Challenging gendered inequalities in boys’ physical education through video-stimulated reflections

Despite research over the past three decades that has examined links between masculinity, sport and Physical Education (PE), exclusionary practices and cultures that privilege some boys and masculinities at the expense of marginalised others are still commonly reported. With an historical legacy as a masculinity-making device, attempts to disrupt hegemonic and heteronormative cultures and pedagogies in PE that perpetuate gendered inequalities have had a modest influence, at best. This paper examines the use of visual methodologies to better understand the role of boys’ PE and sport in the construction of gender and sexuality. We argue that visual methodologies can capture social practices and spaces in ways that words alone cannot, hence enabling more nuanced interrogations and insights into gendered experiences in PE to be made.

Data draws from video-stimulated reflections (VSR) of PE classes in two all-boys’ secondary schools in Australia and New Zealand. The Australian data examines VSR interviews with a female teacher involved in a Year 8 (aged 13-14 years) PE class. The New Zealand data is drawn from VSR interviews conducted during a year-long (visual) ethnography of two Year 10 (aged 14-15 years) PE classes with a male teacher. Drawing on Foucault (1980, 1988), we consider how these methodologies work to expose and obscure practices and pedagogies that contribute to gendered experiences for students and teachers that both privilege and marginalise. Using the tools of discourse, power and technologies of the self, our findings illustrate how VSR can serve as a collaborative (re)production of the visual material through moments of embodied dissonance. We argue that this ‘uncomfortableness’ can facilitate productive learnings about gendered/sexualised bodies and power in PE through critical reflection and ethical self-work. This knowledge, we believe, is key in disrupting and transforming taken-for-granted practices that continue to perpetuate inequitable gendered experiences in PE.