,” as had been the case at primary school. This might be related more generally to a shift at the secondary level where the curriculum emphasises competitive sports taught by specialist PE teachers in “adult-centered” models of performative participation (Wellard 2006). Nirvana’s comments bring across well the boredom and sedentary requirements that characterised many girls’ experiences once they entered secondary school where physical activities were compartmentalised rather than incorporated into everyday experiences. Similar to Lucy, Nirvana had been disappointed to find that Wellington Gardens did not allow girls to run around at breaktime. She was

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simultaneously adjusting to the loss of her friend Spirit and negotiating a peer context in which she felt constantly “on display.” New Year 7 girls at the school were often judged by the length of their skirts, which needed to balance school regulations and cultural codes of social acceptability (Raby 2010). Teachers frequently checked girls’ skirts with rulers, asking girls to roll down skirts or remove clothing that was not an official part of the uniform. Commenting on the new environment at the school, Nirvana remarked on the change in dress that had occurred as younger girls adjusted to new norms regulated by older girls at the school. Nirvana:

Sheryl: Nirvana:

Some of them like, they always have their skirts really high or all of that kind of stuff. And like, they always laugh at Year 7s the first day because they always have their skirts really long. So everyone’`s had them short since [laughs]. And what do your parents think about that? Oh, well, I got my Nan to shorten it to above knee length. But my Mum was like, “No you shouldn’t.” But my Dad was on my side. ‘Cause everyone does it. (Year 7 interview, age 12)

Similar to Lindsay, and echoing her attempt to throw a ball in PE, Nirvana describes a situation in which her body is evaluated and found to be lacking—in this instance through a (mis)interpretation of the dress code and its alignment with peer conventions. Nirvana is quickly able to re-align her bodily presentation, a process of adjustment to which she has become accustomed. She elsewhere noted a growing preoccupation with her body as bearer of signs through the daily ritual of getting ready for school. Nirvana:

Well it gets kind of annoying ‘cause you always gotta try and look right. So I spend a couple of hours, seriously, on my fringe. (Year 7 interview, age 13)

The process of bodily maintenance described denotes an ongoing investment of time and energy in the presentation of self which could both signal approval and avoid ridicule through the shifting forms of surveillance that characterised school cultures. Value and pleasure seemed much more readily available in other aspects of her life such as music,

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which Nirvana continued to play outside of school in several bands and orchestras. Nirvana described table tennis and jumping on her trampoline at home as ongoing physical activities she enjoyed, yet her focus shifted elsewhere, to areas where she could more readily gain recognition.

Spirit: “But now I’m doing it to get faster” Here I revisit Spirit, whose account of taking up running at a competitive club was introduced in Chap. 4. Spirit’s performances in running were widely acclaimed by her peers and teachers at primary school. Yet even as this accorded her recognition, Spirit noted the pressure she faced in attempting to constantly measure up to others’ expectations. Spirit described her coach’s reaction to her performance in the school-wide races with frustration and hurt. Spirit:

And he said to me “Oh Spirit, I think you’re over-training a bit now, that’s why you lost.” and I said “I’m not allowed to come second for once?!” It’s really annoying. That’s why I hate Mr Sebastian. (Year 6 interview, age 12)

The school-wide acknowledgement that Spirit was the “fastest runner” had worked to build up a series of expectations around her performances whereby her second place finish in the school races becomes noteworthy as insufficient or even “losing.” In Year 7 Spirit was selected to join Champions Athletics Club based on her running performances in local races. Spirit’s dreams of becoming an Olympic runner had been quickly dissolved by the running coach at her new club who bluntly informed the girls that none of their times would put them in position for future Olympic glory. Accordingly, Spirit noted her change in orientation towards running: “But now I’m not doing it for fun anymore, now I’m doing it to get faster” (Year 7 interview). In research into young people’s socialisation into athletics clubs, the authors noted that boys and girls between 13 and 15 “viewed competition as increasingly important to them,” representing a shift from an earlier orientation towards enjoyment and self-improvement (MacPhail et al. 2003, p. 261). The shift towards performance outcomes (quicker times) was in line with the ethos of the

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competitive running club Spirit had joined but was also reflected in school sporting activities. Girls who were able to compete in elite sports teams seemed to have compelling reasons for continuing, often reinforced by adult expectations of ongoing improvement. This could be considered a form of encouragement but it could also create pressure to continue to succeed and perform in successive competitions. The celebration of “PBs” (personal bests) in Spirit’s running club meant that girls were under constant pressure not only to place in events but also to achieve more highly than they had before. When Spirit went away on holiday for two weeks over the summer with her family, her coach questioned how often she had run and accused her of “skiving” (a slang for laziness) on her training. In other conversations, the coaches described Spirit’s progress to me as “disappointing” given her earlier performances. Expectations around Spirit’s sporting performances were matched in intensity by those around her academic performances, creating a pressurised context for her ongoing achievements. While selection for sports programmes based on developing “excellence” may prove compelling for those selected, it can also become a psychological burden as the need to prove oneself and one’s distinction becomes progressively more difficult in higher and higher echelons of competition. Similarly, for young people identified as “talented” within running or other sports, expectations around their ongoing improvement in fulfilment of “potential” can serve to create pressurised contexts.

Fragile Sporting Embodied Subjectivities This chapter has considered the sporting narratives of Lucy, Nirvana, Lindsay and Spirit as they undertook a schooling transition that also held significant implications for their embodied sporting subjectivities and sense of “value” within bodily hierarchies that framed their experiences. Designations of ability were significant for each girl and were reflected in girls’ sporting clubs and teams where performance-based assessments were both commonplace and taken for granted. Within a competitive model of sport it was often difficult for girls to believe in their abilities,

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even if they were competing at high levels since there would always be another girl who was “better” or as Lindsay states “so many other girls who can run so fast.” Girls sometimes mentioned specific moments where the idea that they were “bad” or “rubbish” at sport had been cemented— often by an adult assessment of their ability. The transition to secondary school marked a significant point where girls who had previously enjoyed sport were moved into more structured and competitive settings that acted as a sifting mechanism for their participation. The emphasis on adult models of sporting participation at this level meant that girls felt they had to make immediate decisions about whether they were “good at sport” or not, thus dictating whether and which physical activities they continued to participate in. While constructions of talent and ability had operated to sustain or motivate girls at earlier points of participation, these became more difficult to uphold once they entered secondary school and girls were increasingly persuaded to drop out of sports altogether. For girls such as Spirit who had “made the cut,” the idea of being “good at sport” could operate as a form of distinction and as a sense of achievement, albeit with the attendant knowledge that performances needed to continue at the required standard. The research also suggests that girls who do continue with sport may still feel pressured to keep up their physical performances alongside academic commitments. Sporting developmental models translated into persistent training and rising standards of performance making it ever more difficult for girls trying out new sports or to “join in” at a later age. Ability/talent designations proved fleeting in serving to justify girls’ initial interest in sport and were ultimately unsustainable as girls moved into more advanced pools of candidates where this distinction was no longer noteworthy. Lindsay, Nirvana and Lucy seemed to concur with definitions of themselves as bad or “rubbish at sports” and yet access to other resources and sources of identity mitigated these experiences for Lucy and Nirvana. Spirit, Lucy and Lindsay clearly identified and resented the unfairness of participation models based on ability as well as ongoing models of expectation and yet they had little power to change sorting standards. The idea of “being good at sport” seemed to present itself as a self-evident justification for participation in sport and was widely taken up by girls as a means of self-­ assessment and categorisation.

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Girls’ responses suggested an either/or positioning in which they felt compelled to align themselves according to estimations of their “ability” and where the prospect of identifying with “being good at sport” was increasingly tenuous. Discourses of good/bad at sport were embodied as girls lived out these subjectivities through their participation and engagement in sport. The analyses variously revealed how a fixed notion of ability shaped the possibilities for engaging in sport at school by setting up categories of good/bad at sport, which the girls felt compelled to align themselves with. Thus while being “good at sport” was often used to encourage girls to take part, there was little recognition of the fragility of this identity and the difficulty many girls seemed to have in sustaining it. The findings demonstrate how processes of team selection, coaching emphases on performance outputs and ongoing expectations of athletic development were particularly constraining for girls’ participation. These processes therefore operated as discriminatory mechanisms of exclusion from sports participation for girls who otherwise wanted to take part in physical activity modes deemed irrelevant or insufficient by various sporting gatekeepers. Therefore, a continuing theme in this chapter is that of the hierarchical relationship between girls and the adults who tended to govern/mediate their sports participation through designations of “ability.” Current youth sport emphases on “talent” and “ability” may be particularly exclusionary for young women since they are already positioned outside the dominant constructions of sporting ability and athleticism. For the girls in my research, “being good at sport” represented a fragile identity that could be easily interrupted or broken, even as this remained a requirement for much participation in sports. Paradoxically, this meant that girls often did not have the opportunity to disprove their believed incapacity as it became embodied in their sense of personal competency. Potentially even more damaging was the tendency for ability to form a prerequisite for participation, where “being good at sport” became both a motivation to take part and a reason for involvement. Girls who decided to not even try out for sports teams on the assumption that they would not be selected were strongly swayed by these ability designations. The experiences of girls who did try out for sports teams but were subsequently not included further attested to this. These expectations created processes of either self-selected or imposed exclusion based on

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perceptions of ability across sporting contexts, and thus a lack of opportunity to develop and improve for girls who had been convinced that they were “rubbish at sports” and thus challenging the learned incapacities they had come to embody. Often girls seemed to regret the loss of physical activity in secondary school but felt powerless to change this. Their longing for the forms of “fun” experienced in earlier physical activity participation was not readily available at secondary school and girls, therefore, felt compelled to shift towards performance or fitness-oriented goals. The emphasis on performative targets such as speed, skill and weight/body size as “measurable” outcomes might be seen to negate the possibility of other learning-oriented goals such as bodily pleasure, social experiences and even personal development (Wellard 2012). In returning to Shilling’s conceptualisation of bodily capacity then, secondary schools and extracurricular sports seemed to offer very limited opportunities for experiential transformation and instead provided a narrowing of body schemas in line with performance models.

References Clark, S. (2010). “Running into Trouble”: Constructions of danger and risk in girls’ access to outdoor space and physical activity. In J. Lovell & M. Stuart-­ Hoyle (Eds.), Leisure experiences (Vol. 109). Leisure Studies Association. Ennis, C. D. (1996). Students’ experiences in sport-based physical education: [More than] apologies are necessary. Quest, 48, 453–456. Evans, B. (2006). “I’d feel ashamed”: Girls’ bodies and sports participation. Gender, Place and Culture, 13(5), 547–561. Evans, J., & Davies, B. (2004). Introduction: Pedagogy, symbolic control, identity and health. In J. Evans, B. Davies, & J. Wright (Eds.), Body knowledge and control: Studies in the sociology of physical education and health (pp. 1–12). Routledge. Evans, J., Rich, E., Allwood, R., & Davies, B. (2007). Being “able” in a performative culture: Physical education’s contribution to a healthy interest in sport? In I.  Wellard (Ed.), Rethinking gender and youth sport (pp.  51–67). Routledge. Fitzgerald, H. (2005). Still feeling like a spare piece of luggage? Embodied experiences of (dis)ability in physical education and school sport. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 10(1), 41–59. https://doi.org/10.108 0/1740898042000334908.

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Hay, P.  J., & Macdonald, D. (2010). Evidence for the social construction of ability in physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 15(1), 1–18. Hill, J., & Azzarito, L. (2012). Representing valued bodies in PE: A visual inquiry with British Asian girls. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 17(3), 263–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/17408989.2012.690381. MacPhail, A., Gorely, T., & Kirk, D. (2003). Young people’s socialisation into sport: A case study of an athletics club. Sport, Education and Society, 8(2), 251–267. Paechter, C., & Clark, S. (2016). Being ‘nice’ or being ‘normal’: Girls resisting discourses of ‘coolness. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37(3), 457–471. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2015.1061979. Raby, R. (2010). “Tank Tops Are Ok but I Don’t Want to See Her Thong” Girls’ engagements with secondary school dress codes. Youth & Society, 41(3), 333–356. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X09333663. Probyn, E. (2000). Sporting Bodies: Dynamics of Shame and Pride, in Body and Society, 6(13): 13–28. Reay, D. (2006). “I’m not seen as one of the clever children”: Consulting primary school pupils about the social conditions of learning. Educational Review, 58(2), 171–181. Renold, E. (2006). “They won’t let us play…unless you’re going out with one of them”: Girls, boys and Butler’s “heterosexual matrix” in the primary years. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27(4), 489–509. Shilling, C. (2007). Sociology and the body: Classical traditions and new agendas. The Sociological Review, 55(1_suppl), 1–18. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1467-­954X.2007.00689.x. Shilling, C. (2008). Changing bodies: Habit, crisis and creativity. Sage. Stafford, A., Alexander, K., & Fry, D. (2015). ‘There was something that wasn’t right because that was the only place I ever got treated like that’: Children and young people’s experiences of emotional harm in sport. Childhood, 22(1), 121–137. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568213505625. Sykes, H. (2011). Queer bodies: Sexualities, genders and fatness in physical education. Peter Lang Publishing. Wellard, I. (2006). Able bodies and sport participation: Social constructions of physical ability for gendered and sexually identified bodies. Sport, Education and Society, 11(2), 105–119. Wellard, I. (2012). Body Reflexive Pleasures: Exploring bodily experiences within the context of sport and physical activity. Sport, Education and Society, 17(1), 21–33. Young, I. M. (2005). On female body experience: “throwing like a girl” and other essays. Oxford University Press.

6 Responsible Body Projects, Health and Moral Hierarchies

This chapter looks at the role of the body and health as framing girls’ participation in extracurricular sport and school physical education in their enactments of “successful girlhood.” Increasingly for girls involved in the research, sport and physical activity became understood as the obligation of responsible, “healthy” subjects. I analyse girls’ accounts by situating their embodied enactments within an overarching context of healthism. Healthism was found to intersect with postfeminist discourses of responsibility, conscientiousness and achievement as a means of justifying health-related behaviours and judgments through the cultivation of responsible body projects. I draw on the previously mapped out concept of body pedagogies in order to understand the role of schooling and the physical cultures realised there as sites of biopolitical intervention where girls come to learn about their bodies in different ways. Within this conceptualisation, healthism discourses as realised in schools are “imbued with instructional and regulative codes that are intended to both to regulate and to conserve a particular social order” with particular bodily implications (Evans et  al. 2008, p.  12). Accordingly, girls’ take up of embodied health practices were moralised around “healthy” and

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“unhealthy” behaviours and aligned with ongoing social inequalities realised through body hierarchies in the school. I understand healthism discourses as specifically translated through specific policies and interventions realised within neoliberal performative schooling cultures, which celebrate competition and individual achievement. These policy implications may include a school’s “healthy school status,” offhand remarks by teachers on weight loss and the embedding of health initiatives in school PE as outlined in the National Curriculum in England, which aims “to ensure that all pupils lead healthy, active lives” (DfE 2013, p. 1). I take up the contention that within such a performance-­ based climate, the slender, “fit” body can serve as a mark of distinction (Evans et  al. 2008) and simultaneously examine how such discourses marked out ideas of the “successful girl” as one who “takes care” of her body by managing her diet and engaging in physical activity. I thereby focus in particular on the interaction between health discourses and embodied femininities within body hierarchies as they were mapped out and regulated in school cultures. These classed, gendered and racialised body hierarchies within schools and sports settings served to differentiate girls’ experiences as they regulated girls’ bodies within the complex social configurations of their school and friendship groups. Body hierarchies varyingly affected girls’ ability to take up “healthy” identities, thus mediating the ways in which girls were seen and valued by peers and teachers alike. The chapter thereby situates girls’ participation in sport within the ongoing power relations of their peer cultures as charged through conflicts linked to “sexualised status, identity and competition” (Ringrose 2013, p. 87). Girls’ bodies, as materialised in school settings, served to translate particular cultural codes of morality, attractiveness and value, through their subscription to specific notions of the “ideal” (slender, white, able) body within heavily regulated constructions of femininity. Power relations between girls as realised within the schools functioned as a means of achieving recognition and were mediated by discourses of health which served to set up value-laden distinctions between “good” and “bad” bodies able to take part in physical activity.

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Gendering the Health Agenda in Schools In response to a growing emphasis on the implementation of a health agenda in schools, recent research has implicated the role of schooling as a site of biopolitical intervention in its cultivation of the “healthy” biocitizen (Evans et al. 2008; Wright and Harwood 2009). Growing critical health research has sought to understand the ways in which young people take up and respond to such overwhelming incitements towards health-­ based aims as they interact with achievement agendas (Evans et al. 2007; Houlihan and Green 2006; Rail 2009; Rich et  al. 2012; Sykes 2011; Tinning and Glasby 2002). This work has implicated physical education and health curriculums in moralising discourses that align “ability,” “health” and body size in often pernicious ways and with exclusionary consequences for young people. It has therefore provided a critical response to such health incentives, questioning the extent to which they are always “healthy” for young people. This further work suggests that the perpetuation of health discourses in schools may translate into narrow and surveillant prescriptions around health behaviours that set up moral hierarchies between students. The rise of a health imperative in schools and elsewhere has therefore created an intensifying expectation for young women to shape their bodies in line with normalised understandings of health as part of their ongoing construction of self within a postfeminist ethic. As Rich (2018, p. 739) suggests, such an ethic, “implores girls and young women to develop the knowledge, desire and resources to constantly work on and modify their bodies in line with contemporary imperatives.” Girls in my research engaged with these ideas alongside their participation in sport.

Growing Up and Getting Healthy I focus initially on accounts from Spirit, Nirvana and Lucy, introduced in previous chapters, whose relationships to health and sport were increasingly understood as personalised responsibilities beset by affective notions of guilt, boredom and sometimes blame. At the same time, this attention

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to their body projects seemed to align with their academic engagement and the project of schooling quite closely within their high-achieving, middle-class schooling contexts. I then focus more in depth on two additional participants, Deniz and Danny, as they attempted to negotiate the contradictory discourses of health, achievement and femininity within the moralised body hierarchies of their less affluent school peer cultures. I thereby explore how the schools the girls attended, and the particular body pedagogies and hierarchies materialised within those settings, set up important distinctions in the ways in which girls’ bodies were rendered as active/inactive and (un)valued subjects within these settings. In Chap. 4, I outlined how the transition to secondary school was seen as a point at which girls were expected to “grow up” and take responsibility for their learning and ongoing schooling projects. This sense of responsibility and “self-care” similarly extended for some girls into what were deemed “health” behaviours realised within responsible body projects as a series of choices about what/when to eat, move and “get healthy.” These choices around physical activity and diet represented a contradiction in many ways, since at the same time, girls were expected to spend more sedentary time studying, sitting in class and engaging in other “enrichment” activities. Despite the instructional and regulatory codes embedded within healthism discourses, girls interpreted and negotiated these codes in different ways and within varying modes of reluctance, ambivalence and sometimes enthusiasm, as technologies of self which could denote mastery or achievement (Jones and Aitchison 2007). After the transition to secondary school, Nirvana complained that she had less scope for physical activity in her daily life and described a scenario in which she attempted to carve out her days through a series of “good” and “bad” choices. Nirvana:

Yeah, I just spend my whole day at home. I just go through this, I sit down, then I go to the fridge. Look for something to eat. Find out there’s nothing there. Then go watch the telly, maybe do some homework, play some flute, play some piano. Go back to the fridge. Everything’s interconnected to the fridge. I always look in there and don’t find anything so I

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end up going to loads of other stuff. And yeah my Mum complains ‘cause I never eat fruit instead. Sheryl: And that’s a problem? Nirvana: I just overeat like chocolate bars and stuff. And especially ‘cause I got a cavity. And we went trick or treating, last time ever but I got loads of sweets and I feel like my tooth is going to fall out but… you know. Sheryl: So what does your Mum say about eating so many chocolate bars? Nirvana: She just wants me to eat more fruit, or just not eat. ‘Cause I don’t really need to eat, it’s just that I’ve got nothing better to do. So I just eat to waste time. (Year 7 interview, age 12) Nirvana’s relationship to food and to her studies in this excerpt conveys what might be described as an ambivalent interaction with the routinised, daily affairs of “good” and “bad” choices she is asked to make around food, exercise and academic achievement (Shilling 2010). Her construction of a “healthy” embodied subjectivity is taken up through the need to eat fruit and avoid cavities, but at the same time her choices are framed around the monotony of studying and the impossibility/difficulty of this ongoing requirement to sit still and absorb academic knowledge. Although “health” behaviours and schoolwork are aligned as the practices of a responsible subject in Nirvana’s account, this is also a process fraught with parental and self-regulation which characterises a point in time at which young people are expected to take increasing self-responsibility. Nirvana’s description moreover positions her mother as the regulator of her choices within a “healthy family” narrative (Fullagar 2009), allowing her to defer some of this responsibility as something she is not quite ready to fully embrace. Nirvana does, nonetheless, align healthy body work with academic commitment through achievement-based discourses embedded within the postfeminist schooling project which oscillate between hard work/commitment and indulgence. At the same time, Nirvana’s account is framed by an affective sense of guilt alluded to in the activities she feels she should be doing (eating fewer sweets, homework) and the lure of distraction in the form of the fridge. In other accounts,

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such as that of Spirit, physical activities and diet were more strongly aligned with weight loss as a form of body project framed around “improving” the self though bodily cultivation. In our Year 7 interview, Spirit reflected on the changing ways in which she had come to see her running. Spirit:

I think, I think when I was doing it [running] before; I was more doing it for health, fitness and just to keep myself in shape really. Because even though I was quite young, in year four I started getting concerned about my weight and stuff, if you know likeSheryl: Really? Spirit: Yeah, and I was like concerned about what I was eating, like only low fat foods. Sheryl: Do you know why that was? Spirit: I don’t know if it was in a jokey way. ‘Cause I think the reason I actually started being concerned was a girl was saying to me “Oh, you’ve got chubby cheeks” but now it’s me, it’s nothing. I don’t mind having chubby cheeks, I love it now. But, I don’t know, ‘cause I was only in year four, I didn’t really know. I just thought that meant I was bigger. I just basically resorted to not eating as much and I had quite a few arguments with my Mum actually, about it. My Mum wanted me to eat more. [Yeah]. But then I sort of grew out of it, and I was saying to myself, if I want to get better at my running, I have to eat more. And then I have to, if you’re concentrating on your running you have to eat more ‘cause of energy. And then just train a bit more, and then you’ll be able to go faster. So the running sort of helped me in a way. But if my Mum hadn’t introduced that, I don’t know what I’d end up like… ‘cause I still love my food, I love food. Sheryl: [both laugh] I think a lot of people do. Spirit: I mean I eat healthy food, I eat my nuts and stuff. But then occasionally I have a little treat. But I mean like, you’re supposed to have that really. Sheryl: Yeah.

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I don’t really remember what changed it. I remember when I used to have my lunch box, I used to cut off all the crusts on my sandwich until it was like that small [motions with her fingers half the size of the sandwich], each four slices. And then I only had that and then my Mum started making jelly and at first I wasn’t taking it. But then I started taking it ‘cause I was thinking of running, and then I just carried on eating it. I felt much better as well. (Year 7 interview, age 12)

Spirit’s account describes a relationship to food and running through a process of shifting priorities grounded within a narrative in which she takes increasing responsibility for both her physical and mental health by setting up distinctions between “good” and “bad” behaviours. Yet this distinction is somewhat confounded when an “unhealthy” focus on food and activity becomes a bad behaviour itself. The obsession with food, the (mis)understanding of herself as “chubby” and the use of physical activity as a means of managing her weight are later characterised as childish misinterpretations associated with disordered eating which Spirit has successfully “overcome.” Spirit separates herself from this behaviour, “but then I sort of grew out of it” by describing the ways in which she came to see food as fuel for her body and as enabling running achievements. This shift, from what is characterised as an “unhealthy” relationship with food, is mediated by the concept of balance as Spirit describes indulging in nuts and “the occasional treat” as something “you’re supposed to have.” Thus, the shift in her relationship with food and running is understood as one of increasing maturity, in which “healthy” food choices and physical wellness are balanced alongside mental wellness and the ability to remedy a “distorted” relationship with food and body image. At the same time, this construction of health is haunted by something more sinister, as she wonders—“I don’t know what I’d end up like.” It is unclear whether Spirit is alluding to fatness or disordered eating here as that which has been averted through her take up of running, yet both prospects seem to haunt the narrative as the affective “other” of the subject of biopower—the fat, unhealthy or disordered body (Walkerdine 2009, p. 206). Spirit’s ability to overcome her earlier disordered eating, her focus on running as achievement rather than weight loss strategy and

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her consumption of food through the notion of balance all seem to mutually constitute a form of “successful girlhood” where both responsibility and wellness are continuously managed and sought after as a form of body maintenance. As described in previous chapters, both Nirvana and Spirit attended high-achieving, single-sex girls’ schools (although Spirit’s was private) where academic and sporting accomplishments were both celebrated and expected within a privileged project of concerted cultivation (Maxwell and Aggleton 2013). Nirvana and Spirit’s construction of a “healthy” subjectivity is performed through an ongoing monitoring and individual responsibility for personal health “choices.” As responsible, healthy subjects, it is up to Nirvana and Spirit to make the “right” health decisions and yet these must be done in a way that is complementary rather than adversarial to their academic achievement. Healthism discourses in which girls responsibly manage their bodies functioned as both legitimising and regulatory discourses in justifying Nirvana and Spirit’s physical activities. Although both girls rely on their mothers to regulate their “health,” ultimately the process of “growing up” involves monitoring their own bodies and making decisions about what to eat, what exercise to take and how to frame their physical activity. Running to lose weight is positioned as an “unhealthy” behaviour, whereas running to get faster is seen as a “healthy” behaviour with the additional bonus that it also manages body size. These excerpts outline the ongoing negotiations involved in managing complex, moralistic configurations of healthism discourse through bodily projects.

Moral Hierarchies of Bodies Healthism discourses simultaneously contributed to a moral hierarchy of bodies through which girls could position both themselves and others. In popular understandings, ideas around health often worked interchangeably with issues of body size, so that being skinny might discursively equate to being fit and healthy and this related to evaluative judgments around body size and physical activity. Oliver (2001) research revealed that girls’ outward bodily acceptance during group interviews was

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contradicted by an obsessive concern with bodily appearance and functions, as documented in their journal entries. Bodily acceptance might also be directly related to evaluations of other girls’ bodies. During our interview, I asked Lucy how she felt about her body. Lucy:

I don’t really mind. I know some people are quite… large. They get really upset and they don’t do anything. They don’t go swimming or anything like that. But then they don’t try and stop it. They don’t stop eating they just don’t do the fun activities. Like say I was quite a lot bigger and I didn’t want to go swimming because of it. Then I’d try and sort myself out and put myself on a diet or something but some people don’t do that. They just cut out all the fun activities. Which is the thing that’s gonna get them thin. (Year 8 Interview, Age 13)

Lucy begins by telling me that she is content with her body and appearance, “I don’t really mind” and this self-acceptance is legitimated through her participation in physical activities and presumably by her own “slender” frame. Although Lucy mentions dieting as a solution to overweight, she primarily emphasises physical activity as a means of bodily regulation and restriction. In addition to swimming, Lucy regularly took part in physical activities such as rock climbing and sailing which she often did through her Scouts participation. Lucy can be seen to produce her “healthy” (active) identity by contrasting her own behaviours with those of her overweight peers who seemingly lack the moral willpower to “sort themselves out” and whose unwillingness to expose their unregulated bodies in revealing swimsuits is interpreted as irrational and counterproductive. “Health” in this extract is discursively reliant on the construction of the “unhealthy other”—the girl who cannot or will not go swimming because she is worried about how her body will be judged (Crawford 1994). Thus an (outward) bodily acceptance may be linked to the projection of fatness and lack of exercise onto irresponsible “others,” thereby validating one’s own “healthy” lifestyle. Health as the corporeal embodiment of slenderness becomes moralised and held up for scrutiny, with the linked understanding that “fatness” equates to laziness and lack of willpower. Responsibility for health is strongly individualised in this excerpt suggesting that extra weight is a sign of personal failure.

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The assumed conclusion of this sentiment is that those who embody a corporeal slenderness have already “sorted themselves out,” demonstrating a neoliberal form of responsibility and self-care here seen noteworthy. Within the moral economy of virtue Lucy is able to construct her engagement in physical activity as a “healthy choice,” even as her friends were regularly restricted from these activities due to concerns by their parents over the girls’ safety. In other contexts, girls were often critical of inequalities that prevented them from taking part in physical activities. However, the “common sense” appearance of healthism seemed to remove this possibility. The accounts described above are all from white, middle-class girls attending private or high achieving secondary schools on the outskirts of London and whose responsible subjectivities aligned closely between their academic and health achievements. In the following two sections, I more clearly situate girls’ body work and healthy achievements within the contexts of two much less affluent secondary schools, where evaluations around girls’ bodies were more clearly tied to racialised and classed economies of “virtue” and where middle-class capital realised through access to physical activities were less available.

 eniz: Becoming a “non-doer” D and a “proud Muslim” I focus now on Deniz, who came to my attention in primary school through her enthusiastic involvement in school football and netball. She attended Benjamin Laurence school with Gazza, Lindsay and Nilay and joined in with them in playground games of football. Deniz had emigrated with her parents from Turkey and wore a headscarf to school along with the school uniform of trousers, polo top and cotton jumper. During our interview, she and her friends described the games she enjoyed in primary school. “We always used to play this game called Champ in year four. But then it used to get boring so that’s the reason [we] play football.” Although she got on relatively well in the class, Deniz’s female friendships were also sometimes characterised by tensions and exclusions. Unlike many of the other girls in the class, Deniz was willing to defend

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herself physically and she described an altercation with the class bully where she fought back. “Once I beat him up and he punched me in my tummy and I was like, what are you doing? and then I punched him back and he run away ‘cause he was scared” (Year 5 Interview). Deniz was the only girl in her class who had physically retaliated against this boy, sometimes leading to her designation as a “tomboy” (Paechter and Clark 2007). At the transition to secondary school, Deniz conveyed concerns iterated by her parents about the behaviour of young people at the local mixed secondary who she described as “rude” and troublesome. Her father worked at a small shop near the school and his concerns about inappropriate interactions led Deniz and her parents to choose Blythe Vale Secondary, an all-girls comprehensive school. Like Bryckman’s where her classmates Gazza and Lindsay attended, Blythe Vale school was located in an economically deprived area where half of students were from ethnic minority backgrounds and a significant number from bilingual families, many of whom were asylum seekers or refugees (Ofsted report, anonymised). The school had recently been designated National Healthy Schools Status, thus heightening its impetus to keep students physically active. Teachers expressed to me their concern with the “problem” of girls’ participation in PE and sport through what they described as a lack of a “staying on culture” at the school. In an effort to encourage more participation in physical activities, the school had provisioned a variety of new clubs including dance, basketball and trampolining and on request had established a cheerleading club to replace others such as football club, which had not worked out that year. On a research visit to a dance lesson, an inspector remarked to me positively that there were no overweight children in the group, although she added that one girl was “stout.” Similar comments at other schools suggested that although obesity discourse was not perhaps the main impetus for the implementation of physical activities, it remained resonant as a justificatory and pressing concern in monitoring young people’s bodies. When I interviewed Deniz’s PE teacher, she expressed frustration at girls’ “non-participation” against her own accountability and the expectation that teachers should motivate and involve students within what might be described as a liberal, egalitarian ethos. “Because I personally believe that school sport is about everyone being involved and not just

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picking a team and focusing on the gifted and talented kids.” PE sessions were frequently beset by divisions of “doers” and “non-doers” which marked out participation in the classes, as observed on my first visit to the class at which Deniz did not have her PE kit and thus did not take part in the activity. The girls are playing rounders today and after changing we meet them on the grass. There are five girls who aren’t doing PE and have brought notes to excuse them. Miss Masters calls them the “non-doers” in a somewhat disdainful tone and instructs them to sit by the tree and carry out occasional tasks. “Non-doers, please bring the bucket.” The girls mull about sullenly. When Deniz and her friend wander next to the school to sit down they are told to go back to the tree. Deniz’s friend complies but Deniz stays put, despite a second request. When I go over to join them, they immediately want to emphasize that they’ve brought notes and complain that the teachers “don’t believe us.” One girl says the teachers give them dirty looks when they bring notes. When I ask why they can’t do PE they give a variety of answers, which I record with some interest in my notebook. Musama—dropped something on her foot in DT and is limping around Tamsin—has her period Melissa—is “sort of ill” two days ago and not fully recovered Sumaya—when she runs it hurts her tummy Deniz—popped blister on her foot (Fieldnotes, Blythevale Secondary School)

Most of the girls not taking part in PE on any given day were also veiled Muslims and their problematisation seemed to rest on an expectation that they participate in the dominant cultural model of sport, even as they actively constructed their Muslim identities through resistance to this participation (Benn et al. 2011). Their responses conveyed a mutual lack of trust tinged with hostility between themselves and the teacher charged with “involving” them in an activity they clearly did not enjoy or wish to take part in. When I mentioned my research focus on Deniz and her involvement in primary school football, the teacher expressed her surprise that Deniz was one of the active girls I had originally focused on in primary school.

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Miss Fleming: If you’d asked me, I wouldn’t have thought of her. If you’d asked me to pick the kids that were really active in primary school I wouldn’t have chosen her. Sheryl: Really? Miss Fleming: Yeah, so I don’t really know what transition has happened with her because she does seem to be opting out more and more. She’s really, really bad with bringing her kit. She’s very keen to try and smooth that over by asking to be involved in another way, like “oh, I’ll help you.” In some respects it almost feels like she doesn’t consider herself to be the in the same category as all the other kids in the class and that is frustrating. Yeah, she tends to try and opt out a lot. And that is very frustrating. Despite what the teacher earlier defined as an inclusive ethos, distinctions between students—as active/inactive and doer/non-doer—are evident throughout the categorisation of the class, as figured through the requirement to ensure compliance and participation on the teacher’s part. Deniz’s shift into the category of “non-doer” constituted her inactive identity filtered through a growing distrust between herself and the teacher. From the teacher’s perspective, Deniz’s “forgetfulness” conveyed a disdain for the lesson itself and a failure to recognise her position, “in the same category” as one of many students who must comply and wear the correct kit. Gendered Islamic identities seemed to preclude PE participation within the school marking out a divisive polarisation of the participation “problem.” Her teacher noted, “quite generally across the year groups we’re having difficulty with getting those [Muslim] girls to participate.” The mapping out of “doers” and “non-doers,” of active and inactive bodies valued in this setting were simultaneously situated within the racialised and classed hierarchies of the school, in which Deniz had found herself increasingly alienated and excluded. Deniz’s strategy in the midst of this social milieu was both to withdraw from certain situations but to defend herself in the face of perceived attacks. When I asked why she had not tried out for the football club, her withdrawal was situated within a fear of violence grounded by social and peer exclusion.

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Why did you decide not to go and play football here? I don’t know, ‘cause I might have a fight. So you’re worried about fighting here? Is that because of things you heard, or do you think it’s a violent school, what’s-? Everyone’s rude. Like if someone gets me really angry I always start a fight. If someone says “stupid” I get really angry. Everyone says that I’m tempered but I’m really not. Everyone thinks that. (Year 8 interview, age 13)

In primary school Deniz’s willingness to stand up for herself had distinguished her from her friends who were more intent on performing “good girl” femininities, but this had been relatively unproblematic. However, in the more competitive and discriminatory secondary school, Deniz’s investment in a more confrontational identity had resulted in numerous altercations with her classmates. Deniz asserts that she is “not tempered” on the basis that such incidents were defensive reactions to perceived attacks on her dignity and identity often grounded in Islamophobic discrimination she experienced. This seems to accord with the actions of the “gang girls” described by Farzana Shain (2003), whose “violent” and rebellious actions were the result of ongoing racist provocations. The girls Shain described had all experienced racist attacks or harassment at their schools and their open contestation of this led to their marginalisation and “bad” reputations. The construction of an assertive femininity through practices of “truth-telling” or “speaking my mind” have elsewhere been associated with ethnic minority femininities within structurally racist schooling systems (Archer et al. 2007; George 2007b). Girls’ assertions of loud, active and visible femininities can also be understood as challenging the forms of submissive, passive and quiet femininity that are usually rewarded within schools (Archer et al. 2007). Deniz’s adoption of a more assertive femininity seems to position her outside the dominant conventions of a passive femininity (Shain 2003). Deniz talked about the new rules of her school’s social setting with a sense of both bewilderment and distress. She described several instances in which she had been “cussed” and even barged as linked to comments around her scarf and the clothes she wore.

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They cussed my friend today as well. She was wearing a Nike tracksuit and they said “where’d you get that from? You can’t afford it. I bet you got it from Poundland or something like that.” There seems to be a lot of stuff about money at this school. If you don’t have money they say you’re poor, if you do they say you’re rich. I don’t get this school. (Year 7 interview, age 12)

Deniz’s confusion and social dislocation were set within the school peer culture’s complex configuration of social norms based on dress, appearance and popularity—statuses that more subtly coded differences of social class, wealth, “race” and ethnicity. Tensions around financial status led to an intense monitoring of consumer and designer items and accessories which may have stemmed from girls’ precarious class positions, many of whom came from immigrant and Muslim backgrounds. Friendship groupings at the school seemed to shift and realign alongside social divisions in similarly confusing experiences for girls, as has been documented in previous research accounts (George 2007a). In Year 7, Deniz described a process of friendship exclusion in which she had been ousted because another girl had “taken her place.” She explained, “like they don’t want me in it. And they want [another girl]. And I just went out. I didn’t say anything.” Following these key incidences and Deniz’s reading of the social hierarchies embedded in her school culture, Deniz described a process of aligning herself more closely with her Islamic and Turkish identities. She began wearing a necklace symbolising both Turkey and Islam each day and became friends with a new group of more devout Muslim girls. During our Year 8 interview, Deniz discussed her growing investment in an Islamic Turkish identity. Deniz:

Sheryl: Deniz:

I’m proud to be a Muslim, that’s one. And I like being Turkish. ‘Cause one girl in year nine, she knows Turkish but she looks Jamaican. And then we talk in Arabic, which is nice, I like it. So what does that mean for you? Being proud of being Muslim? Everyone says that I’m really into it. And I like being into it. I really want to know about my religion. Everyone says “you

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shouldn’t” and everything. Like Vesna, she’s not really into being Muslim. So I’m just like, I’m really into it. I wanna learn, I really want to learn about it. (Year 8 interview, age 13) After being ousted from her former group, Deniz and her best friend (also Turkish Muslim) joined an all-Asian Muslim friendship group in their class. Deniz’s investment in her Muslim and Turkish identities can be seen as both a resistance to her former friendship group and a positive form of identification and validation within a “growing awareness of Islam and what it meant to be Muslim,” which precluded PE participation (Dagkas and Benn 2006, p. 32). However, in our Year 8 interview Deniz suggested that she had recently begun to re-engage with PE following comments and encouragement from her mother framed within a healthism discourse. Deniz:

Yeah, ‘cause I don’t do PE that much. And she [her mum] tells me off, like “why aren”t you doing PE?” and everything. ‘It”s good.” Sheryl: Your mum says that? Deniz: Yeah. Sheryl: I thought your mum didn’t mind if you skipped PE and things. Deniz: That was last year. But now, I’ve gone a bit fat and then she goes “you should lose weight and everything and do PE.” (Year 8 interview, age 13) Although Deniz was resistant to an idealised femininity underscored by her position as a veiled Turkish Muslim immigrant to Britain, here the impending fear of “fat” became sufficient incentive for a renewed participation in PE. Healthism discourse came to bear on Deniz’s bodily understanding as outside the ideal, white, “slender” norm. The stigma surrounding fat and the ways in which school PE and other sporting sites marginalise non-normative bodies have been documented in research on young people’s experiences of sport and PE as it has come to represent a moral failing (Sykes 2011; Wellard 2006). The fearful threat of “going a bit fat” draws heavily on obesity discourses which implicate young people

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in an impending “crisis.” Here this fear is used as an incentive towards engaging in PE lessons, though clearly with a different orientation than her experiences in primary school which centred on joy and sociability. Deniz and her friends’ visual difference from a wider peer group in which they felt marginalised and excluded created a contradictory position for Deniz where health imperatives were confounded by the ongoing construction of a racialised femininity set in opposition to her peers.

Danny: Resisting the “Anorexic” Body I shift now to Danny, who attended the mixed-sex, inner city school nearby to where Deniz’s school was located. Although Danny’s family did not have access to the vast social capital of middle-class families at more affluent schools, they were able to facilitate her sports participation including competitive ice skating and its attendant skates and skating outfits among other costs. Danny was introduced to me by Lindsay and Gazza who invited her along for a group interview in Year 7. Danny’s athletic abilities, social confidence and seeming lack of self-consciousness around her appearance was a subject of fascination for Lindsay and Gazza who noted in an admiring tone, “she never seems to care about how she looks” during our interview. Although I hadn’t worked with Danny in primary school, an additional interview with her as well as her ongoing friendships with Lindsay and Gazza provided some useful insights into the peer dynamics at Bryckman’s school and what it meant to be a “sporty girl” there. Widely regarded as the most athletic girl in her class, Danny’s confidence in her sporting ability was seemingly firmly established. She had been ice skating for several years and competed in cross-country running outside the school. She was picked often for teams and gained a sense of distinction from both her teachers and peers for her sporting achievements. Danny was not particularly invested in academic achievement but took considerable pride from her sporting ability. Thus for Danny, sport was usefully framed within both a performance and achievement discourse which on the surface seemed relatively unproblematic. The insertion of Danny’s body into healthism discourse set within peer dynamics and body hierarchies at the school suggested a more

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complicated dynamic in which Danny worked creatively to negotiate evaluations of her body size and food intake. During our group interview, the girls discussed a recent sleepover and the breakfast that had accompanied it. However, this pleasure was soon mediated by the question of body size and food regulation. Danny:

We had a fry up, um. And I was like “are there any beans” and she was like “No sorry, there’s no beans.” Oh! [both laugh] Danny: ‘Cause I like my food. Gazza: Assuming she eats so much, look how skinny she is. Look how skinny she is and she eats basically like that everyday. Danny: [laughs] Gazza: No offence. Danny: No ‘cause I do so much sport that it just runs off me. So I eat more each day. I think, so it doesn’t matter. Gazza: If she sat on her bum she’d be like that [motions huge belly with her hands]. Danny: Yeah, I’m not overweight. But if I didn’t eat and did so much exercise, I’d be underweight. So I gotta balance. Gazza: You lie, you are so obese [laughs] Danny: I know, I’m like so… (Year 7 group interview, age 12) This passage highlights the incorporation of healthism discourse within girls’ interpersonal interactions as a process of regulation where questions of status and hierarchy are played out through adherence to “acceptable” or “healthy” behaviours. Danny’s large consumption of food within a biomedical model calorie/energy input is deemed remarkable given her “skinny” frame and this is regarded as an anomaly worth commenting on. The spectre of fatness as social pariah is again conjured and rendered safely within the confines of Danny’s “skinny” body. Gazza can name this pariah—“you are so obese” because Danny’s small frame clearly obviates this threat. Yet Danny still feels compelled to justify her behaviour, drawing on her sports participation to explain that she is able to maintain the “correct” weight by monitoring both her intake of food and her expenditure of energy through sport. The concept of balance is again drawn on,

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as a form of body work in which Danny must continue to engage as responsible subject. Although this regulatory interaction comes across as friendly (the laughing and “no offence”), my ongoing observations and interviews with the girls clearly situated such interactions within the heteronormative economy of the school which marked out particular body hierarchies. Evaluations of girls’ bodies were relentless and noted in multiple observations I made at the school in which girls’ bodies were clearly “on display” through ongoing judgments around breast size, clothing and other physical aspects of their appearances (Pomerantz 2008). During a lull on sports day, I recorded a conversation in which a friend of Gazza, Lindsay and Danny’s admitted her desire to lose weight. The group were gathered around a celebrity magazine, prompting discussion around diet. Rufus: Why are you on a diet? Gazza: She wants to be skinny! Rufus: Why do you want to be skinny? Bridget: I don’t want to be skinny, I just don’t want to be fat. Lindsay: She wants to be fit. Bridget: Yeah. Rene: Danny doesn’t eat anything, hardly anything. Lily doesn’t either but she’s not as tiny. Rufus: She’s not that small. (Year 7 observation at Adlington School) Evaluations of girls’ body sizes and food intake operate here through veiled aggression in the form of insults and accusations marking out where such bodies belong within the peer hierarchy. As Ringrose (2013, p.  86) argues, these “relational aggressions” are more readily explained within a heteronormative economy of peer relations where bodies serve to mark out “value.” Although slender bodies were condoned, dieting was at the same time cast as a secretive, even shameful practice given its implied narcissism or self-obsession. The desire to be “fit” as Bridget explains, more readily condones bodily regulation within healthism discourse, thus justifying her food restrictions. Similarly, common weight loss practices of skipping lunch, chewing gum to ward off hunger or restricting certain foods from their diets were often hidden by the girls

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whose practices were subject to an ongoing scrutiny and generalised illicitness. Like academic achievement in Jackson’s (2006) study, weight loss was favoured as a form of “effortless achievement” lest it be cast as overly obsessive and thus “unhealthy.” The interrogation of girls’ “health” practices within this interaction can be understood more clearly as a means of navigating complex hierarchies of bodies and behaviours. In this way, bodily norms and the health discourses around them served to regulate the girls’ behaviours while acting as yet another mechanism in their complex social positioning. The interchanging of fitness and weight could be confusing and compounded by the harassment girls experienced, which often impelled them to insist that they did eat and to hide any dieting behaviour from friends and peers, or to explain it as otherwise. As a very physically active girl, Danny’s slender body was both condoned and held up to scrutiny, as she explained in our interview. Danny: Some boys, like Connor, he says I’m anorexic and things. And I said “what’s anorexic?” And he said “when you be sick” and I said “No, that’s bulimic.” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying. [follow up in later interview] Sheryl: So last time you mentioned that some boys call you anorexic in class? Danny: Oh, yeah. It’s only like a couple but like some girls will say “but she eats a lot, you don’t know how much she eats. And she just burns it off.” ‘Cause I’m in proportion. Sometimes it gets me down. Sheryl: When they say it? Danny: Yeah, cause like but then everyone will say “oh just shut up” ‘cause everyone sticks up for me. Which is quite nice. But I know myself that I’m not anorexic. I like my food. So I’m just like “if you think of me that way then don’t speak to me.” (Year 7 interviews, age 12)

In this excerpt, Danny is able to resist a male classmate’s negative comments around her body weight by positioning him as ignorant in relation to eating disorders and therefore lacking in authority. There seem to be several reasons that Danny seemed better able to defend herself than her peers. These included an embodied slender frame, intense sporting commitment and performances and a sense of female solidarity where she perceived her friends as defending her, even if the previous extract belies

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this expectation. Danny’s reaction to being called anorexic was to insist that the reason she was so slender was due to the large amount of sports she engaged in, thus engaging in healthism discourse as a justification of her body size. At the same time, Danny was less likely than her peers to engage in overtly feminised performances such as makeup or short skirts and her long blonde hair was often unkempt. Yet these gendered performances never seemed to compromise her popularity and instead her friends admired this seeming lack of attention to her looks. Danny’s physical performances of both sport and femininity seem to suggest that sport involvement can serve as a legitimating discourse through which girls are able to justify their bodily practices and shapes particularly where girls’ bodies fit within other normative constructions. Danny’s ability to resist negative healthism discourses may, in many ways, be premised on a normative white, slender, able, body which constitutes a “good” body, as in the framing of body narratives (Garrett 2004). In each of these exchanges, body size and girls’ eating practices are harshly interrogated, forming a powerful lens through which to scrutinise each other’s motives and bodies. I suggest that the girls’ constant negotiations over social positioning and sexualised attention as manifest in these interactions must be read within a highly charged social context where girls were subject to unequally distributed, sometimes desirable but often humiliating scrutiny of their bodies. As their school had been formerly a single-sex boys’ school, girls were considerably outnumbered by their male peers which created a further imbalance in gender relations. Accusations that girls were either “fat” or “anorexic” were coupled with rampant yet normalised sexual harassment, as has long been documented in mixed-sex schools (Draper 1993). This heightened sexualised scrutiny contributed to the girls’ vigilant caution around the way both their bodies and their eating habits were viewed by others The extracts also demonstrate how girls’ embodiment of a slender physique must appear effortless and “natural” rather than as the result of food restriction or excessive exercise. The policing of girls’ bodies, conversations and practices was commonplace and as these extracts demonstrate, it was enacted by girls and boys alike within competitive peer hierarchies. Thus body size, weight, eating and physical activity become entangled in a series of complex, contradictory mechanisms requiring equivocations,

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concealment and subtle negotiation on the part of girls in explaining and justifying their bodies and behaviours.

Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds? These accounts from Spirit, Lucy, Nirvana, Deniz and Danny demonstrate how the construction of healthy identities comes into relief at the transition to secondary school where an enhancement of accountability around academic achievement forced girls to make calculated decisions about their participation in physical activity. Just as the girls were expected to make decisions about secondary school, academic study and their extracurricular activities, so too were they attempting to make the “right” choices around their health-related body projects. In this sense, health can be considered as an enactment of successful girlhood which functioned to position girls as either responsible, good, “healthy” subjects or as irresponsible, lazy, “unhealthy” others. To some extent, healthism discourses allowed the girls to legitimate and justify their participation in physical activities that were not otherwise particularly valued or valuable in the peer context of the school. This included Danny and Spirit’s participation in cross-country running, and Lucy’s participation in sailing and rock climbing. However, healthism discourses simultaneously worked to exclude and shame other girls such as Deniz whose bodies did not fit the normative, corporeal constructions of physical activity participation. In the performative context of schooling and the competitive peer hierarchies therein, healthism discourses operated as yet another set of expectations that at the same time conflated “health” with slender bodies in moralising narratives of “good” and “bad” behaviours and subjectivities. While healthism discourses could legitimate girls’ physical activities and eating practices as “responsible” behaviours, they also came to regulate these activities and the girls’ self-concepts. The interviews demonstrate the affective dimensions of subjectification as a means of inducing feelings of guilt and shame in relation to body size and food intake in processes of compulsive responsibilisation (Kelly 2001). Thus when girls framed their sporting experiences in terms of health and fitness it came

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across through a sense that they should be exercising regularly or eating healthily, but perhaps were not. It could result in feelings of guilt that they were not doing better, that their bodies were not the right size and that they should remedy this by eating less or being more active. This sense of guilt was present despite the many overriding factors that made physical activity and “healthy” eating often challenging for these young, gendered subjects. The data also demonstrates the moralising effect of health discourses, which worked to establish bodily hierarchies contributing to a narrowing of possibilities for girls’ sports participation as well as the marginalisation of “othered” bodies. Health discourses, and the binaries they reinforce between “healthy” and “unhealthy”, “fat” and “thin”, “good” and “bad” were used to regulate girls’ behaviour within the heterosexualised, racialised economies of the school. “Health” as an enactment of successful girlhood thus works to set up winners and losers since it is unequally attainable to different girls. In practice, healthism discourses act as one more means by which girls are unable to perform idealised femininities since their bodies always seem to come up short. Although “health” was often translated by teachers and students alike through the performative measurement of body size, the spectre of “unhealthy” disordered eating simultaneously held slender bodies up to interrogation. Specific notions of the “perfect” female body alongside public and individualised health imperatives heavily regulated girls’ bodies as they engaged in ongoing “healthy” body projects against a set of impossible, contradictory demands to manage their health.

References Archer, L., Halsall, A., & Hollingworth, S. (2007). Inner-city femininities and education: “race”, class, gender and schooling in young women’s lives. Gender and Education, 19(5), 549–568. Benn, T., Dagkas, S., & Jawad, H. (2011). Embodied faith: Islam, religious freedom and educational practices in physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 16(1), 17–34.

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Crawford, R. (1994). The boundaries of the self and the unhealthy other: Reflections on health, culture and AIDS. Social Science & Medicine, 38(10), 1347–1365. Dagkas, S., & Benn, T. (2006). Young Muslim women’s experiences of Islam and physical education in Greece and Britain: A comparative study. Sport, Education and Society, 11(1), 21–38. DfE. (2013). National curriculum in England: Physical education programmes of study. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ national-­curriculum-­in-­england-­physical-­education-­programmes-­of-­study/ national-­curriculum-­in-­england-­physical-­education-­programmes-­of-­study Draper, J. (1993). We’re back with Gobbo: The re-establishment of gender relations following a school merger. In P.  Woods & M.  Hammersley (Eds.), Gender and ethnicity in schools (pp. 49–74). London and New York: Routledge. Evans, J., Rich, E., Allwood, R., & Davies, B. (2007). Being “able” in a performative culture: Physical education’s contribution to a healthy interest in sport? In I.  Wellard (Ed.), Rethinking gender and youth sport (pp.  51–67). Routledge. Evans, J., Rich, E., Davies, B., & Allwood, R. (2008). Education, disordered eating and obesity discourse: Fat fabrications. Routledge: New York. Fullagar, S. (2009). Governing healthy family lifestyles through discourses of risk and responsibility. In J. Wright & V. Harwood (Eds.), Biopolitics and the “Obesity Epidemic”: Governing bodies (pp. 108–126). Routledge. Garrett, R. (2004). Negotiating a physical identity: Girls, bodies and physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 9(2), 223–237. George, R. (2007a). Girls in a goldfish bowl: Moral regulation, ritual and the use of power amongst inner city girls. Sense Publishers. George, R. (2007b). Urban girls’ “race”, friendship and school choice: Changing schools, changing friendships. Race Ethnicity and Education, 10(2), 115–129. Houlihan, B., & Green, M. (2006). The changing status of school sport and physical education: Explaining the policy change. Sport, Education and Society, 11(1), 73–92. Jackson, C. (2006). Lads and ladettes in school: Gender and a fear of failure. Open University Press. Jones, A., & Aitchison, C. C. (2007). Triathlon as a space for women’s technologies of the self. In C.  C. Aitchison (Ed.), Sport & identities: Masculinities, femininities and sexualities (pp. 53–73). Routledge. Kelly, P. (2001). Youth at risk: Processes of individualisation and responsibilisation in the risk society. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 22(1), 23–33.

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Maxwell, C., & Aggleton, P. (2013). Becoming accomplished: Concerted cultivation among privately educated young women. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 21(1), 75–93. Oliver, K. (2001). Images of the Body from Popular Culture: Engaging adolescent girls in critical inquiry. Sport, Education and Society, 6(2): 143–164. Paechter, C., & Clark, S. (2007). Who are tomboys and how do we recognise them? Women’s Studies International Forum, 30(4), 342–354. Pomerantz, S. (2008). Girls, style and school identities: Dressing the part. Palgrave Macmillan: New York. Rail, G. (2009). Canadian youth’s discursive constructions of health in the context of obesity discourse. In J. Wright & V. Harwood (Eds.), Biopolitics and the “Obesity Epidemic”: Governing bodies (Vol. 3, pp. 141–156). Routledge. Rich, E. (2018). Gender, health and physical activity in the digital age: Between postfeminism and pedagogical possibilities. Sport, Education and Society, 23(8), 736–747. Rich, E., Evans, J., & Evans, J. (2012, March 22). Performative health in schools: Welfare policy, neoliberalism and social regulation? Biopolitics and the “Obesity Epidemic.” https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203882061-­16 Ringrose, J. (2013). Postfeminist education? Girls and the sexual politics of schooling. Routledge: New York. Shain, F. (2003). The schooling and identity of Asian girls. Trentham Books: Stoke on Trent. Shilling, C. (2010). Exploring the society-body-school nexus: Theoretical and methodology issues in the study of body pedagogies. Sport, Education and Society, 15(3), 151–167. Sykes, H. (2011). Queer bodies: Sexualities, genders and fatness in physical education. Peter Lang Publishing: New York. Tinning, R., & Glasby, T. (2002). Pedagogical Work and the “Cult of the Body”: Considering the role of HPE in the context of the “new public health”. Sport, Education and Society, 7(2), 109–119. Walkerdine, V. (2009). Biopedagogies and beyond. In J. Wright & V. Harwood (Eds.), Biopolitics and the “Obesity Epidemic”: Governing bodies (pp. 199–208). Routledge. Wellard, I. (2006). Able bodies and sport participation: Social constructions of physical ability for gendered and sexually identified bodies. Sport, Education and Society, 11(2), 105–119. Wright, J., & Harwood, V. (2009). Biopolitics and the “Obesity Epidemic”: Governing bodies. Routledge.

7 Gendered and Racialised Bodies in Postfeminist Athletics: Embodied Capacities and Feminist Rage

Introduction This chapter shifts its focus towards the implementation of a running group within an athletics club in London in order to investigate girls’ “in-­ action” take up of sport. Drawing on accounts from girls, parents and coaches involved with the running group, I explore the possibilities of a more inclusive and less competitive model of participation within athletics as a traditionally male-dominated, performance-based sport (Shilling 2008). Girls’ involvement with running is understood as a series of embodied social actions where “active-body-subjects,” possessed of emergent capacities are able to intervene and create change in their environments (Shilling 2008, p.  4). I make use of girls’ narrated accounts of taking part in the group in order to further interrogate the formulation that a feminist politics has now been subsumed by postfeminist, neoliberal individualising strategies embodied in the figure of the sporty “Alpha Girl” (Azzarito 2010; McRobbie 2009). Girls’ take up of sporting femininities within the group’s evolving dynamics suggest instead a politics that is concurrently feminist and postfeminist, where exhortations to pursue personal excellence and physical achievement through sport also © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Clark, Sporty Girls, New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67249-2_7

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hold the potential to open up renewed feminist struggle and resistances. The chapter thereby engages with recent research perspectives which suggest the possibilities for challenging sexism through girls’ moving and embodied interactions within a postfeminist landscape (Francombe-­ Webb 2017; Pomerantz et al. 2004; Retallack et al. 2016; Rich 2018). Girls’ accounts are also situated within the dynamics of the athletics club itself where distinctions between performing bodies routinely constitute hierarchies of participation. I draw on understandings of sports settings as physical culture sites where bodies are materialised within affective landscapes intersected by social differences and inequalities (Pavlidis and Fullagar 2013). Sport is revealed as a dynamic and contested location where social identities of class, gender and race are both constructed and reproduced (Hargreaves and Vertinsky 2007; Carrington 2010). These differences have been found to form complex inequalities in women and girls’ experiences of sport through “interconnections of power, identity and discrimination” (Watson and Scraton 2013, p. 35). My analysis focuses on both racialised and gendered identities since representations of sporty girlhood have been constructed through “whiteness” in particular (Azzarito 2010; Cooky and McDonald 2005; Samie 2013). I also continue to draw on understandings of affect in exploring girls’ descriptions of “unused energy” and physical “rage” as practices of embodied meaning making within their ongoing constructions of sporty girlhood. In doing so, I turn my attention to McRobbie’s conceptualisation of young women’s “illegible rage” (2009, p. 115). McRobbie understands this rage as exemplified in a range of normative discontents realised through bodily disorders and behaviours as forms of gendered melancholy. As outlined in Chap. 2, the replacement of a feminist politics by a series of individualising strategies are seen by McRobbie (2009, p. 119) to displace the potential for social critique and change and instead to set up expectations of excellence, competition and achievement among individual young women in particular. Drawing further on this aspect of McRobbie’s argument, I explore how discourses of gender equity in sport were held in tension with those of performance and achievement within the site of the running club where girls’ moving bodies were situated and interpreted. Although girls’ bodies were often constructed as peripheral

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or “out of place” in physical culture settings, the data also points to possibilities for resistance, as enacted through embodied expressions of a more legible form of feminist rage linked to changing bodily capacities.

 thletics Clubs and Shifts in Youth A Sporting Provision In the UK, athletics clubs function as voluntary sports associations that are affiliated to the wider England Athletics body for regulation and oversight. Athletics itself has operated as a traditionally masculine sporting discipline premised on performances of speed, strength, agility and the endurance of pain, as particular features of its bodily schema (Hargreaves 1994; Shilling 2008). Alongside other sports in recent years, athletics has steadily increased its focus towards the production of elite sporting bodies through sports science studies and technologies that seek to maximise individual performances (Shilling 2008). Although a performance model of sport may be “less aligned to traditional conceptions of masculinity, femininity and ‘race’” (Shilling 2008, p. 50), nonetheless its inability to accommodate sustainable and mass participation frequently results in processes of exclusion. Yet despite this focus on an exclusive, performance-­ driven model of participation, England Athletics has also recognised the need for more inclusive practices by reaching out to potential participants. England Athletics (2019) have specifically highlighted the participation of women and girls as an under-represented group within their wider “Equality, Diversity, Inclusion” framework remit and forms of provision. This framework necessitates questions about the models of participation on offer and how these are understood by participants. Despite their affiliation with elite and adult models of sporting participation, sports associations in England fill an important role in youth sport provision in supplementing the Physical Education and extracurricular sports provision available at schools, which have come under increasing budgetary pressures (Foster 2015; Foster and Roberts 2019). As volunteer-led community-based organisations, sports clubs may have various incentives for including girls such as policy implementation,

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targets set by funders or simply the impetus of local volunteers (Nichols 2017). Despite their link to wider mandates, the enactment of inclusion policies within sports clubs have been subject to “narrow forms of participation focused on competitive pathways” which continue to separate and make distinctions between participants (Jeanes et  al. 2018). Although there is some evidence of recognition of the need for an equity model of participation, a review of the policy and provison landscape of sport coaching in the UK suggests that broadly, equality has “taken a backseat to other organisational priorities” particularly around performance (Rankin-Wright et al. 2017, p. 200). Evans et al. (2007) similarly suggest that although “inclusion” remains a popular policy initiative, youth sport provision has progressively shifted away from aims of equity and fairness over the past few decades towards health and performance models of participation. This suggests the importance of situating girls’ understandings of their participation in running as mired within conflicting discourses of achievement, health, performance and equity within the shifting dynamics of physical culture settings.

 oving Methods and Shifting M Bodily Engagements The research for this chapter followed on from the longitudinal research project described in previous chapters. I thereafter became involved in setting up a girls’ running group at my own athletics club by drawing on my research expertise and running experience (Markula 2014). As outlined in previous chapters, my research had found that many girls’ experiences of local youth athletics were overtly competitive and performance-oriented, which often detracted from their enjoyment of physical activity and instead created a pressurised context for physical activity. The possibility of setting up a group that was not overtly hierarchical or performance-based seemed to offer a different way for girls to experience running. This second project of setting up a girls’ group might be seen as rooted in a broader ethical aim to affect positive social change through experimentation with the moving body (Markula 2014). It also

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reflects some of my frustration in the first project where I simply documented issues that I could not intervene in and the impossibilities of what has been idealised as a “transformation imperative” within feminist research (Lather 1991). As Markula (2014, p. 493) describes, attempts to shift bodily engagement through micro-level movement practice is an “incremental, challenging undertaking” with unpredictable results. With a group of other female runners in my club, we decided to offer training that did not require competition in events, that did not uphold “threshold” speeds that participants needed to achieve, and that had as its overriding ethos inclusivity and friendship. Setting up the group involved meetings with the local council to aid recruitment and logistics as well as discussions with the (all-male) club committee members. I was only able to coach the girls’ group for a year before maternity leave which subsequently meant handing over coaching responsibility to other like-minded individuals. I continued to help out with the group periodically and several years after setting up the group I carried out additional research, which involved monthly observations at the sessions as well as interviews with three youth coaches at the club, eight girls and two parents. This project could be seen to reflect more fully a feminist action-research project in the process of setting up and coaching a running group aimed at increasing girls’ provision. Yet it also reflects many of the tensions and difficulties in doing so, including my own gendered care responsibilities and the challenge of maintaining diversity in the group.

Inclusion Within and Against Performance: “They’re at the Front and They’re Very Competitive” Beckton Athletics Club (AC), where the research took place, is located in an economically deprived and ethnically diverse borough of London with stretched council resources. The area has experienced recent commercial development and gentrification, thereby in some ways exacerbating social divisions within the community. Despite the recent inauguration of its first female president in over 40 years, in many ways Beckton AC remains

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a terrain for the “reproduction of white masculinity“ often symbolised in the prioritisation of elite male performances (Adjepong et al. 2014). The Athletics Club itself and the track where it meets for training are often divided along racialised and gendered lines of participation which separate ranked distance and sprint groups and where occasional tensions surface around access to the track and the allocation of funds and resources. Isabel, who was a member of Beckton AC herself, was also involved with the local Junior Parkrun and began coaching the girls’ group two years into its inception alongside a group of other coaches who held a similar ethos. During our interview, Isabel described some of the aims she envisioned for the group which embraced a wide range of holistic outcomes. Isabel:

They all come to the club for different reasons. They might want to win races. They might want to be there for the social side. They might just want to get fitter and to make Junior park run feel easier on a Sunday… I think there are lots of aims. To be participating in sport regularly. To build a love of running. And if they want to compete and represent the club then they can. But that’s not for everyone, they’re not all there for that reason.

Isabel’s approach to coaching clearly espoused an equity model where differing motivations and experiences are taken into account within an aim of achieving outcomes of enjoyment and fulfilment across the group. She recognises that participants have different experiences and aims for their running and seeks to facilitate that as best as possible. This focus on equity and inclusion was, however, held in tension with the wider aims of the club, which sought to harness individual athletes’ performances in competitive league tables and athlete rankings. The focus on inclusion and participation within the girls’ group also served to marginalise the coaches and athletes within the wider club, where elite performances were both celebrated and elevated. Another youth training group at the club was not formally designated as a “boys” group, yet there were nonetheless only male participants who trained with the group and who competed at high levels of performance. Isabel described the male participants in this group as “at the front, they’re very competitive” in local races. In contrast, Isabel and the other coaches she worked with did not see

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competition as the main goal of running, even if taking part in races could be enjoyable. Over time the group did attract some male runners who did not meet or wish to take part in the performance and training model of the other youth group. The approach of the girls’ group thus entailed an implicit comparison of the performance model framed through overt competitiveness that was celebrated and expected in other training groups at the club. Although coaches at the club were all volunteers and the girls paid annual subsidies to the club, coaches for the girls’ group were expected to fund their coaching training themselves since the girls would be immediately entered for races. The refusal of the club executive to fund coaching training for the relatively newly established group indicated a lack of value accorded to non high-performing bodies within the club. Value was instead accrued within the recognition and status athletes would contribute towards the club’s competitive rankings. The club’s focus on a performance model of sport and its emphasis on distance running events routinely upheld the performances of overwhelmingly white, male bodies showcased in its club awards night and newsletters. Isabel compared the girls’ group to other groups at the club which were much more focused on performance. Isabel:

I would say, there are a lot more boys running [at the club] than girls. They [the boys] are at Saturday parkrun as well. And they’re finishing in the top positions there. They all warm up together, they’re at the front, and they’re very competitive.

This status of being “at the front” represented both a race ranking and a sense of dominance and achievement that underpinned the performance model of club. The attempt to foster an inclusive ethos within the girls’ group was also initially challenged through recruitment strategies which did not reflect the socioeconomic and ethnic diversity of the area. Despite keeping costs very low and advertising at local schools the girls’ group was initially “very white and middle class,” a problem described by Isabel as linked to both social networks, opportunities and parental capital in facilitating training. My own and the other coaches’ positioning within this classed and racialised designation further symbolised and in some ways constructed this division. However, as the group developed, girls from a wider range of backgrounds began to attend and the group

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diversified as knowledge and awareness of the group spread. The lack of funded coordination between schools and sports clubs precipitated by the abolishment of School Sport Partnerships (Foster 2015) has meant that parents, coaches and young people themselves need to seek out training opportunities at sports clubs and to facilitate transport and sometimes supervision, which may lead to inequitable access and lack of racial and ethnic diversity in these clubs.

Racialised Bodies and Performance Further problems with a performance model are exemplified in Rehema’s and her friend Tia’s accounts of taking up running. Both girls were of black African heritage and attended separate secondary schools nearby. They had been running with the girls’ group for a year and met at the club. Rehema had recently emigrated to the UK following her parents’ divorce and was encouraged to take up running by a teacher in her new school as a means of countering racist bullying. Rehema:

I’ve just been told that you can’t really achieve that because you’re too this or too this. ‘Cause like of your race and everything. ‘Cause when I first went to school I found it really hard to make friends and I got bullied by many boys. But then I talked to my PE teacher and he said “I’m going to help you with that.” And then I found out that I was really good at running and he supported me and everything. Sheryl: Was that difficult at school? Rehema: Yeah. Before I started running I was so scared and everything. But then I started running I got this other side of me and I just didn’t care no more. I started running and everything just turned upside down and I saw this other side of my body and everything and it was good. I found out that I was really good at running and I had to keep on going. (Age 13, interview)

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Here Rehema seems to describe a situation in which bodily capacity realised through a growing ability in running facilitates greater self-confidence and a determination to “keep on going.” In this sense, Rehema’s experience of running might be interpreted as one of empowerment within a postfeminist narrative. Brown (2009, p. 3) provides an important critique of the empowerment narrative, arguing that many directives which attempt to “empower” black girls do so, “without an understanding of what it means to be a black girl and to participate in a black girlhood that is mediated by race, class, gender and sexuality.” Indeed, Rehema’s experience of running is embedded both within a racist school environment and a running club which continues to reproduce racialised and gendered inequalities through its organisation and structure as linked to a performance model of sport. Although Rehema became increasingly “able” and quick through her training, the value of running for her rested not so much in these performances but as a personal and social resource countering the everyday racialised aggressions embedded through peer and institutional hierarchies at her school. Ringrose (2013, p. 99) argues that bullying interventions at school “can miss the complex power relations” of gendered and racialised interpersonal dynamics, relying on a bully/victim narrative which places the onus on the victim to overcome this bullying. Rehema is able to draw on her bodily resource of running ability to improve her overall wellbeing and yet despite the help of her teacher, it remains Rehema’s responsibility to counter the bullying through increased confidence and determination ultimately linked to a performance model of participation. Being “really good” at running allows Rehema to overcome the bullying yet without wider inequalities at her school being challenged. As Carrington (2010) argues, assumptions of sporting black prowess play a key role in the reproduction of race through constructions of the “black athlete,” which the girls were also critical of in their interview. Tia:

Yeah they were and even at our school when it came to sports day when it came to our form the teacher said straight away, “oh, you’re black so you do sprinting.” Even though you knew you wanted to do long distance. Because obviously you see like Ussain Bolt is fast but that doesn’t mean that we choose sprinting. We can do other things. (Age 12, interview)

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Tia explicitly locates racism within her experiences of running within the assumptions about her racialised body’s capacities. Within a performance model therefore, the “value” of black bodies are still subject to the “evolutionary narrative of black athletic aptitude” which constructs these bodies as superior yet expendable resources (Hoberman 2007, p. 213). This racist narrative translated into assumptions about girls’ bodies as suitable to particular disciplines in order to contribute to overall success in sporting competitions such as sports day or athletics club races. Although Rehema and Tia were both drawn to the performance model through notions of ability and distinction, their bodies remained subject to racialised aggressions and assumptions within this sporting milieu.

“ Compete, Compete, Compete”: Damage and Intensity in Performance Over-training and competition embedded within a performance model were frequently mentioned as negative aspects of previous club experiences and something that had deterred girls from continuing their sporting engagement. Despite creating wins and rankings for individual athletics clubs, several girls suggested that they experienced a performance model of participation as unenjoyable, exclusionary and unsustainable. This is a finding echoed in previous chapters where a performance model proved particularly off-putting for many girls. Genevieve, who came from a white middle-class background and was 13 at the time of the interview, had joined Beckton AC girls’ group on the advice of her mother having previously tried athletics elsewhere. In our interview, she described the role of her family and community in encouraging her to run and in facilitating this involvement. Yet despite the enjoyment that running gave her, Genevieve revealed that this had not always been the case. Sheryl: How did you find your first session when you went? Genevieve: It [Beckton girls’ group] was really friendly, [the head coach] was just charismatic and making jokes about go the other way. So it felt really welcoming. It was nice. It’s not like other clubs where you’re assumed to be good and you’re just showing off what you’ve got. But there was no development. It’s

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like compete, compete, compete every week. Here it’s more like developing and improving and making it better. That’s what I like. (Age 13, interview) Here Genevieve specifically contrasts her experience in the Beckton AC girls’ group with that of other running clubs where she experienced an overwhelming emphasis on competition and a performance model of participation where she was asked to “compete, compete, compete.” The emphasis on physical ability in other settings served to differentiate between participants who were deemed “good” or not, accompanied by intensified expectations of ongoing performance. Laura, who was 17 at the time of interview, was also from a white and middle-class background and had taken part in sports throughout her childhood. Laura:

Yeah I guess quite a few of my friends aren’t really sporty but I don’t know why. I guess the reason I’ve always done sports is that my parents started me from a young age and they never said, “oh sport isn’t for girls” they never told me that sports were dominated by boys. So I just thought “sports are for me” or they should be. Because I was in it from a young age I guess that’s why I carried on but some of my friends didn’t. Just more opportunities I guess. Oh, and also expecting less from girls like even if they’re at elite level just expecting less like, ‘oh, you’re a girl’ That hasn’t really happened to me because all the sports I’ve done have been all girls but maybe if I’d done football. (Age 17, interview)

Thus in many ways, Laura’s relationship with sport seemed to take up a postfeminist, “sporty girl” narrative in which gender is no longer a barrier and where sport acts as one of multiple achievements within a “can do” subjectivity. She has access to single-sex sports provision and is not confronted by a “female deficit” model of sports participation until late in her teens when her physical sporting capital is already embodied. Yet despite parental support and an embodiment of skill and confidence honed through experience, she described previous negative youth sport dynamics framed on overt competition as particularly excluding and damaging.

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I went to [a different athletics club] and I was doing different things like long jump and hurdles. But they wanted me to compete every weekend and I think I found that too much pressure. So I got into hurdles and my coach he would push you harder. It was a half-hour drive and I was going twice a week and he wanted me to come another day plus at the weekend which I found a bit much. So I just stopped. I didn’t want to dedicate my whole life to it… I was a bit younger and I was going on my own so I was like “you can’t treat me like this.” (Age 17, interview)

The performance model espoused at the girls’ previous clubs seemed to create a sense of bodily disconnect, where bodies are judged on an elitist, competitive scale and girls’ participation is merited solely on what they can contribute to the club itself. In both accounts, evaluative adult expectations are not linked to participants’ personal sense of bodily joy or pleasure (Wellard 2012) but instead to the results they can produce. Although Laura and Genevieve are able to resist the performance model by withdrawing their participation and even speaking out against it—“you can’t treat me like this,” this also resulted in self-exclusion. Clearly for these girls the performance model of competition which is favoured by many sports clubs was both unappealing and seen as potentially damaging (Stafford et al. 2015). This of course echoes findings from Chap. 5 on the importance of “being good at sport.” Tia and Rehema’s experiences further suggest some of the problems of a performance model in its reproduction of racialised stereotypes through assumptions of sporting ability and the ways in which sport might be seen as a panacea against longer standing structural problems including racist bullying in school.

Achieving Bodies and Projects of Self Girls’ disaffection from a performance model of sport and the rejection of this model also opened up new possibilities for girls’ understandings of their physical activity participation. In this context, a postfeminist achievement discourse focused on both self-improvement and fitness seemed to present a stronger justification for taking part in sport than

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that of performance. In discussing their reasons for joining the group, some girls mentioned the desire to “get fit” as aligned with a sense of bodily responsibility within an achievement model. Genevieve’s involvement with the running group was spurred on by her mother’s own fitness plan and sense of responsibility for her daughter’s involvement. Susannah (Genevieve’s mother): I needed to get back into exercising about three years ago so I took Genevieve along as my human shield basically. It was a family [boxing] session. And I’d heard on the radio or something that the biggest factor in a child being active is if a friend or family member does it I thought okay, I’ve got a bit of a responsibility here. Because she’s at that age where kids drop out of sport, where girls drop out of sport. And I also needed to get fit. This account demonstrates the intersection of gender equity and achievement discourses in the perceived need to facilitate girls’ physical activities. Susanna measures up her parental responsibility to be physically active herself and to tackle gender inequalities by involving her daughter first in boxing and then in the running group within a familial involvement discourse “for the benefit of children and for the family as a whole” (Shaw 2008, p. 688). Equity and empowerment are aligned as a means of challenging previous barriers to girls’ participation and the statistical drop-off in girls’ participation. Participation in sport is also here associated with the aversion of risk, as embodied in the spectre of the “unfit” or overweight child and as prevented through “responsible” parenting (Fullagar 2009). Achievement and responsibility are similarly linked in Alice’s account, which endorses self-discipline and physical development as realised through health and fitness goals. Alice:

When I first did it I wasn’t really fit and everyone was overtaking me so that’s one of the reasons I kept doing it because I thought, “I want to be fit” also it was winter and it was really cold so I couldn’t really breathe. I was looking up methods about how to breathe. But I thought, if I can do it in the cold then I can keep going because it’s going to get easier in the spring and so I did. (Age 14, interview)

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Here Alice articulates her running experiences as a series of challenges to herself as she continues to push beyond the breathlessness and physical discomfort of winter training. The exhortation to “keep going” aligns with what Shilling (2008) describes as a protestant work ethic focused on the premise of hard work and delayed gratification as experienced through physical activity within an achievement model. Alice’s imagined sense of a future “fit” self spurs her to continue with the training beyond what is physically comfortable. Pleasure is instead realised through the achievement of individual body projects and the crafting of the self through fitness-­related goals. Similarly, Laura expresses the importance of personal bests and running times as modes of self-actualisation and pleasure in her running monitored through ongoing improvement. I quite like competing and getting my times better. I think I need to do that more like just get better at 5ks. At the moment that’s the goal. I need to set some concrete goals. The main 5k I do is at [local parkrun] and I’ve only got under 24 once. My fastest is 22:33 but I’d like to get under 23. I don’t know when that’s gonna happen though because I haven’t run 22 in a while. (Age 17, interview)

Alice and Laura’s engagement with running encompassed both the embodied, physical aspects of running (moving quickly, breathlessness) as well as a sense of achievement within a more goal-oriented approach formulated through comparison with themselves and others. As individualised projects of the self, keeping fit serves as a form of both risk management and individual development which draws on “self-surveillance, monitoring and discipline” as projects of the neoliberal self (Gill and Scharff 2013, p. 4). The body and its achievements are instrumentalised through an investment in faster times and increased fitness as modes of self-actualisation (Rich 2018). In this sense, it is the striving for and the determination involved in achievement-based body projects which characterise their value and satisfaction.

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Changing Bodily Capacities Girls also resisted ideas that they were taking part in running primarily to “get fit” or even to achieve faster times and they frequently cited these processes as pleasant side effects rather than the intended aims of their running. Often the bodily consequences of taking part in running were both surprising and unanticipated and represented increased feelings of capacity through bodily change which translated into other aspects of their lives. Zoe, who was 12 at the time of interview, described herself as “really shy.” Zoe was of mixed black African/white British heritage and attended a high achieving school where she was “in all the top sets.” Her parents both worked as high-paid professionals, allowing them to facilitate some of Zoe’s extracurricular interests. Zoe suggested that her enjoyment of running had not initially linked to any kind of performance or achievement goals and instead related to the lived experience of her body which she described through the concept of excess energy. She explained, “I don’t know what I enjoy about running to be honest. It’s just maybe letting off all my energy.” After training sessions Zoe often asked to do more and she told me that running helped her sleep because it “wears me out.” As an “embodied feeling” bound up within power relations (Pavlidis and Fullagar 2013, p. 424), energy in Zoe’s description might be read as that which exceeds the social norms which come to regulate girls’ use of their bodies in school and elsewhere. The idea of energy as an affective spark of potential in “enabl[ing] feminist becomings” is taken up in Retallack et al.’s (2016, p. 95) research in order to understand an activist intervention in a girls’ feminist group at school. Similarly here, I want to suggest that Zoe’s channelling of this excess energy can be seen as allowing her to understand her body and abilities in a different way. Her experience of taking up running had been marked by surprise at exceeding her imagined physical limitations. Zoe:

I’ve probably learned that I can do a lot better. A lot better than I thought I could. Because I used to think I would just stay the same but then the more I ran the more I got better. Like at junior parkrun I started getting a lot better quite

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quickly. So I’ve learned that you can get a LOT better if you just try. (Age 12, interview) Zoe’s account contains elements of the achievement model of participation through the emphasis on trying hard and doing better in order to realise faster times. Yet the sense of surprise it contains also alludes to a reimagining of bodily capacities within a gendered framework in which female bodies are frequently read as “lacking” and “unable” (Young 2005). Through running, Zoe learns that her body is more capable than she believed as her body channels this excess energy into endurance and speed realised in physical movement. Other girls noted a link between their changing bodies and a critique of the gender order through comparison with male peers. Alicia was 11 at the time of interview and was of black British heritage. Her mother, who worked as a social worker, would take turns dropping her at the track with her friend Shaleigh, who went to the same school. During our interview, Alicia explicitly linked her participation in sport within a feminist agenda which she attached to her perceived responsibility to change this situation for others. She noted, “the reason why I like sports is that not many girls do sports so I want to stand out and be a role model to others.” Alicia locates her enjoyment of running within an explicitly feminist framework where stereotypes should be challenged rather than hidden. Similar to Zoe, Alicia’s understanding of sport was also tied to her experience of a changing bodily capacity through sport linked to a growing realisation that she might accomplish more than she had believed (or had been led to believe). Alicia:

Sheryl:

You get stronger and you get stamina and you can feel positive to do anything. I feel that even if you’re a boy or a girl or whatever you can do anything if you push yourself and you believe you can do it. When I was younger I didn’t believe I could run but now I can run as fast as the boys. Especially riding a bike helps you with your stamina. I used to be one of the slowest in year two but now I’ve started riding my bike more I’m faster. I think it’s really important for girls to know that they can do anything they want. Do you think you learned that at school, or somewhere else?

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At school too. Because the girls in my class are really positive and that’s why I like them. And because the boys might sometimes bring you down but you need to know that you’re strong and life might be full of annoying people but you just need to brush past them. (Age 10, interview)

Both Alicia and Zoe’s participation in running seemed to open up space for a further interrogation of gender inequalities. For Alicia, Zoe and other girls in the group, their participation in running and other physical cultural spaces seemed to hold potential for them to realise the dynamic capacities of their bodies as both changing and growing in potential. Alicia espouses the terms of a postfeminist framework of empowerment through the incitement to stay positive, display confidence and act as a role model for other girls. Within this framework, her exclusion from sport is tied to a sense of personal responsibility which she can counter through increased personal confidence and enthusiasm. Empowerment as a model for inclusion in sport is, however, limited by the scope of the self-project it entails as linked to personal responsibility and a need to overcome barriers through individual perseverance (Cooky and McDonald 2005). Yet Alicia’s narrative also contains recognition of sociality linked to her experience of girlhood as operating in alliance with other girls at her school who she describes as “really positive and proud.” This recognition seemed to imply a more collective form of feminist action grounded in political commitment, which, as hooks (2000) argues, shifts feminism away from the limits of a liberal perspective with its emphasis on individual empowerment. Alicia expresses recognition of inequalities through her admonishment that “the boys might sometimes bring you down” yet simultaneously evokes solidarity with her female classmates as a form of resistance.

Challenging Sexism Through Feminist Rage The girls’ accounts of changing capacities and gendered critiques also seemed to be linked to experiences of overt sexism. Later on in our interview, Alicia was highly critical of a situation that had occurred at her

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school where she and other female classmates had been told not to interrupt the boys’ football play by attempting to join in. Alicia:

Well, once there was this boy in my class and he’s really close to me and I was playing football and I was in goal. The ball went in the goal and he said “oh you shouldn’t play football, it’s not for girls.” I got really upset because I thought everything was for girls, it doesn’t matter. And I got really upset and I told my teacher but my teacher she wasn’t really helpful she said “oh just leave them to play football.” And also my deputy head teacher who’s now the acting head teacher. This happened a few weeks ago. Me and my friends went to play football and the teacher said, “no, it’s the boys’ turn now, leave them to play football, you’re a girl.” And me and my friend we were really surprised and we didn’t think it was the right thing to say. And now we feel that it wasn’t really an encouragement, it was more or less something to put us down. Shaleigh: And in assemblies they always say that you can do what you want. (Age 10, interview) Alicia and Shaleigh’s account clearly interrogates the limits and fantasy of a postfeminist discourse in which “everything is for girls” who can “do what you want” and invokes the pain and disappointment arising from a recognition that this is not the case. Here Alicia and Shaleigh are explicitly critical of policies and practices at their school as related to their teachers’ regulation of their physical activities. Their experiences of sexism in sport and its forms of exclusion allow them to identify hypocrisy in the school’s empowerment ethos against its admonishment that they should leave the boys to play. The girls’ embodied knowledges of sexism and racism seemed to allow them to later challenge the admonishment they received as not “the right thing to say.” Thus, their ongoing engagement in gender dynamics seemed to allow an interrogation of perceived inequalities. Zoe, Alicia and Shaleigh all noted their competitiveness in particular with boys from their schools and Zoe’s with her younger brother who also took part in parkrun. This coincided with Zoe’s

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participation in running as accompanied by a critique of male dominance in sport. This critique was expressed through an affective “burst” of legible rage in Zoe’s account, which she described as linked to an experience at school. Zoe:

Sheryl: Zoe:

Sheryl: Zoe:

We were watching this advertisement about girls’ netball and we were watching people say “oh, girls are too fat to be playing netball” or there were all these horrible quotes. I was really shocked. Who was saying it? I don’t know, it was quotes that girls had heard. And I was like, my insides were raging inside. I couldn’t calm down from that because I was so outraged because I was like. I know when I get really mad my tummy goes, like I get stomach ache. I was just raging. Where does that rage come from do you think? I don’t know. It’s like when people go down for all these sports and they just say “oh, guess what? I can run as well.” Like when I saw that Ed Sheeran video where he thinks he can box. I’m like, “you think you can box?” If I ever faced Ed Sheeran I think I could beat him. I don’t know why I said that but I think I could actually, beat him. I think boys in sports are quite overrated like with boys’ football it’s always like a big thing. We were talking about the Fifa world cup and my friend said “these boys being paid to kick a ball around. Everyone can kick a ball around. So why aren’t we paid to kick a ball around?” (Age 12, interview)

Similar to the excess energy Zoe described earlier, rage in this description is somatised as it radiates from her “insides” and threatens to burst out and disrupt the social sphere and its institutionalisation of sexist exclusion. This might be compared to the “jolt” the girls experience in Retallack et al.’s (2016, p. 93) research, where girls’ mutual bodily affirmations seemed to create a situation in which “the energy had ‘heat[ed]’ up and broken off” into what they describe as “a feminist ‘line of flight.’” The authors describe how this jolt of energy seemed to allow the

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participants to stage an intervention into negative female body images projected through media and schooling pedagogies. Similarly, Zoe’s affective rage can be seen to emanate in and through her identification of sexism in sport and the ongoing regulation of the male gaze on her own and other women’s bodies. Although Zoe initially describes this rage as located in her own body and as a form of illegible rage pitted in her stomach ache, she goes on to channel this rage through her account into a critique of masculinity, its construction through sport, and the elevation of male sporting performances in football. Zoe imagines herself beating the pop singer Ed Sheeran in a boxing match and goes on to challenge the overvaluation of men’s football in the cultural sphere and the British national imaginary. Far from the internalised rage which McRobbie describes as linked to an unrealised feminist agenda, Zoe’s affective rage exceeds and extends beyond her body as a felt power relation to produce a critique of gendered social relations realised through male dominance in sport expressed as a very legible rage. Referring to valuations of black girls in which their behaviour is read as “disruptive” and “loud,” Brown (2009) suggests that girls’ actions can instead be viewed as forms of embodied knowledge lived through experiences of sexism and racism. Following Brown’s analysis, rage in this instance might be seen as an embodied knowledge, “about the way the world works for Black girls living… in a particular time and place” (2009, p.  27) where systems of oppression continue to exclude girls from sport. The girls’ affective experiences of rage, disillusionment and upset are embodied, dynamic and powerful in their mobilisation of feminist challenges to sporting and gender hierarchies.

Conclusion Overall in this chapter, I have demonstrated how a group of girls involved in athletics were able to understand, mediate and sometimes challenge conceptions of their moving bodies within the physical culture spaces they inhabited as linked to broader social relations and inequalities. Girls were found to negotiate their participation within competing discourses of performance, achievement and inclusion as taken up in the models of

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provision on offer at the club and more broadly espoused through initiatives to involve more young people and girls in sport. Tensions between these models can thus be seen to characterise both the club’s understanding of girls’ participation in sport as well as broader cultural tensions around participation and inclusion within sport and society more broadly. The operation of a performance model of elite participation at both Beckton AC and other sports clubs the girls had joined was found to be both exclusionary and unenjoyable for many of the girls involved in the group. Yet at the same time, this performance model continued to uphold hierarchies in the club which made the equitable participation model of the group undervalued and underfunded, thus contributing to girls’ marginalisation. Girls’ rejection of this model also opened up new possibilities for understanding their participation. A postfeminist discourse of achievement, fitness and empowerment was found to be more appealing for many of the girls and to frame some of their understandings of how and why they could take part in sport. Although girls were certainly incorporating sport in personal projects of “successful girlhood,” there was also an ability and willingness to identify and problematise broader systemic inequalities. Alongside a postfeminist sense of responsibility to take part in sport, girls were also able to express feminist narratives that did not simply individualise their own experiences and pointed to wider social inequalities. Their experiences in running seemed to evoke a critique of male privilege and their own exclusion from sport which were also embodied and affective. Expressions of legible feminist rage which characterised resistance to the gendered hierarchy of sport rested alongside girls’ embodiment of increased physical capacity as experienced through their participation in running. These affective assemblages seemed to indicate both a lived identification of social injustices as well as an embodied capacity for change, and perhaps the possibility of something different (Shilling 2008). Although McRobbie frames the construction of girls as “subjects of capacity” within a postfeminist framework which limits their potential for feminist struggle, capacity here might more readily be linked to Shilling’s description of “bodily crisis” in which abrupt changes to the body force subjects to re-evaluate the social and physical order. Girls’ experiences of running coincided with a recognition of masculine dominance in sport alongside renewed

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feminist struggle. However, these resistances did not operate outside the power relations that framed their involvement but instead emerged through, alongside and at times in tension with postfeminist discourses of achievement, performance and empowerment.

References Adjepong, L.  A., Carrington, B., & Carrington, B. (2014, March 5). Black female athletes as space invaders. Routledge Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality; Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203121375-­27 Azzarito, L. (2010). Future Girls, transcendent femininities and new pedagogies: Toward girls’ hybrid bodies? Sport, Education and Society, 15(3), 261–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2010.493307. Brown, R. N. (2009). Black girlhood celebration: Toward a hip-hop feminist pedagogy. Peter Lang Publishing Inc.. Carrington, B. (2010). Race, sport and politics: The sporting black diaspora. SAGE. Cooky, C., & McDonald, M. (2005). “If you let me play”: Young girls’ insider-­ other narratives of sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 22(2), 158–177. England Athletics. (2019). Inclusion policy. Retrieved from https://d192th1lqal2xm.cloudfront.net/2020/03/ea-­inclusion-­policy-­2019-­v3.pdf Evans, J., Rich, E., Allwood, R., & Davies, B. (2007). Being “able” in a performative culture: Physical education’s contribution to a healthy interest in sport? In I.  Wellard (Ed.), Rethinking gender and youth sport (pp.  51–67). Routledge. Foster, D. (2015). School sport partnerships [Briefing Paper Number 6052]. House of Commons. Retrieved from https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/ research-­briefings/sn06052/ Foster, D., & Roberts, N. (2019). Physical education, physical activity and sport in schools (Briefing Paper No. 6836; p. 28). UK Parliament. Retrieved from https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-­briefings/sn06836/ Francombe-Webb, J. (2017, October 2). Methods that move: Exploring young women’s embodied experiences of femininity & exer-games. Physical Culture, Ethnography and the Body. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315266602-­11 Fullagar, S. (2009). Governing healthy family lifestyles through discourses of risk and responsibility. In J. Wright & V. Harwood (Eds.), Biopolitics and the “Obesity Epidemic”: Governing bodies (pp. 108–126). Routledge.

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Gill, R., & Scharff, C. (2013). New femininities: Postfeminism, neoliberalism and subjectivity. Palgrave Macmillan. Hargreaves, J. (1994). Sporting females: Critical issues in the history of women’s sport. Routledge, In lit review and readings. Hargreaves, J., & Vertinsky, P. (2007). Physical culture, power and the body. Routledge. Hoberman, J. (2007). Race and athletics in the 21st century. In Physical culture, power and the body (pp. 210–231). Routledge. Hooks, B. (2000). Feminist theory: From margin to center. Pluto Press. Jeanes, R., Spaaij, R., Magee, J., & Farquharson, K. (2018). “Yes we are inclusive”: Examining provision for young people with disabilities in community sports clubs. Sport Management Review, 21, 38–50. Lather, P. (1991). Getting smart: Feminist research and pedagogy with/in the postmodern. Routledge, Goldsmiths library 305.42072. Notebook 6, entry 11,13, 14, 15 (chpt. 1) 2, 3 & 4. Markula, P. (2014). The moving body and social change. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 14(5), 483–495. https://doi. org/10.1177/1532708614541892. McRobbie, A. (2009). The aftermath of feminism: Gender, culture and social change. Sage. Nichols, G. (2017). Volunteering in community sports associations: A literature review. Voluntaristics Review, 2(1), 1–75. Pavlidis, A., & Fullagar, S. (2013). Narrating the multiplicity of ‘Derby Grrrl’: Exploring intersectionality and the dynamics of affect in Roller Derby. Leisure Sciences, 35(5), 422–437. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2013.831286. Pomerantz, S., Currie, D. H., & Kelly, D. M. (2004). Sk8er girls: Skateboarders, girlhood and feminism in motion. Women’s Studies International Forum, 27, 547–557. Rankin-Wright, A., Hylton, K., & Norman, L. (2017). The policy and provision landscape for racial and gender equality in sport coaching. In J.  Long, T. Fletcher, & B. Watson (Eds.), Sport, leisure and social justice. Routledge. Retallack, H., Ringrose, J., & Lawrence, E. (2016). “Fuck Your Body Image”: Teen Girls’ Twitter and Instagram feminism in and around school. In J. Coffey, S. Budgeon, & H. Cahill (Eds.), Learning bodies: The body in youth and childhood studies (pp.  85–103). Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­981-­10-­0306-­6_6.

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Rich, E. (2018). Gender, health and physical activity in the digital age: Between postfeminism and pedagogical possibilities. Sport, Education and Society, 23(8), 736–747. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2018.1497593. Ringrose, J. (2013). Postfeminist education? Girls and the sexual politics of schooling. Routledge. Samie, S. F. (2013). Hetero-sexy self/body work and basketball: The invisible sporting women of British Pakistani Muslim heritage. South Asian Popular Culture, 11(3), 257–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2013.820480. Shaw, S.  M. (2008). Family leisure and changing ideologies of parenthood. Sociology Compass, 2(2), 688–703. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1751-­9020.2007.00076.x. Shilling, C. (2008). Changing bodies: Habit, crisis and creativity. Sage. Stafford, A., Alexander, K., & Fry, D. (2015). ‘There was something that wasn’t right because that was the only place I ever got treated like that’: Children and young people’s experiences of emotional harm in sport. Childhood, 22(1), 121–137. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568213505625. Watson, B., & Scraton, S. J. (2013). Leisure studies and intersectionality. Leisure Studies, 32(1), 35–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2012.707677. Wellard, I. (2012). Body reflexive pleasures: Exploring bodily experiences within the context of sport and physical activity. Sport, Education and Society, 17(1), 21–33. Young, I. M. (2005). Throwing like a girl: A phenomenology of feminine body comportment, motility and spatiality. In M. I. Young (Ed.), On female body experience: “Throwing like a girl” and other essays (pp.  27–45). Oxford University Press.

8 Conclusion: Sporting Girlhoods and Feminist Possibilities

I began this book by outlining what has been understood as the “problem” of girls’ participation in sport and physical activity; whereby neoliberal, individualised discourses have created the impression that girls themselves are to blame if they are not sufficiently physically active. I suggested that a postfeminist discourse has further problematized girls’ disengagement by inciting “active girlhood” whilst disavowing any structural barriers to girls’ participation. In order to further investigate this context, I have in this book considered girls’ ongoing engagement with sport and physical activity as mediated by discourses of ability, health and achievement emerging in and through policies linked to gender, sport and schooling. Moving away from individualised discourses of girls’ disengagement as “problematic,” my focus on a group of “sporty girls” and their participation in sport over time has allowed an in-depth understanding of how models of sporting engagement shifted over a key period of their lives alongside girls’ embodied negotiations of this shift. My analysis revealed how girls’ embodied engagement took place within a postfeminist context where girls are increasingly expected to keep active through sport and other forms of physical activity; to achieve at school; and to continue to uphold performances of feminine © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Clark, Sporty Girls, New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67249-2_8

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heteronormativity within constructions of “successful girlhood.” I have argued that these postfeminist expectations simultaneously implore girls to take part in sport whilst presenting a set of contradictory demands and restrictions around health, ability, achievement and femininity that render this participation challenging and often impossible for girls positioned differently by categorisations of race, ability and social class in particular. Therefore in shifting towards a capacity model of girlhood as articulated in a postfeminist formulation (Azzarito 2010; Harris 2004; McRobbie 2009; Ringrose 2013), the “problem” of girls’ participation becomes one of both ongoing exclusion coupled with flawed models of participation set against the expectation that girls should be taking part in sport as projects of responsible girlhood. I therefore find myself in a somewhat contradictory position in relation to renewed attempts to engage more girls in sport set within a cautiousness around the ways in which such enticements intersect with various categories of age, gender and other forms of difference within the models of participation they endorse. Rather than simply aiming to involve more girls in sport, my research has sought to understand this engagement in order to challenge both exclusion and the ways in which sport itself may construct particular versions of “successful girlhood” with consequences for individual girls. My research suggests that although many girls want to take part in sport and gain pleasure from this pursuit, the models of engagement on offer, particularly at the secondary school age level, are often inappropriate and problematic in their own right as they present contradictory sets of demands and expectations. Drawing on girls’ experiences as narrated over time, I have interrogated the consequences these models often hold for girls’ participation and the ways in which they might encourage girls to drop out, disengage or markedly shift their engagement in line with goals not necessarily linked to their enjoyment or wellbeing. In this chapter, I will summarise the themes arising from the findings from across the chapters as well as reflecting on the implications of my argument both for girls’ sports participation and for the broader construction of gender and girlhood within a postfeminist era. In order to further exemplify my argument, I want to begin by reflecting on events that came to light as I was writing up the final chapters of this book.

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Power, Harm and the Sporty Girl In the summer of 2020, British Gymnastics announced an independent review into allegations of the systemic bullying and abuse of young athletes within the organisation (Ingle 2020). Among other whistle blowers, several former Olympians spoke publicly of their experiences of a cruel training culture, extreme overuse injuries, huge pressure to starve themselves, and intimidating and abusive punishments for failure to perform to expectations (ESPN 2020; Ingle 2020; Roan 2020). Importantly, those who felt able to speak up were now adults detailing experiences they had had as children and adolescents, when they were powerless to question or oppose the models of participation that were being inflicted on them. The revelations from British Gymnastics followed on from the release of a documentary titled ‘Athlete A,’ outlining investigations into the widespread sexual abuse of hundreds of female gymnasts by a medical doctor involved with USA Gymnastics (USAG) and its subsequent cover­up of the abuse at the top levels of the organisation.1 Part of the documentary’s shock value was encapsulated by footage of well-known female gymnasts performing at Olympic and other elite competitions now accompanied by knowledge of what the girls were being subjected to at the time. Pained expressions, verbal exchanges with coaches and physical interactions post-competition or following injuries now bore a much more sinister tone. Although much of the media and criminal investigation focused on the sexual abuse, survivors were adamant that this was only facilitated by a wider system of physical and emotional abuse practised by the coaches and other adults at USAG. Thus the willingness of the organisation to continuously ignore, silence and diminish athletes’ experiences had rendered the girls’ ability to report or oppose the abuse increasingly impossible. Indeed, an early whistleblower and Olympic hopeful gymnast believed that she had been dropped from the Olympic team as a result of her reporting of the abuse to another coach. Although the documentary portrays a harrowing and despairing perspective on girls’ and women’s sport, I have chosen to highlight the events it recounts as they bring to light several themes explored throughout the

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book as aligned with my critical arguments and the complexities they represent. First, the sexual and physical abuse of young people within elite sporting organisations starkly highlights the hierarchies and imbalances that often frame young people’s experiences of sport as mediated by categories of gender, race, social class and other markers of difference. Gender, youth and designations of talent and ability within US and British Gymnastics clearly rendered athletes vulnerable within these elite settings where they were subjected to violence and other forms of harm and discrimination. Second, the revelations expose further the ulterior, market-driven motivations that may sustain facilitation of young people’s participation in sport such as lucrative marketing revenues and coaching contracts which operated behind the scenes and functioned to silence dissent. The alleged cover-up by USA Gymnastics revealed that elite performances and the revenue they generated were valued far above the physical and mental wellbeing of young athletes involved with the organisation (BBC News 2018). Third, the revelations reveal the extent to which a performance model of sport acquired such acute orthodoxy and reverence that the increasingly severe methods and practices sustaining this model were not simply ignored but justified as practical and necessary. Many of the young women in the documentary spoke of their passion for gymnastics and their desire to do well at the sport within a performance model, and yet in order to participate they were rendered vulnerable to the conditions and potential predators gatekeeping this involvement. Finally, and perhaps most importantly to my argument, the revelations further bring into question postfeminist claims of gender equality as upheld by representations of elite young female athletes achieving at the highest levels of performance. Uncharacteristically, the accomplishments of female gymnasts have overtaken those of male gymnasts at the public level of recognition, and thus participation in gymnastics has remained largely commensurate with constructions of femininity, even as these young bodies are amazingly powerful and agile. Those subjected to systemic sexual abuse at USAG were the very same girls who had been revered on podiums and in the media as emblems of achieved gender equality and whose young, performing bodies seemed to epitomise the model of the Alpha “sporty girl” (Azzarito 2010) at the highest levels of

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competition. Yet at the same time, their bodies continued to be subjected to sexualised predation and abuse sustained within an environment where their ability to oppose harm and voice their experiences was systematically eroded. As Ringrose has argued, postfeminist claims of gender equality may “obscure ongoing issues of sexual difference and sexism that girls experience” thereby rendering abuse difficult to report or recognise (2013, p. 139). Although these revelations constitute extreme examples of harm and abuse within sport, in so doing they testify to the importance of understanding the models of sporting participation on offer to young people and of critiquing the consequences of these models for the sustainability, enjoyment and overall wellbeing of young people within this engagement. These revelations stress the necessity of drawing on perspectives which highlight such power imbalances in order to illuminate young people’s experiences of sport. Although my account presents a more hopeful and less sensationalist account of girls’ sport, similarly themes of gender, performance, power, hierarchy and identity also resonate throughout my findings, which I here briefly summarise before going on to consider some of the practical and theoretical implications they hold.

The Problem of Girls into Sport The findings suggest that girls are often keen to take part in sport but that attempts to do so within wider projects of successful girlhood render this participation often very problematic or constrained in particular ways. Gendered sporting projects of self were further managed within the wider project and priority of schooling and the hierarchies that connected across girls’ sporting and academic engagement. The organisation of my data chapters specifically interrogated the effects and implications of the health, achievement and performance agendas that currently frame both schooling and sports policies and initiatives. In the first, longitudinal project I described, the process of tracing the girls’ experiences over a period of time revealed the ways in which sporting participation was linked to their transition to secondary school, to expectations constructed around adolescence, and to broader processes of differentiation and

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selection within schooling and more broadly. In the second project, my analysis revealed the difficulties of challenging normative models of sports engagement as well as the possibilities embedded within embodied expressions of affective “feminist rage” through sport. I will here summarise further some of the themes that run across the data chapters as linked to girls’ participation.

Schooling, Differentiation and Achievement Schooling and the processes of differentiation managed and constructed there were found to play a key role in girls’ sports participation. Processes of selection and the hierarchical organisation that mediated this selection reverberated across sporting and academic contexts particularly in relation to the achievement agenda. At the primary school level, physical activity and sport had more readily centred on notions of “fun” and “enjoyment” based in inclusive models of participation. As girls moved towards secondary school, selective sorting practices in school and outside sports teams constructed distinctions between “able” and “non-able” participants as though these were self-evident binaries. My findings have detailed how constructions of being “good at sport” were held up at the expense of their converse, “bad at sport” serving to distinguish subjects themselves rather than the particular sporting practices or performances they were currently engaged in. Differentiating binaries were further sustained through distinctions of “healthy”/“unhealthy” subjects as substantiated through fears around obesity and overweight constructed within the health agenda. Processes of differentiation were further exacerbated through the structure and ethos of the secondary schools that girls continued to, whether private, comprehensive, single or mixed sex and located within areas of contrasting economic and social capital. As Ball has observed (2003), the stratification of the schooling system in the UK and the “choice economy” it has come to represent has worked to exacerbate social inequalities. These inequalities were evidenced through the very different opportunities schools provided, both in terms of academic and sporting achievement.

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Classed understandings of a “good education” strongly impacted on girls’ involvement in sport. This occurred partly through influencing the type of school that girls would attend and partly by setting up expectations of what a “well-rounded” pupil should achieve both academically and physically. Within an overriding achievement agenda, accomplishments such as sport, music and other perceived “talents” came to embody girls as classed, gendered subjects within constructions of successful girlhood. Therefore, processes of differentiation within sport and schooling were linked in particular through the achievement agenda. For girls not already invested in notions of the “well-rounded” education, sports participation seemed to present itself as a superfluous distraction to the academic demands of schooling. Whereas for girls often privileged through classed expectations of future success and opportunities, sport came to represent one more area in which they were expected to achieve.

Relationships and Identity The findings further suggest that girls’ participation in sport is embedded within the relationships that frame this participation including those with their coaches, teachers and peers. This suggests that girls take up, resist and negotiate gendered identities relative to the peer settings of their schools and sports clubs within a network of identifications around ethnicity, class, gender, ability and health. This network of identifications influenced both how girls saw themselves as potential participants and in their lived experiences of sport in various settings. For the girls in my research, the interpersonal aspects of their involvement played a key role in providing a sense of validation, enjoyment and safety for their bodily engagement in different activities. Girls expressed a desire to feel encouraged, challenged and individually valued within any physical activity settings they took part in. Such relationships seemed to hold more importance for their engagement than the performatively based measures and specialist skills that were often promoted by teachers and coaches at the secondary school and club level. Girls’ enjoyment of physical activities at primary school often rested in their friendships with classmates and in the mutual trust and recognition they experienced with their

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teachers or coaches who, as Gazza noted of her karate sensei, “knows me.” This sentiment seemed to denote an individualised care and attention that acted as a form of personal confirmation for girls. These types of relationships seemed to be less readily available at the secondary school level and within competitive outside clubs where they more difficult to foster within the performance and achievement agendas that framed these interactions. Lucy’s suggestion that her hockey coach “only picks the good ones” conveyed a sense of betrayal not only that the coach had favourites but also that she did not seem to trust in each girl’s potential for development. Spirit’s distress around her coach’s “skiving” accusations as well as Deniz and her friends’ concerns that their PE teachers “don’t believe us!” seemed particularly to relate to this lack of trust and empathy among girls and their teachers and coaches at the secondary school level. When Imogen’s mother described a previous athletics club as treating its youth participants like “sausages in a factory” she also seemed to be criticising the care and attention that was neglected in a setting focused on results rather than youth experiences. Various factors seemed to contribute towards a growing lack of trust between girls and their teachers or coaches including the irregularity of teachers in various lessons (in line with subject specialisation), the increasing emphasis on set targets and accountability within schools, as well as the ongoing investments significant adults sustained in models of success and achievement. The overriding standards agenda within schooling perpetuated performance codes across schooling and sporting contexts, thus demanding achievement both from the girls and from their teachers (Evans et al. 2007). Adults could also be key in facilitating girls’ relationships with their peers and close friends within mutually supportive, “safe” settings for physical activity. At Benjamin Laurence Primary school, the Year five teacher’s setting aside of girls’ football time and his supervision of their game play with male peers was important in facilitating their participation. Indeed it was both these relationships with their former teachers and with their male peers that girls often lamented the loss of in later interviews at secondary school. There was a sense that the sexualised, hierarchical peer settings at secondary school negated the kinds of friendships and interactions that had once facilitated the girls’ involvement

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(Renold 2006). Conversely, the use of sport as a resource in the construction of young masculinities (Swain 2004) seemed to negate girls’ participation since it rendered such sporting practices problematic or even “weird” as Gazza described of her attempts to engage in discussions of football with her classmates. Girls at the mixed-sex secondary school in my research often found themselves competing for male attention amidst harsh judgements that valued heterosexual attractiveness above sporting accomplishments. Within secondary school the drive towards conformity and the shifting allegiances of friendships created situations in which girls found it more difficult to maintain their interests in sport and physical activity. Girls’ negotiations around “girlie,” “sporty” and “clever” subject positions were subject to the particular configuration of social groups and classed settings within their respective schools. Girls’ friendships and peer groupings were significant to their gendered identifications and sports participation since they provided guidance into the appropriate practices that “girls like me” might engage in. Within the conformist settings of their secondary schools, girls often ended up between conflicting discourses to “be yourself ” and the more pressing concern of standing out because “no one else is doing it.” Girls were variously able to resist dominant gender discourses by investing in a number of practices, including at times, sports participation. However, “race” and ethnicity were particularly constraining in terms of accessing various subject positions. As Pomerantz (2008: 154) suggests of the girls in her study, “it was knowledge of how one was positioned as a certain ‘kind’ of (raced, classed, schooled) girl” that constrained the limits of their performances of girlhood. This was particularly the case for girls’ sporting involvement, which is often already seen as a sexually suspect performance. Importantly, girls’ relationships with friends mediated their sports participation since friends could act both as encouragement and as a form of social insulation against the kinds of harsh peer evaluations girls expected to receive in physical activity settings. Parental support and encouragement were also important, particularly in passing on expectations of appropriate sporting and extracurricular achievements and tastes. This filtered into parental ability or willingness to provide the fees, time and transportation to after school activities and clubs.

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The research, therefore, suggests that girls’ sporting identifications and participation are anchored within a network of relations between parents, coaches, teachers, friends and other girls that frame girls’ identities and sense of themselves as potential participants. Overall, the research findings reveal that not all girls are disenfranchised from sport over the transition to secondary school and the early years of adolescence but that differences in sporting participation relate to processes of differentiation around ethnicity and social class in particular. These were found to be intimately situated within the schooling system and the standards agenda. Simultaneously, the findings reveal that sports participation is not necessarily the panacea for girls that it has been portrayed as. Girls’ participation in sport is increasingly co-opted by achievement codes already operating within schooling, creating pressurised contexts for girls deemed to be the “success” models of neoliberal girlhood.

L egitimacy, New Femininities and Feminist Rage My analysis of girls’ sports participation over time also offers insights into the possibilities of embodying new sporting femininities in a postfeminist era where schooling in particular has become a key endowment of future success. By using a longitudinal methodology as well as a form of action-based research which built on the findings of the main study, I was able to consider how gender projects were constructed over time as well as the possibilities for challenging the individualising, outcome-focused effects of a performative, postfeminist ethos in sport. Drawing on insights developed from poststructural and postfeminist understandings of gender (Butler 1999; Judith Butler 1993; McRobbie 2009), I have explored how performances of sporty girlhood are dynamic and remain fragile as they are subject to interruption through constructions of (il)legitimacy. Legitimacy and its counterpart are thus carved out within sporting practices that continue to be constructed as masculine and yet remained expectations within a capacity model of girlhood. My use of a

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postfeminist analysis revealed how performances of sporty girlhood were embedded within constructions of the “fit girl,” “go girl” and “talented girl” across discourses of health, achievement and ability circulating within current models of sporting engagement in various physical culture settings. While sport sometimes offered girls the possibilities of challenging learned bodily incapacities, moments of joy and pleasurable sociality, sporting performances continued to be constrained by the need to achieve highly, to appear able and “talented” in models of ongoing development, to conform to ideals of slenderness and heterosexiness embedded with heteronormative constructions of femininity. Whereas Chaps. 4, 5, and 6 seemed to confirm claims that postfeminism has in many ways subsumed a feminist politics and replaced these with individualised understandings of girls’ participation; findings in Chap. 7 somewhat challenged this analysis. Although notions of achievement and self-responsibility still framed girls’ understandings of their sports participation, so too were girls willing and able to express more politically engaged anti-racist and anti-sexist sentiments alongside a critique of male dominance in sport. These sentiments may reflect the ongoing development of the postfeminist cultural landscape, which has seen a convergence of popular feminism and neoliberal agendas alongside the re-emergence of movements such as #meetoo rendering feminism as a “potentially potent political force” (Banet-Weiser et al. 2020, p. 17).

Practical Recommendations The findings suggest that while girls may wish to engage in physical activity and sport, the models of engagement made available are not necessarily appropriate in that they tend to echo the achievement and performance codes already perpetuated in schooling demands and/or that they set up exclusionary categories of differentiation along lines of ability, health and other social resources. Although my research has focused on the experiences of young people who understood themselves as girls, I am more widely concerned with youth-centric approaches which challenge gender alongside other forms of inequality. Therefore, a critical feminist lens is needed in order to continue to challenge the gendered, classed and

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racialised implications of models of sport on offer to all young people. Forms of sporting participation on offer to young people must crucially be willing to: –– Tackle gendered outcomes and improve young people’s physical confidence and awareness –– Premise young people’s perspectives and voices in order to challenge adult-led hierarchies and priorities that may stray from youth-centric approaches which premise enjoyment, sociality and validation –– Include democratic processes for highlighting the experiences of young people and premising their perspectives—checks and balances built in to ask how they feel about it and what is positive and negative However, the research also points to a broader educational context that has increasingly become focused on competition and performative results. It suggests that such a context has inevitable consequences for girls’ sports participation and the ways in which schools feel compelled/incited to monitor and regulate both girls’ physical bodies and their sporting participation. Early feminist calls for sport as a possible site of physical empowerment, sociality and democratic participation seem far off, yet they might still be held up as ideals of what sport can and might be for many girls and young women who choose to take part in contexts hopefully more freed of the constraints that currently exist.

Note 1. ‘Athlete A’ a sports documentary, aired on Netflix in 2020 and focuses on the investigative work of reporters at the Indianopolis Star, who first uncovered accounts of abuse at USA gymnastics. https://www.netflix. com/gb/title/81034185.

References Azzarito, L. (2010). Future girls, transcendent femininities and new pedagogies: Toward girls’ hybrid bodies? Sport, Education and Society, 15(3), 261–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2010.493307.

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Ball, S. J. (2003). Class strategies and the education market: The middle classes and social advantage. London: Routledge/Falmer. Banet-Weiser, S., Gill, R., & Rottenberg, C. (2020). Postfeminism, popular feminism and neoliberal feminism? Sarah Banet-Weiser, Rosalind Gill and Catherine Rottenberg in conversation. Feminist Theory, 21(1), 3–24. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1464700119842555. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. London: Routledge. Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. ESPN. (2020, July 10). Team GB gymnasts detail “cruel” training culture. ESPN. Com. Retrieved from https://www.espn.co.uk/olympics/story/_/id/29438267/ olympians-­call-­dated-­cruel-­ineffective-­culture-­british-­gymnastics. Evans, J. et al. (2007). ‘Being “able” in a performative culture: Physical education’s contribution to a healthy interest in sport?’, Rethinking Gender and Youth Sport. Edited by I. Wellard. London and New York: Routledge (International Studies in Physical Education and Sport). Harris, A. (2004). Future girl: Young women in the twenty-first century. New York: Routledge. Ingle, S. (2020, July 16). Gymnastics coaches being investigated will be banned from Team GB, says BOA. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jul/16/british-­gymnastics-­stands-­down-­to-­allow­independent-­review-­into-­abuse. McRobbie, A. (2009). The aftermath of feminism: Gender, culture and social change. London: Sage. Pomerantz, S. (2008). Girls, style and school identities: Dressing the part. Palgrave Macmillan: New York. Renold, E. (2006). ‘“They won’t let us play...unless you’re going out with one of them”: girls, boys and Butler’s “heterosexual matrix” in the primary years’, British Journal of Sociology of Education. Ringrose, J. (2013). Postfeminist education? Girls and the sexual politics of schooling. London: Routledge. Roan, D. (2020, August 10). British gymnasts are treated like “meat.” BBC Sport. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/gymnastics/53727425. Swain, J. (2004). The resources and strategies that 10-11-year-old boys use to construct masculinities in the school setting, British Educational Research Journal. USA Gymnastics doctor “abused 265 girls”. (2018, January 31). BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-­us-­canada-­42894833.