Doing gender in physiotherapy education: a critical pedagogic approach to understanding how students construct gender identities in an undergraduate physiotherapy programme in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Gender in physiotherapy education is somewhat ambiguous. Physiotherapy is historically a women’s profession, yet in recent decades there has been a growing proportion of men. The mass media portrays a masculine sporty image of physiotherapy, which notably ignores the presence of women. Previous research in physiotherapy education has shown gender differences in student preferences for work and career pathways. Gender differences in attainment in practice components of the course have also been demonstrated, with men doing less well than women and more likely to fail. As a physiotherapy educator faced with these issues, the aim of this study is to explore the significance of gender in students’ constructions of identity. \n \nSocial constructionism was adopted as an underpinning theory in this professional practice research involving students from one cohort of undergraduate physiotherapy students at a university in the south east of England. Nine male and female participants were interviewed at the beginning of their second year and were asked to record stories about their experiences both on and off campus throughout the academic year using a digital recording device. Data from the interviews and audio-diary narratives were analysed using Judith Butler’s theorisation of gender as ‘performative’ to understand how gender identities were constructed. Foucauldian and critical pedagogical perspectives were employed to further interrogate the gender discourses that emerged. \n \nThe findings indicate that gender was rarely explicitly discussed; yet participants’ gender identities were constantly negotiated through relationships that were not limited to the university and clinical settings. A range of discourses of masculinity and femininity were identified illustrating a profound gender orthodoxy in physiotherapy education that simultaneously demanded acceptance, assimilation or resistance. As a consequence, students in this study used a number of discursive strategies in the struggle to be recognised within physiotherapy education and practice. \n \nThe implications from these findings raise questions about gender tensions and contradictions in the physiotherapy programme under scrutiny and about the pedagogic practices that reinforce them. In this context, there is a need to raise awareness amongst peers and managers of the possible sites of gender inequalities within this curriculum. Also, gender needs to come ‘out of the closet’ and be debated within the classroom and the wider social spaces inhabited by students in order to develop more nuanced understandings of gender within physiotherapy and healthcare. Finally this research indicates the need to provide more inclusive spaces within the curriculum for reflecting on the complexity of identity construction and for challenging its institutional forms.

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