Overview
- Situates girls’ sporting participation within a post-feminist, neoliberal social context
- Challenges the claims that girls now “have it all” in terms of both sporting and academic achievements
- Combines theories of affect and embodiment with feminist poststructuralist perspectives to explore how gendered bodies are lived, felt and articulated
Part of the book series: New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures (NFDPSC)
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About this book
This book engages with the ongoing question of why many girls stop doing sport and physical activity in their teenage years. Previous research has found that many girls’ disengagement from sport takes place despite their childhood enjoyment and that frequently these same women take up sport again as adults. Within these chapters, Sheryl Clark explores what it is about this period of time that persuades many girls to disengage from sports when their male peers continue to take part; why some girls continue to take part; and most importantly how girls understand this participation. She suggests that girls’ participation in sport should be viewed as part of their ongoing constructions of ‘successful girlhood’ within a competitive schooling system and broader socioeconomic context.
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Keywords
Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
Reviews
“The author’s emphasis on the lived experiences of girls, their stated reactions—both positive and negative—to sport participation, and a recommendation for more input from girls going forward, is exemplary. … This book, along with others in the series, is worth reading for scholars’ data-driven perspectives that can inform future feminist philosophical theorizing on the body.” (Peg Brand Weiser, Hypatia - A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, November 26, 2024)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Sheryl Clark is Lecturer and Researcher in the field of educational studies at Goldsmiths University of London, UK. With a particular interest in gender, sport, identities, youth, schooling and girlhood, Sheryl’s research makes use of qualitative methods working with children and young people in schools and other physical activity settings.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Sporty Girls
Book Subtitle: Gender, Health and Achievement in a Postfeminist Era
Authors: Sheryl Clark
Series Title: New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67249-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-67248-5Published: 02 March 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-67251-5Published: 03 March 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-67249-2Published: 01 March 2021
Series ISSN: 2522-0330
Series E-ISSN: 2522-0349
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: V, 193
Topics: Sociology of Sport and Leisure, Gender Studies, Childhood, Adolescence and Society, Sociology of Education