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| Feature | No.65 October 2013 |

Engaging adolescent Girls in Physical Education— Supporting Girls in the Process of becoming physically literate

Kimberly L. Oliver

Adapted from a Keynote Lecture at the International Physical Literacy Conference—Bedford England, June 2013

Abstract

In this paper I will discuss four critical elements necessary for engaging adolescent girls in physical education in ways that support them in the process of becoming physically literate. These critical elements include: 1) the need for teachers to be student-centered in their pedagogical practices; 2) the need for teachers to create spaces in their curriculum for girls to critically study their embodiment; 3) the need for physical education to become inquiry-based and centered in action; and 4) the need for teachers and researchers to listen and respond to girls over time.

Introduction

In this paper I discuss four critical elements that activist scholars have reported as pivotal to working with adolescent girls in order to move beyond what our literature continues to promote as a ‘crisis in girls activity participation.’ We have an abundance of research that identifies that girls drop out of physical activity and disengage in physical education…we have known this for years. In much of this research girls are constructed as “the problem.” Girls don’t like to sweat. Girls don’t want to mess up their clothes. Girls don’t like sports. Girls aren’t any good. Girls. Girls Girls—there is always something wrong with the girls.1

Over time the feminist scholars have moved this critique from the girls being the problem to focus on the structural and cultural inequities that girls must negotiate if they are to have the opportunity to play in ways that are meaningful to them. In essence our scholarship has chronicled our shift in blame…from the girls as the problem to the forms of inequities that prevent girls from being and/or enjoying physical activity as the problem. And while this research has offered the field of physical education some important insights into girls’ worlds, it is no longer sufficient in and of itself. We have an increasingly growing body of activist research with girls that centers on understanding the possibilities of how teachers can facilitate girls’ engagement and enjoyment in physical education in relevant and meaningful ways and thus foster their physical literacy. The four critical elements that I will discuss are derived from the collective knowledge of activist research with girls. And while I will discuss each one at a time what I hope becomes increasingly clear is just how intimately connected these four elements are. While I am going to draw on my own research for this particular paper, these four critical elements are reflected in all of the activist research centered on facilitating girls’ engagement in physical education. I use the term engagement as a way to describe girls fully participating in physical education and doing so in ways that not only show their enjoyment but also their desire to learn something they find meaningful. The 4 critical elements I will discuss include: 1) the need for teachers to be student-centered in their pedagogical practices; 2) the need for teachers to create spaces in their curriculum for girls to critically study their embodiment; 3) the need for physical education to become inquiry-based and centered in action; and 4) the need for teachers and researchers to listen and respond to girls over time.

Student-Centered Pedagogy as a means of Engaging Adolescent Girls

The first critical element of engaging girls in physical education is that teachers are student-centered in their pedagogical practices. I agree with Cook-Sather (2002) who claims that students have unique perspectives about what goes on in their worlds. So as long as teachers exclude girls’ perspectives from conversations about how to best engage them in physical education, decisions will be based on an incomplete picture. We have strong consistent evidence that suggests that when teachers are student-centered in their pedagogical practices it facilitates girls’ active engagement in physical education. To illustrate the power of student-centered pedagogy on girls’ engagement I’d like to share part of a research project that we did with 5th grade girls.

Back in 2005 I spent one day a week for the entire academic school year working with 10 and 11-year-old girls in a US border community to Mexico. In this study I worked with girls who were identified by their physical education teachers as either not liking physical education or not liking physical activity in general. The goal was to work with girls to help them identify barriers to their physical activity enjoyment and participation and assist them in negotiating the barriers as to increase their opportunities for engaging in physical activity.

Early in the project I had given the girls cameras and asked them to photograph things that helped them be physically active and things that either prevented them from being active or prevented them from enjoying physical activity. Through this process the girls explained that being ‘girly girl’ often prevented them from being physically active because girly girls ‘don’t want to sweat,’ ‘mess up their hair and nails,’ they didn’t want to ‘mess up their nice clothes’ and sometimes they liked to wear ‘flip flops.’

What I learned was that these girls were using the idea of ‘being girly girl’ as an excuse for not engaging in physical education. Over time they started to talk about how, when the teacher was having them play something they didn’t like such as football, soccer, basketball and Frisbee that they used excuses such as “we don’t want to sweat” or “we don’t want to mess up our clothes” as a way of getting out of the activity that wasn’t meeting their particular needs. In this next conversation the girls were explaining about why they didn’t like these sports:

Maltilde says, “because the boys kick your feet,” “trip you on purpose,” “push you down,” “they won’t give you the ball,” and “grab your hair.” So I asked them whether it was the sport they didn’t like or the way that sport was being played. I said, “So if the boys are kicking you or tripping you or pulling your hair or not giving you the ball those kinds of things…” Sunshine cut me off and says, “You feel left out and hurt.” I continued, “I’m trying to figure out, if there are a lot of girls that are girly girls or identify as girly girls, they should be able to be active in ways that are…” Sunshine cuts me off again and says, “Suitable for them.” I continue, “Yes, that are suitable, wouldn’t you think? Sunshine goes on to explain that if girls “felt comfortable with themselves they would be able to do physical activity.”

What I came to better understand from these girls was that not only did they not like the content in physical education—the traditional team sports, but they also did not like how the activities were played when boys were involved, did not like getting hurt or being left out, and wanted to be able to play and “feel comfortable with themselves.” So, rather than play in situations they identified as unsuitable or dangerous, they chose not to participate, and hence in part why there were working with me every week. What is so concerning here is that because their excuses “not wanting to sweat or mess up their clothes” are SUCH normalized discourses around girls disengagement in physical education, no one questioned whether there might be some other reason they didn’t want to play.

Rather than try to get the girls to critique how the notion of girly girl was contributing to their disengagement I suggested that we work collaboratively to negotiate their barriers by making up games girls could play while simultaneously being “girly girl.” So what we did was to create a book for games for days the girls “didn’t want to sweat” or “didn’t want to mess up their clothes,” “break a nail,” “didn’t want to mess up their hair” and days that they girls wore flip flops.

What was most pivotal in this study was that as soon as I acknowledged the girls desires to be girly girl and worked with them to co-create games for them; the content of the games they created actually contradicted many of their self-identified girly girl barriers. That is, while they may have been making up games for days where they did not want to sweat or mess up their nice clothes, many of the actual games involved running, jumping, chasing, and fleeing—in the dirt mind you—in other words, the possibility of sweating or getting their clothes dirty.

And so what I learned that I think is so very important is that as adults and as teachers and as researchers we need to learn to work WITH girls’ femininities instead of critically against them. Earlier in my career I would have be tempted to have the girls critique the idea of girly girl rather than to work with the girls and help them find ways where they can be girly girl AND physically active. It was through this project that I was reminded yet again of the importance of starting from where girls are and the importance of assisting them in finding activities that THEY find valuable and relevant and enjoyable, regardless of what we think.

It is also within this example that the need for spending prolonged time in the field with girls became so evident. Had I merely stopped at their self-proclaimed ‘girly girl’ barriers I would have missed what really prevented them from engaging in physical education and as such my research would have added to the perpetuation of how we discriminate against girls in physical activity environments. This example also highlights just how central girls’ embodiment is to their physical activity participation and that we cannot trivialize or dismiss this centrality if we hope to assist girls in becoming physically literate.

Exploring Issues of Embodiment as a way of Engaging Adolescent Girls

The second critical element for engaging adolescent girls in physical education in ways that are meaningful and relevant involves teachers creating spaces in their curriculum for girls to critically study issues that influence their embodiment. That is, girls need opportunities to name, critique, and where possible transform aspects of physical culture that impact how they are learning to think and feel about their bodies and how this influences their lives. If we are going to actively engage girls, it is no longer sufficient to say physical education should focus exclusively on physical activity. Offering girls the opportunities to explore their embodiment and how this relates to their physical activity participation, according to activist research, is central to making physical education relevant to girls. To illustrate this critical element I will share some of what we learned from a year-long study with 90 7th – 10th grade (12-15 year old) African American and White girls from rural town in the Southeast part of the US.

The purpose of this study was to examine what happened during our efforts to develop and implement a curriculum strand in girls’ physical education classes as a way of making physical education more meaningful and relevant. This curriculum strand was implemented across the school year and focused on girls’ bodies and physical activity. We incorporated critical literacy processes such as reflection, inquiry, and artistic representation into these plans in order to assist girls in naming the discourses that shape their lives and regulate their bodies.

The piece I will share with you today was how we worked to make the curriculum meaningful, interesting, and significant to girls’ lives. The first semester of the study we engaged the girls in a variety of tasks designed to help them identify areas that influenced how they were thinking about feeling about their bodies. We used magazine explorations and critiques whereby we asked girls to bring magazines that they enjoyed reading and select pictures from magazines that captured their interest and attention. We then had them work together to categorize their images and select images that they believed sent messages to girls about their bodies. Next we had them identify what messages they believed these images sent to girls about their bodies and who benefited from these types of messages and whom these messages might harm.

Moving from critiquing aspects of popular culture we shifted focus to the girls’ school environment. Here we had them take photos around their school of the places that sent messages to girls about their bodies. They used their photos as a way of identifying where girls felt safe at school and where girls felt unsafe with respect to the types of messages they were receiving about their bodies at school. They created maps to illustrate the places girls received positive messages about their bodies and places where they received negative and hurtful messages about their bodies. The girls also used journals to document the times they noticed their bodies and the types of messages they received about their bodies in their communities.

At the beginning of the second semester we had the girls create a calendar of school events that were interesting to teens and to discuss how these events related to girls bodies. From here we engaged the girls in a student-centered inquiry project whereby they would work with a group to study a particular event that they found interesting and that they believed related to girls bodies in some important way. As part of the inquiry girls created surveys to learn more about what other people thought about their topic and to learn how their topic related to girls’ bodies. They studied topics such as “Cheerleading and its effects on girls bodies”; “Why girls play softball”, “Why girls play basketball” “Girls experiences at the mall”, and “The Beauty Walk.” They surveyed their peers, teachers, family members about their topic, they analyzed their data, they photographed their event or topic and the created a representation of their learning.

Through their inquiries the girls began naming how these experiences that were so central to their lives influenced their understandings of physical activity, social norms, teen pregnancy, anorexia and bulimia, and gender and race discrimination. They also named the aspects of these experiences that brought them joy, friendship, opportunities to engage in physical activity in meaningful and fun ways as well as what girls are capable of achieving.

It was through this project we learned the value of offering girls opportunities within physical education classes to explore and study areas that made a difference to how they viewed themselves as girls, as friends, and as competent movers in their worlds. These opportunities assisted many of the girls in coming to realize that they did not need to rely on other people’s perceptions of how and why girls should be active, but rather helped them to identify what THEY themselves valued and found meaningful about physical activity. It also helped us better see the value of connecting issues that are central to girls embodiment within physical education as a means of making physical education more relevant.

Inquiry-Based Education Centered-in-Action as a way of Engaging Adolescent Girls

The third critical element that I will discuss is the value inquiry-based education that is centered-in-action has as a way to engage girls in physical education in meaningful and relevant ways. Inquiry based physical education involves teachers engaging girls in inquiry in order to help them a) better understand what facilitates and hinders their active engagement in school physical education or physical activity outside of school; and b)this will involve teachers working with girls toward challenging and transforming the barriers they identify in order to assist them in finding ways to increase their physical activity participation in ways that are meaningful to them.

However, inquiry is not only what teachers have students do, but it also means that teachers will use inquiry as a way of guiding their curricular and pedagogical decisions. That is, within their curriculum design teachers embed ways of continually inquiring into what facilitates and hinders girls’ engagement, enjoyment, and learning in physical education and they will utilize this information in their planning and teaching.

To illustrate what is possible when teachers work in these ways I will share an example from a study I have been conducting with pre-service teachers. The project was designed to better understand how as teacher educators we could prepare pre-service teachers to be student-centered in their curricular and pedagogical practices. Combining student-centered pedagogy with inquiry based learning centered-in-action, we developed a model for how to work with pre-service teachers as they worked with youth. Embedded in the model are places for both the teacher and the students to inquire into what facilitates and hinders youths’ physical education, their enjoyment, engagement and possibility to develop their physical literacy.

The example I will offer is from one high school Freshman (ages 14-15) level class physical education class that my Secondary Methods Class and I worked with twice a week for 90 minutes each day for the 16-week semester. We started the semester inquiring into students’ perceptions of physical education and physical activity. This was designed for us to have a better understanding of what influenced these students willingness to engage in physical education and what prevented them from engaging in or enjoying physical education. We next inquired into the type of class environment these students needed in order to feel safe and thus be willing to engage in the class. Finally drawing on the New Mexico State Physical Education standards we sought input from the youth as to what they thought would be most meaningful to learn within the constructs of what was expected learning across their high school years.

This group was most interested in learning ways to increase their moderate to vigorous physical activity in fun and enjoyable ways that allowed them to socialize with their friends (this goal cut across 4 of the 6 standards). They were also interested in exploring variety as a means of learning new and different content, as much of their physical education experience had been exclusively team sports such as basketball and soccer or running the track as the only fitness option.

As such, my pre-service teachers and I created a thematic unit with the input of the youth around exploring the differences between moderate and vigorous physical activity. As part of this unit we developed and taught several sampler type lessons using a variety of content as well as different teaching styles. The intent was to broaden the youths understanding of what was possible with respect to curriculum and pedagogy. Every two weeks we debriefed with the youth regarding what was facilitating and/or hindering their interest, motivation and learning with respect to what we were doing. After the sampler lessons, the youth decided that they wanted to focus their content in two ways. First they thought it would be fun to create a dance music video and they also thought it would be fun to create a book with a variety of games that were interesting to kids their age and could assist them in understanding what needed to happen if they were to achieve moderate to vigorous physical activity in physical education.

In their book they included the following information that was derived through inquiry processes. They had:

- A written description of why we created this product

- A written description of what facilitates students’ interests, motivation, and learning in physical education

- A written description of the standards the high school students wanted to focus their learning

- Two DVD’s dance productions

- Physical activity games created by students

- A written description of the social benefits identified by the students in creating this product

- A written description of the difficulties identified by the students and the teachers in creating this product

http://www.pecentral.org/mediacenter/video_mayfieldhighthriller.html

What we learned through this process was that when teachers incorporated student voice into their planning and instruction youth were not only more willing and interested in engaging in physical education, but they also were more willing and interested in taking responsibility for theirs and others learning. Further, they actively participated in the creation of what we did in class because it ultimately originated from their collective interests and needs. Through this process we more clearly recognized the importance of teaching within a localized context and came to better understand that while we might have overall learning state or national objectives, we must mould those to the individuals that we teach. There is no one size fits all when it comes to engaging youth in physical education, but through an inquiry based approach to teaching that is centered in student-voice and action, we can be responsive to the needs of youth in different contexts.

Listening and Responding Over Time as a way of Engaging Adolescent Girls

The final critical element necessary for engaging adolescent girls in physical education involves prolonged emersion in the field and a willingness to listen and respond to over time. This has implications for both researchers and teachers alike. For researchers it means that IF we want to find ways of engaging girls in physical education than we will need to actually work WITH girls, actively listening and then responding to what we are hearing. Any attempt at understanding what facilitates and hinders girls’ engagement and any attempt at developing programs specific to girls must include girls as the primary knowledge holders.

It also means that researchers cannot do short studies with a few observations and a couple of interviews if they think they are going to understand how to motivate girls to become physically active. We have ample surface level research on girls; we really don’t need any more, for that type of research merely aids in the perpetuation of either the girl as the problem or the cultural and structural inequities as the problem to girls’ disengagement. Girls will tell you what they think you want to hear or they will use very normalized gendered storylines because they have learned people won’t question them. This is consistent in all the activist research that centers on working with girls to help facilitate their physical activity participation. That is, what girls will share early on is not always what they think or what they feel or what they actually do. It takes time and the development of relationships before girls will feel comfortable working with adults, in part because they need to know they can trust us.

Researchers aren’t the only ones that need to listen and respond to girls across time however. Teachers also need to do this. It doesn’t do any good for teachers to ask girls what they need in class in order to feel comfortable and interested in engaging at the beginning of a year and never come back to the issues again. As teaches we need to embed in our practice places to regularly inquire into girls’ experiences so that we can better assist girls in learning to indentify what THEY need to inspire them to engage in physical education and participate in physical activity. This takes time because there are no quick fixes to girls’ disengagement and no quick ways to understand what motivates girls to go out and play.

We have such power as researchers and teachers to influence the lives of adolescent girls in ways that will assist them in the process of becoming physically literate—something each of us in this room obviously values a great deal in our own lives. But to do what is possible requires 1) student-centered pedagogy; 2) opportunities for girls to critically explore their embodiment; 3) inquiry based education centered-in-action; and 4) a willingness to listen AND respond over time.

I will leave you with the words of Maggie Mae, a 10 year old African American girl—whose words came only after 8 weeks into a 32 week study.

“The boys told me I couldn’t play with them because I was a girl and I was Black…Some boys don’t want the girls to play because they are girls and I think that’s a real problem because we should all be able to do what we want to do. We should all be able to play.”

Maggie Mae’s words inspired us to facilitate creating an opportunity to assist a group of girls in changing their school environment so more girls could participate in physical activity. But girls can’t do transformational work without spaces in school and adult support. That is what WE must do if we hope for girls to be physically literate. And when you listen to girls, you will hear this type of desire as you did in Maggie Mae. The question becomes…how will you respond?

1 This paper is a portion of a keynote lecture given at the International Physical Literacy Conference in Bedford England, June 2013. It was written as a talk, not a traditional paper, thus the style and lack of reference in the text.

References

1. Ennis, C. D. (2000). Canaries in the coal mine: Responding to disengaged students using theme-based curricula. Quest, 52(2), 119-130.

2. Enright, E. & O’Sullivan, M. (2012). ‘Producing different knowledge and producing knowledge differently’: rethinking physical education research and practice through participatory visual methods. Sport, Education and Society, 17(1), 35-55.

3. Enright, E. & O’Sullivan, M. (2012a). Physical education ‘in all sorts of corners:’ Student activists transgressing formal physical education curricular boundaries. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 83(2), 255-267.

4. Enright, E. & O’Sullivan, M. (2010). ‘Can I do it in my pyjamas?’ Negotiating a physical education curriculum with teenage girls. European Physical Education Review, 16(3), 203-222.

5. Enright, E. & O’Sullivan, M. (2010). ‘Carving a few order of experience’ with young people in physical education: Participatory action research as a pedagogy of possibility. In M. O’Sullivan & A. MacPhail (Eds.). Young People’s Voices in Physical Education and Youth Sport. Routledge: London.

6. Fisette, J. L. (2011). Negotiating power within high school girls’ exploratory projects in physical education. Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 20(1), pp. 73-90.

7. Fisette, J. L. (2011). Exploring how girls navigate their embodied identities in physical education. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 16(2), 179-196.

8. Fisette, J. L. (2012). “Are you listening?”: Adolescent girls voice how they negotiate self-identified barriers to their success and survival in physical education. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, DOI: 10.1080/17408989.2011.649724, 1-20 iFirst Article.

9. Fisette, J. L. & Walton, T. A. (2011). ‘If you really knew me’…I am empowered through action. Sport, Education and Society, DOI:10.1080/13573322.2011.643297, pp. 1-22 iFirst Article.

10. Hamzeh, M. (2012). Pedagogies of Deveiling: Muslim Girls & the Hijab Discourse. Information Age Publishing, Inc.: North Carolina.

11. Hamzeh, M. & Oliver, K. L. (2012). “Because I am Muslim, I cannot wear a swimsuit:” Muslim girls negotiate participation opportunities for physical activity. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 83(2), 330-339.

12. Oliver, K. L. & Oesterreich, H. A. with Aranda, R., Archuleta, J., Blazer, C., De La Cruz, K., Martinez, D., McConnell, J., Osta, M., Parks, L. & Robinson, R. (in press). ‘The sweetness of struggle’: Innovation in PETE through student-centered inquiry as curriculum in a physical education methods course. The Journal of Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy.

13. Oliver, K. L., & Oesterreich, H. A. (2013). Student-centered inquiry as curriculum as a model for field-based teacher education, Journal of Curriculum Studies 43(3), 394-417.

14. Oliver, K. L., & Hamzeh, M. (2010). ‘The boys won’t let us play’: 5th grade mestizas publicly challenge physical activity discourse at school. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 81(1), 39-51.

15. Oliver, K. L. (2010). The body, physical activity and inequity: Learning to listen with girls through action. In M. O’Sullivan and A. MacPhail (Eds.). Young People’s Voices in Physical Education and Youth Sport. Routledge: London.

16. Oliver, K. L., Hamzeh, M., & McCaughtry, N (2009). ‘Girly girls can play games/Las niñas pueden jugar tambien:’ Co-creating a curriculum of possibilities with 5th grade girls. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 28(1), 90-110.

17. Oliver, K. L., & Lalik, R. (2004). Critical inquiry on the body in girls’ physical education classes: A critical poststructural analysis. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 23(2), 162-195.

18. Oliver, K. L., & Lalik, R. (2004). ‘The Beauty Walk, This ain’t my topic:’ Learning about critical inquiry with adolescent girls. The Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36(5), 555-586.

19. Oliver, K. L., & Lalik, R. (2001). The body as curriculum: Learning with adolescent girls. The Journal of Curriculum Studies, 33(3), 303-333.

20. Oliver, K.L. (2001). Images of the body from popular culture: Engaging adolescent girls in critical inquiry. Sport, Education & Society, 6(2), 143-164.

21. Oliver, K.L., & Lalik, R. (2000). Bodily knowledge: Learning about equity & justice with adolescent girls. New York: Peter Long.

22. Oliver, K.L. (1999). Adolescent girls’ body-narratives: Learning to desire and create a “fashionable” image. Teachers College Record, 101(2), 220-246.

Contact

Kimberly L. Oliver
New Mexico State University
Email koliver@nmsu.edu

http://www.icsspe.org/