‘Gender and race—what’s that to do with football studies?’ Contested ‘knowledges’ in sport and leisure curricula in HE

Abstract

This paper explores the implications and affects of a level two compulsory module concerned with ‘gender, difference and leisure’ on a predominantly male student group studying for sports‐related degrees. Participant observation was undertaken by a male and female lecturer who were delivering the module. A cohort of male football students were interviewed as a group, and individual interviews were undertaken with female students. The opinions and expressions of the students are also located in the significant subculture of the collegiate footballer researched by one of the authors. The paper draws attention to the ways in which young male students negotiate their male identities collectively and the implications this has for theirs and other’s learning in HE. The findings show that many of the male football students, in particular, attempted to resist knowledge that challenged dominant male behaviours and threatened the project of patriarchy as a whole, such as the hegemonic patterning of the collegiate football subculture. While this resistance was beset with tensions, evidencing some opposition to gender ideologies at an individual level, at least, social identities constructed around gender and ‘race’, especially, were clearly disruptive in the development of critical awareness to such issues. The data presented here highlights a number of pedagogical problems that arise from these complex sets of interrelated identity issues, not least the need for lecturers to develop greater critical awareness of masculine and racial identities and to reflect upon their methods of delivery of contested knowledge.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the students for participating in this research and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this paper.

Notes

1. Initially GDL was taught by one female lecturer (Lecturer H) before becoming co‐taught by two female lecturers after the first year of the module. For the past three years, GDL has been co‐taught by a female (Lecturer H) and male (Lecturer C) lecturer.

2. Such as behaviours concerned with men’s competitive rivalry with other men and the acquisition of masculine positional identity by way of ‘besting’ others in contests of strength, ability, and capacity to consume alcohol. While these practices are more immediately concerned with men’s claim to superiority over other (heterosexual) men, at a broader level, they remain relational to the ‘other’ as a measure of separation.

3. Collegiate football is non‐elite inter‐university football organized by the British Universities Sport Association (BUSA).

4. Areas that were explored in the interviews included: what the students thought were the aims of the module; did they think the module was relevant to their degree; are race and gender issues that are important to their future; what did students think about the material on Beckham and masculinities; did they find it interesting and why; which sessions, if any, did the students think were ‘good’ and why; what did they get from the seminars and why did they think they were useful; what were the students’ thoughts about the videos (Billy Elliot and Bend it like Beckham); were they aware of why these were shown and did they find them interesting and why?

5. Perhaps the most valid criticism of Gramsci (1971) and his concept of hegemony, in particular, is the specificity of the historical and political circumstance of which he writes. Some, though perhaps not enough, social theorists have provided contextualized explanations of hegemony and its meaning in contemporary Western cultures, in the sociological fields of sport (Rowe, 2004) and gender (Connell, 1987, 1995).

6. ‘Blackboard’ is a virtual learning tool, which can provide the student with lecture notes and other material at anytime through computer access.

7. The exception to this was in the very first set of seminar sessions of the module, where Lecturer C would discuss political correctness in a critical, though never derogatory, manner in order to establish these sessions as a forum where issues of gender, ‘race’ and sexuality could be broached and discussed in a safe, supportive environment.