An Ironic Imbalance: Coaching Opportunities and Gender in Women’s Artistic Gymnastics in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

Women’s Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) is a sport designed specifically for women. With roots in ballet, calisthenics and eugenics, it was meant to showcase femininity, beauty, and encourage healthy bodies for motherhood, therefore offering socially acceptable sporting opportunities for females. This paper considers whether such sporting opportunities extended to female coaches. We examine the recruitment patterns in relation to gender of some of the top coaches in Australia and New Zealand since the 1980s, who are predominantly migrants. Using archival sources, interviews and personal experience, this paper argues that while so-called feminine or artistic sports can offer greater opportunities for female coaches, WAG in Australia and New Zealand remains dominated by male coaches, who have held the majority of the head coach positions and in many cases, been actively recruited from overseas. The few females who have been employed in top positions have been appointments of ‘convenience’ rather than reflective of a shift away from these gendered employment patterns. Thus, while its creation as a specifically feminine sport may lead WAG to be viewed as a site of increased opportunities for women coaches, deeper exploration reveals an unresolved tension between the use of male and female coaches.     

‘What on Earth are They Doing in a Racing Car?’: Towards an Understanding of Women in Motorsport

Abstract

Motorsport is an under-researched area of socio-historical study. There is particularly limited academic understanding of female involvement in the social world of motorsports. Therefore, this paper focuses on the role of the media in presenting and establishing motorsport for women. In particular, a documentary analysis of articles published by a UK national newspaper group from 1890, and a case study of an all-female UK-based motor-racing championship are used to account for gendered processes that have influenced attitudes and behaviours towards women motor racers. The motor car emerged through technological progress in an overtly masculine-dominated industrial period. Traditional assumptions and biologically deterministic attitudes towards women were used by men to position motoring and motor-racing as a male preserve. Newspaper reporting throughout the 1930s suggests an era of heightened success for women motor racers as a result of gaining access to a key resource in the form of Brooklands motor-racing circuit. Following the Second World War, there was increasing commercialization and professionalization of male-dominated motorsport, as well as renewed marginalization and trivialization of female participants within the newspapers. These processes continue to influence perceptions of women in contemporary motorsport.     

试论社会转型期的性别平等问题

文章在阐释性别平等内涵的基础上,分析了我国社会转型期性别不平等问题凸显的表现及成因,并提出了遏制性别关系逆转,推进性别平等进程的具体对策。     

Differential recognition of children's cultural practices in middle primary literacy classrooms

This paper argues that teachers' recognition of children's cultural practices is an important positive step in helping socio‐economically disadvantaged children engage with school literacies. Based on 21 longitudinal case studies of children's literacy development over a 3‐year period, the authors demonstrate that when children's knowledges and practices assembled in home and community spheres are treated as valuable material for school learning, children are more likely to invest in the work of acquiring school literacies. However, they also show that while some children benefit greatly from being allowed to draw on their knowledge of popular culture, sports and the outdoors, other children's interests may be ignored or excluded. Some differences in teachers' valuing of home and community cultures appeared to relate to gender dimensions.     

South African contributions to LGBTI education issues

ABSTRACT

South Africa stands out in the African region for its protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights. This article examines South Africa’s contributions to local policy for LGBTIs and to work on LGBTI issues in education policy and education rights progress internationally. It also considers broader South African contributions to the theorisation of gender and sexuality. Data derive from an analysis of 102 interviews with key informants participating in high-level global networking for LGBTI students’ rights, and documentary analysis showing how stakeholders characterise South African contributions to transnational LGBTI education work. Informants identified how such contributions have a strong human rights emphasis, furthering post-colonial resistance to simplistic gender and sexuality classification schema imposed via imperial colonising dynamics. While South African work in this area has also promoted and facilitated research, it has at times been limited by ambivalence from its leadership. The nation’s early adoption of constitutional rights, relationship rights and educational equity provisions as acts of decolonisation contribute valuable African LGBTI work examples to the region. Their success encourages further funding for South-South transnational LGBTI education work.     

Being ‘nice’ or being ‘normal’: girls resisting discourses of ‘coolness’

In this paper we consider discourses of friendship and belonging mobilised by girls who are not part of the dominant ‘cool’ group in one English primary school. We explore how, by investing in alternative and, at times, resistant, discourses of ‘being nice’ and ‘being normal’ these ‘non-cool’ girls were able to avoid some of the struggles for dominance and related bullying and exclusion found by us and other researchers to be a feature of ‘cool girls’ groupings. We argue that there are multiple dynamics in girls' lives in which being ‘cool’ is only sometimes a dominant concern. There are some children for whom explicitly positioning themselves outside of the ‘cool’ group is both resistant and protective, providing a counter-discourse to the dominance of ‘coolness’. In this paper, which is based on observational and interview data in one school in the south of England, we focus on two main groupings of intermediate and lower status girls, as well as on one ‘wannabe’ ‘cool girl’. While belonging to a lower status group can bring disadvantages for the girls we studied, there were also benefits.     

In a practical mood: Studying for a profession in the changing kibbutz

The influence of recent social and economicchanges in the Israeli kibbutz on the prolongedstage of youth was examined with respect tohigher education. The young people on thekibbutz of the late 1990s appear lessmoratorial and more instrumental about theirfuture and commence higher education earlierthan in previous age cohorts. When starting tostudy, their educational and professionalprospects are crystalized as those of thenon-kibbutz student. Most of them opt foracademic, degree-granting studies, but a higherpercentage than among the general populationprefer vocation-oriented colleges to theresearch oriented universities. In choosingfields of study, they prefer more appliedstudies like engineering, social services andpractical arts and are less likely to choosesciences and the humanities. De-communalizationand economic instability of the kibbutz,inadequate preparation in kibbutz high schoolsfor the competitive admission to theuniversities, exposure to a restricted range ofoccupations during adolescence, and lack of acultural tradition supportive of elitiststudies may explain this practical mood, moresalient among kibbutz women.     

Students’ reception of peer assessment of group-work contributions: problematics in terms of race and gender emerging from a South African case study

Participatory assessment is increasingly employed in higher education worldwide as a formative mechanism to support students’ active learning. But do students in an increasingly relationally diverse environment perceive that peer assessment of individuals’ contributions to group-work tasks enhances their learning? Recognising the impact of students’ conceptions on the quality of their learning, this study considers students’ perspectives of peer assessment of group-work contributions at a South African university. Questionnaires elicited students’ perspectives of and general attitudes towards assessment of and by their peers. A growing measure of discontent with the process of assessing peer contributions to group tasks emerged, including actual and perceived racial and gender stereotyping, and related rejection-sensitivity. These initial findings were checked against the students’ experiences in a report-and-respond process that enabled probing discussions of the interpretations. This paper examines and explores the implications of such identifications and receptions for learning engagement and group-work curriculum development in the context of a rapidly transforming higher education sector.     

学习者英语自我概念与英语水平关系中的性别差异

本文以学习者性别差异为切入点,通过对348名大学新生所做的定量研究,观察并分析学习者英语自我概念与英语水平之间的关系。研究发现：（1）女生的整体英语自我概念、听力自我概念和阅读自我概念都明显高于男生,但在口语自我概念和写作自我概念上男女生不存在显著差异;（2）女生的综合英语水平及各项技能水平均高于男生,尤其是听说水平;（3）男生的英语自我概念与英语各项技能水平间的相关系数均高于女生,同时男生和女生的口语自我概念与口语水平的相关系数均最高;（4）在英语自我概念高分组中,女生只在口语水平上明显地高于男生,而在低分组里,女生的英语各项技能水平都明显高于男生,最为突出的是写作水平。     

自然特质对大学生安全行为的影响研究

个体的安全行为因人员的自然特质、认知水平、社会特质等因素的不同会呈现出极大的差异性。为了加强大学生的安全教育,必须对大学生的安全行为及应急反应的特征及影响因素进行探究。本研究是在大量调查问卷获得的数据和资料的基础上,基于一定的数学模型,利用相应的统计分析方法,主要讨论体现人员自然特质的性别、性格类型两个因素对安全行为的影响特点。研究结果将充实我国大学生安全行为以及应急反应数据库,为加强大学生安全教育提供基础数据和指导。