Increasing gender equity in sport organizations: assessing the impacts of a social learning initiative

Abstract

This article describes an initiative to promote gender equity across sport organizations in Western Canada. Twelve sport leaders and six mentors cultivated a Community of Practice (CoP) as a space to co-create solutions to existing problems, and advance gender equity in sport. Each sport leader implemented a project to promote sport participation for women, girls, and in other disadvantaged communities. Our study examines the results of these projects in terms of the impact on their sport organizations and participants, and the types of value that were created. Data were collected from the sport leaders, the program participants, and the sport leaders’ supervisors, and analyzed inductively and deductively. This resulted in three main themes: increased equity; long-term investments and organizational buy-in; and increased confidence, comfort, and connection. The data highlights an increase in equity (i.e. sport opportunities for girls) and the creation of some types of value (i.e. strategic value).

Keywords:

• Gender equity
• leadership development
• communities of practice
• women
• girls

Disclosure statement

We wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication.

Notes

1 We would like to acknowledge that the terms “women”, “girls”, and “females” have different individual and institutional definitions and that gender is a socially constructed concept that is fluid and changing. Although sporting institutions often use strict, biological-based definitions of gender, in the context of our paper and the initiative to be discussed, we accepted all individuals who self-identified as the above-mentioned terms.