‘Go for it Girl’ adolescent girls’ responses to the implementation of an activist approach in a core physical education programme

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on the responses from adolescent girls to the use of an activist approach (Oliver, K. L., & Kirk, D. (2015). Girls, gender and physical education: An activist approach. London: Routledge) by their teachers over the course of one school year during their core physical education lessons. The study took place in four secondary schools in different areas of Glasgow city. Approximately 110 girls aged 13–14 participated in this study as part of their regular physical education classes. The themes arising from the data were: (1) through variety and choice the girls were opened up to a wider range of possibilities in physical education; (2) relationships between peers (pupil-pupil) and teachers-pupils were central to the girls’ engagement. We conclude that through the use of an activist approach, and in contrast to their experience of traditional, multi-activity physical education, girls responded positively to variety and choice as they co-constructed their physical education programme with their teachers, and the development of better relationships with their teacher and among themselves created a supportive learning environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Activist approach
• gender
• adolescent girls
• pedagogical model
• physical education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Cara A Lamb http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9538-6038

Notes

1. See http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/SIMD

2. In this case, the school changed timetable in May which resulted in a new teacher for this class. At the time of the study Miss S was the only teacher in her school that had learnt to use this approach. Miss P was keen to continue the work that Miss S had done, but timing of the timetable change meant she was unable to commit the time to learning this approach herself.