As part of Strathclyde Women's Week 2024, we are focusing on the work of Humanities & Social Sciences academics whose research relates particularly to the experiences of women and girls.
Cara Lamb leads the PGDE Secondary Physical Education, which prepares graduates to teach PE in secondary schools. Prior to joining the university, she was a teacher in Glasgow schools for 15 years.
Her research interests include teacher professional learning, innovation in curriculum and gender studies. Her recent research has explored ways that teachers can implement activist approaches to better involve adolescent girls in physical education - the barriers to which have been well-documented in academic literature.
We spoke to Cara about the factors that create these barriers, how to change existing dynamics between teachers and pupils, and how physical education can be made more welcoming and equitable.
What barriers do young women and girls typically face to participation in physical education?
The barriers that women and girls face include psychological ones such as body confidence, self-consciousness and low levels of perceived competence. They also include social barriers such as gender dynamics, the relationships between pupils and teachers and among peers. Environmental barriers such as inappropriate PE clothing, discomfort in changing room and inadequate facilities are also a factor.
Girls often express dissatisfaction with the lack of choice, over-exposure to the same activities, and being forced to do certain activities, all which discourage their participation in physical education. Furthermore, the dominant form of physical education, typically centred on a multi-activity sport-technique based approach, tends to favour those pupils already skilled in sports, inadvertently reinforcing gender stereotypes and marginalising young women and girls.
Teachers, perhaps unknowingly, may contribute to reinforcing gender constructs through their teaching practices, often failing to fully understand the complex issues girls face to their engagement in physical activity and physical education. Despite being longstanding issues, these challenges persistently emerge in media, reports, and governmental strategies, often unfairly attributing blame to girls themselves. However, despite good intentions, this discourse has largely overlooked questioning whether the context, environment, or teaching approaches are the primary barriers to girls’ participation.
Your research has focused positively on ways that physical education can be transformed to be more welcoming to young women and girls. What are some of the ways this could be achieved?
There have been several positive lines of research aimed at making physical education a more equitable space for young women and girls. Fundamental to this research is that it has involved collaborating with girls, rather than doing interventions on girls.
This body of research has been dedicated to disrupting power imbalance between teachers and pupils, empowering girls as active agents of change. Instead of imposing adult-driven solutions onto girls, teachers trust that girls have crucial insights into what better facilitates their participation in physical education and physical activity. Practices such as incorporating pupil voice, democratic curriculum development, and cooperative learning have yielded positive outcomes, particularly for teenage girls.
An alternative way to reshaping physical education for girls is through an activist approach. Evolving from three decades of activist efforts in various contexts and settings, this approach was outlined in the book, Girls, gender and physical education: an activist approach from Oliver & Kirk (2015). The learning aspirations for an activist approach are that girls learn how to name, critique, negotiate, and transform barriers to their physical activity engagement, enjoyment, and learning. With its four critical elements of student-centred pedagogy, attentiveness to issues of embodiment, inquiry-based learning centred in action, and listening and responding over time, an activist approach offers a structure to support teachers in addressing the perceived ‘problem’ with girls.
An activist approach consists of two phases. The first, Building the Foundation (BtF), involves teachers understanding pupils’ perceptions of physical education; collaborating with them to establish an emotionally supportive environment, and introducing a broad range of possibilities within the PE curriculum. The second phase involves co-creating a thematic unit based on pupils’ learning needs, The thematic unit uses a variety of activities and subject matter and media for teaching and learning of this theme across a longer time period. Physical education done in this way pushes on the status quo and maintains pupils as key drivers of their curriculum.
Tell us about your research methodology for the Becoming-activist paper. What were the most striking outcomes of that research?
The research consisted of a 10-month intervention in which two teachers implemented an activist approach with their fourth year (aged 15-16) core physical education classes. The purpose of this research was to explore teachers’ journeys in becoming-Activist as they enact an activist approach in their own physical education settings. Our findings revealed that enacting an activist approach not only changed the dynamics between teachers and pupils but also fostered different relationships among the girls themselves.
In the process of becoming-Activist, teachers had to challenge their preconceptions about girls and physical education more broadly. We propose that the use of an activist approach supported teachers in challenging dominant discourses and disrupting pupil-teacher power barriers. Through critical reflection, open dialogue, and the creation of a supportive class environment, teachers were able to cultivate more harmonious relationships among girls in their classes.
Nonetheless, we should not underestimate the complexities inherent in teachers’ journey toward becoming-Activist. The dominant and residual beliefs about the place and purpose of physical education influenced how teachers enacted this approach. For instance, prioritising heart rates over learning highlighted that wider public health discourses were more difficult to shirt. Furthermore, we came to appreciate the residues of pupil engagement within traditional practice (i.e., competitiveness) that become more apparent and intrude on activist lessons. Indeed, we discovered that exploring deeper into girls’ perspectives of their bodies, physical education and physical activity requires time and consistency. As activists, we should not be afraid to position our research within the tensions we are trying to transform.
Any final thoughts on your becoming-Activist journey?
The notion of ‘becoming-Activist’ evolved throughout this research project. Initially, it wasn’t a concept I consciously embraced at the outset of this project. However, as I immersed myself in the data, the experiences of the teachers, and my own personal journey, I gradually recognised that becoming an activist teacher is an ongoing process. Becoming-Activist is a gradual process, a journey of growth that continually questions prevailing realities and aspires to transcend fixed limitations. ‘Becoming’ signifies a paradigm shift, emphasising change over a static state.
As we celebrate International Women’s Day 2024, with its theme of Inspire Inclusion, I’d like to hope that becoming-Activist is part of everyone’s journey toward empowering women from all walks of life. Activists recognise and value the diverse perspectives of all women and girls, empowering them to drive change. Activists actively engage in intentional collaboration with others, working towards a transformative vision of ‘what might be’. For young women and girls, I aspire that vision encompasses a fairer and more inclusive experience of physical education, as more teachers embrace becoming-Activist.
The Becoming-Activist paper is not published but was presented at the ECER conference. Two papers from this study are:
- Lamb, C. A., Oliver, K. L., & Kirk, D. (2018). ‘Go for it Girl’ adolescent girls’ responses to the implementation of an activist approach in a core physical education programme
- Lamb, C., Teraoka, E., Oliver, K., & Kirk, D. (2021). Pupils’ motivational and emotional responses to pedagogies of affect in physical education in Scottish secondary schools