Parents, girls’ and Australian football: a constructivist grounded theory for attracting and retaining participation

ABSTRACT

Increasing girls’ participation in organised sport in Australia represents an elusive challenge for most sporting codes. Girls encounter a range of barriers and obstacles that serve to discourage initial and ongoing participation in youth sport. One setting that has flourished is Australian football, coinciding with the establishment of a professional competition known as Australian Football League Women (AFLW) in 2017. This is somewhat ironic given that Australian football is widely perceived to be a masculinised sporting domain characterised by violence and injury. Despite this, national participation data suggests that Australian football is one of the most popular preferences among contemporary girls and young women at a time when attracting and retaining girls in sport is inherently difficult. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to generate a grounded theory surrounding how Australian football attracts and retains girls’ participation. A constructivist grounded theory (GT) methodology was used involving eight focus groups with 45 participants (girls and parents) involved in Australian football. Data were analysed through a process of initial and focused coding, and theoretical integration, leading to the development of a substantive grounded theory that comprised three categories including (a) sources of attraction, (b) facilitators for participation, and (c) reinforcers for retention. The concepts underpinning the substantive grounded theory and the implications for applied practice are discussed throughout.

KEYWORDS:

• Girls
• involvement
• youth sport
• focus groups
• Australian football

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the sporting clubs and wider organisations for supporting the project by means of granting permissions to enable recruitment. We would also like to thank the four critical friends from across the world who generously provided time to review the paper prior to submission to the journal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Flinders University under a AUD$10,000 Faculty Establishment Grant [number 01-205-07899-0995]

Notes on contributors

Sam Elliott

Sam Elliott is an early career researcher in Sport, Health and Physical Activity at Flinders University. He is an active member of the Sport, Health, Activity, Performance and Exercise (SHAPE) Research Centre and researches the social, psychological and pedagogical dimensions of youth sport and sport parenting. Sam has presented his work internationally throughout the US, Canada and China and was the 2018 winner of the 5-minute challenge at the International Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise Conference in Vancouver, Canada.

Nadia Bevan

Nadia Bevan is the Research Support Assistant for the Sport, Health, Activity, Performance, Exercise (SHAPE) Research Centre at Flinders University. Nadia completed postgraduate research investigating the experiences of adolescent females playing club soccer, cricket and Australian rules football and is the lead research assistant and co-author of a university funded project on girls, parents and Australian football.

Catherine Litchfield

Catherine Litchfield is a currently completing an Honours research year at Flinders University on a project examining the role of clubs and organisations in improving girls sport participation and retention in Netball.