Negotiations of gender discourse: experiences of co-education in a Swedish sports initiative for children

Abstract

The goal of this article is to explore how children perceive gender in a Swedish government-financed sports initiative and in leisure-time sports activities. We draw on group interviews with children and participant observations from two field studies of elementary school children participating in co-ed soccer and physical activity projects. A focal point of the analysis is how children negotiate their views of boys and girls participating in sports utilizing linguistic and material resources. The interviews included reproduction of traditional views of boys/men as being superior at sports but also demonstrated negotiations and objections against this perception. In addition, we present examples from participant observations regarding potential challenges to gender discourse.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Swedsih Sports Confederation [grant number 24].