‘Gender and race—what’s that to do with football studies?’ Contested ‘knowledges’ in sport and leisure curricula in HE

Abstract

This paper explores the implications and affects of a level two compulsory module concerned with ‘gender, difference and leisure’ on a predominantly male student group studying for sports‐related degrees. Participant observation was undertaken by a male and female lecturer who were delivering the module. A cohort of male football students were interviewed as a group, and individual interviews were undertaken with female students. The opinions and expressions of the students are also located in the significant subculture of the collegiate footballer researched by one of the authors. The paper draws attention to the ways in which young male students negotiate their male identities collectively and the implications this has for theirs and other’s learning in HE. The findings show that many of the male football students, in particular, attempted to resist knowledge that challenged dominant male behaviours and threatened the project of patriarchy as a whole, such as the hegemonic patterning of the collegiate football subculture. While this resistance was beset with tensions, evidencing some opposition to gender ideologies at an individual level, at least, social identities constructed around gender and ‘race’, especially, were clearly disruptive in the development of critical awareness to such issues. The data presented here highlights a number of pedagogical problems that arise from these complex sets of interrelated identity issues, not least the need for lecturers to develop greater critical awareness of masculine and racial identities and to reflect upon their methods of delivery of contested knowledge.

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