Demonstrate how questions raised using visual methodologies can be ... Visual methodological approaches (Pink, 2007): examining pre-existing visual ...
VISUAL METHODOLOGIES AND GENDERED PERFORMANCES IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Göran Gerdin, PhD Student Critical Studies in Education, The University of Auckland
Presentation Aim
Briefly describe the theoretical underpinnings and visual methodologies used to investigate gendered performances in Physical Education. Demonstrate how questions raised using visual methodologies can be explored using a poststructuralist approach informed by the works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler. Present initial findings that serve as examples of the potential of such an approach. Provide an answer to the challenge posed by Andrew Sparkes (1991) nearly twenty years ago to broaden the paradigmatic stances available to researchers in physical education, to contribute to the “polyvocality” in research by offering “new forms of interpretation and insight” (p. 127).
Presentation Structure
Introduction – Researching Gender in Physical Education
Theoretical Framework
Foucault – Technologies of the Self Butler – Gender as a performance
Visual methodologies
Present initial findings
Research Setting/Data Collection/Analysis Theme I – Technologies of the Self Theme II – The Self as a work of art
Concluding thoughts
Introduction: Researching Gender in Physical Education
Discursive practices of Physical Education
“Gendered” research agenda “Gender differences” research “Boys” and “girls” as given
Problematization of the category boy in Physical Education and address the following question: How do boys’ gendered performances in Physical Education articulate with discourses of masculinity and femininity? “Fusion of horizons” through visual methodologies
Theoretical Framework
Michel Foucault – technologies of the self The self as something that “we have to create ourselves as a work of art” (Foucault, 2000, p. 262). Judith Butler - Gender as a performance, “a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (Butler, 1990, p. 43).“In this sense, gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a subject who might be said to preexist the deed” (ibid, p. 25). Socially “unacceptable” performances labelled as the ‘constitutive outside’ and ‘abject identities’.
Visual Methodologies
Visual methodological approaches (Pink, 2007): examining pre-existing visual representations; making visual representations; collaboration with social actors in the production of visual representations” Azzarito (2010) recently called for the inclusion of research methods in Physical Education which “enable young people to “speak” meaningfully about their experiences and ways of knowing about the body in physical activity contexts” (p. 155). For instance, Azzarito and Sterling (2010) - qualitative participatory visual methodology – “Move in My World” diaries. Shift our research “on” participants to research “with” and “by” young people and children (Prosser, 2007) focusing on the participants’ representations and interpretations - “Let the people speak for themselves”. Changes the participant-researcher relationship: gives the students the opportunity to have a voice in the interpretation, avoids the objectifying masculine gaze (i.e. researcher in front of the camera), “creating something together” rather than “giving something back” (Pink, 2007). Visual data used for “stimulated recall interviews” (Byra & Sherman, 1993) and as “interview probing” (Banks, 2001) .
Present initial findings
Research Setting
Data Collection:
School: Multicultural single-sex boy’s Catholic state-integrated secondary school, Auckland, NZ Strong focus on sports especially rugby Participants: 60 Year 10 students from two different physical education classes (highest and lowest academic streams).
Field notes, video recordings, focus groups and individual interviews 9-12 months (ongoing).
Analysis
Video recording edited and organised into video clips and transcribed comprising narratives and still images. Interview transcripts. Data analysed using ‘deductive and inductive thematic analysis’ (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
Theme: Technologies of the Self
Theme: Technologies of the Self [This is the conversation that took place in one of the focus groups while watching that video:] Mitchell: Ah look at all the nerds who are being picked last! (Laughter) Researcher: What do you mean? Mitchell: Well look at them they are just sitting there! [He demonstrates how the boys who are being picked last sit with their arms crossed, their backs against the wall and with their heads facing the ground]. Noone wants them on their team because they don’t really care about PE they rather be doing their homework. Researcher: So who gets picked first then? Mitchell: All the popular ones, you know the sporty ones. Duncan: Yeah the ones who actually like PE. Researcher: So if you rather do your homework than have PE you are considered a nerd then? Mitchell: Yeah
Theme: Technologies of the Self [In a follow-up interview with Mitchell (who had been doing most of the talking during the focus group interview) I asked him about how you become popular and picked first in PE:]
Mitchell: As long as you play a lot of sport you become popular and once you have become popular you can still do some nerdy things without being laughed at or called a nerd. Researcher: So sport is way of being accepted then? Mitchell: Yeah you know if you want to do well at school as well you just have to find the right balance. I usually do all my school work at home after practice. That way I don’t have to sit around and do nothing at school but can join in with all the other guys when they play touch during breaks.
Theme: Technologies of the Self [I later asked, Hugo, (who hade been in the same group interview as Mitchell and the others but not said anything), what it is like trying to live up to this privileged form of masculinity associated with sporting ability?]
Hugo: Trying to be one of the cool guys can sometimes be quite tiring. Sometimes you might think that you should be spending more time on your school work but then you don’t want to like you know sit and do school work at school. That just really uncool and then all the other boys will laugh at you. That’s why I do all my school work at home.
Theme: Technologies of the Self
“public and private gendered categories of the self” Hugo and Mitchell’s negotiation of their peer groups involves specific techniques of the self which are operationalised through a regime of practice involving specific modalities of power (Foucault, 1978). They have successfully established which gender performances within this context are considered as “normal” and which ones are “unacceptable”, or “abject performances” (Butler, 1990).
Theme 2: The self as a work of art
Theme 2: The self as a work of art [When I talked to James who was the boy doing the filming I asked him what he thought of the video clip I had just shown him] James: Well you know the other guys they were on my back the whole time…film this and film this…and then they wanted me to zoom in on Randy… Researcher: Why did they want you to do that? James: Well he is not one of the sporty ones and people always make fun of him…He is not that good at PE…well at least at rugby and soccer..and he gets called fat and stuff…a bit like me I guess. We are both a bit afraid of getting hurt most of the time since the sporty ones always get so aggressive when we have PE. Researcher: Do you think that is why you decided to keep filming him then? James: Yeah, I guess I feel for him in way…you know since I get to put up with the same crap.
Theme 2: The self as a work of art [As the interview with James carries on we get into a discussion about what types of physical activities he and his friends enjoy] James: Well, me and my friends we usually go mountain bike riding on the weekends. None of us are really that good, but we just hang out and relax together. That is the best thing about it, hanging out together. It is also nice being out in the open and not closed in like when we do sports in PE.
“Non-sporty self” versus his “preferred self” (Riessman, 2003): a “positive self”, a “relaxed self”, a “relational self” (Sparkes, 2004).
Concluding thoughts
Young people’s visual representations and verbal narratives as a way of understanding and addressing issues such as gender stereotypes in physical education. More insights from visual representations generated by the young people being researched. Allow them to express their ways of seeing the world they inhabit in their everyday life (Prosser & Burker, 2008). Visual methodological research, according to Pink (2007), creates a “context where ethnographers/authors can create or represent continuities between [these] diverse worlds, voices or experiences, and describe or imply points in the research at which they meet or collide” (p. 144). An analysis of the self which moves beyond categories of gender/sex, masculinity/femininity, race, and class (Azzarito, 2010).
References Azzarito, L (2010). "Ways of Seeing the Body in Kinesiology: A Case for Visual Methodologies." Quest 62: 155-170. Azzarito, L & Katzew, A. (2010). "Performing identities in physical education: (en)gendering fluid selves." Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 81: 25-37. Azzarito, L & Sterling, J. (2010). "'What it was in my eyes': picturing youths' embodiment in 'real' spaces." Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise 2(2): 209-228. Banks, M. (2001). Visual methods in social research. London: Sage Publications. Braun, V & Clarke, V. (2006). "Using thematic analysis in psychology." Qualitative Research in Psychology 3: 77-101.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble. Feminism and the subversion of identity. London and New York: Routledge. Byra, M & Sherman, M. (1993). "Preactive and interactive decision-making tendencies of less and more experienced preservice teachers." Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 64: 46-55. Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality, Volume One. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Foucault, M. (2000). Power: Essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Volume 3. London: Penguin. Francis, B (2010). "Re/theorising gender: female masculinity and male femininity in the classroom?" Gender and Education 22(5): 477-490. Prosser, J. (2007). "Visual methods and the visual culture of schools." Visual Studies 22(13-30). Prosser, J & Burke, C. (2008). Image-based educational research. Childlike perspectives. In Handbook of the arts in qualitative research. J. G Knowles and A. L. Cole (Ed.). London: Sage Publications: 407-419. Sparkes, A. (1991). "Towards understanding, dialogue, and polyvocality in the research community: Extending the boundaries of the paradigm debate." Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 10(2): 103-133. Thomsen, S. R, Bower, D. W & Barnes, M. D. (2004). "Photographic images in women’s health, fitness, and sports magazines and the physical self-concept of a group of adolescent female volleyball players." Journal of Sport and Social Issues 28: 266-283.
Questions and Discussion
How do we know that a performance, act or gestured etc is gendered? …
