Balancing the Imbalance - boys and girls participation in physical activity

PY4055 Blog 2 – Susan O’Donoghue 16167392

Physical Education and its potential to address the imbalance between boys’ and girls’ levels of participation in physical activity

      Your experience on the topic on school placement

From my experience on school placement, I feel that physical education, with the right attitudes, does have the ability to address the imbalance between boys’ and girls’ levels of participation in Physical Activity. In my experience, while there was an issue with participation, it was across both genders, and this in my opinion, was due to the attitude my cooperating teacher had towards participation. He was quite happy to allow students to sit out or ‘go to the gym’ (which meant sitting at the top of the stairs chatting), so naturally students- both boys and girls took advantage of this. However, when I began placement I acted as if I didn’t know this happened, and when students tried not to participate I gave them jobs such as score keeper or equipment manager. This meant they were always involved. While there were more girls than boys that didn’t participate in the beginning, I found that it was easier to get the girls to participate. I had issues with one boy in particular who refused to do PE, and did not participate in any PA outside of school. While I knew it was unlikely that I was going to be able to influence this student to take up physical activity outside of school, through talking with him and taking an interest in things he enjoyed I did manage to get him participating in PE and he remarked how he enjoyed it.

Key messages from literature

Studies show that even from the young age of 9 that there is an imbalance in participation in physical activity between girls and boys.  Riddoch et al. (2004) conducted a study across 4 countries which found that significantly less girls than boys participated in physical activity and this gap grew as students aged. So how, as physical education teachers, can we bridge this gap in participation levels among boys and girls? As PE teachers we will play a crucial role in both the reproduction and challenging of gender in schools (Green and Hardman, 2005). Therefore we must come up with ways in which we can encourage both boys and girls to firstly, participate in physical education in schools, and secondly, to begin to be physically active outside of the physical education setting. Okely et al. (1997) found there to be a positive relationship between fundamental movement skill proficiency and participation in both organised and non-organised physical activity among adolescents. Simply put, the better the fundamental movement skills of the students, the more time they spent doing physical activity. In fact, the study found that the effect FMS had on the time students spent participating in physical activity was stronger for girls than boys. Could ensuring students are proficient in fundamental movement skills during PE be a way of increasing girls participation in physical activity, thus eliminating the existing gender imbalance? 

What would you do going forward with regards to teaching practice (informed by literature)

Having reviewed the literature, I feel that including fundamental movement skills in physical education may be the best way to bridge the gap in participation of boys and girls in physical activity. While in my own experience I have found that in order to get students to participate I must relate to them and try to incorporate things they enjoy into my lessons, I now also realise that as a physical education teacher I must do my best to encourage students to be physically active outside of PE as well. Going forward on teaching practice I will focus more on fundamental movement skills within my units. However I would like to do this while still teaching PE that students will find enjoyable and exciting. For example, if teaching net games, I would begin with practicing the overhand and underhand throw with students, so that when it comes to the overhand or underhand serve students might find this easier. Being proficient in FMS will allow students to transfer their skills to other sports and as the literature proves, improving fundamental movement skills can increase time students spend in physical activity. This is especially true and important for girls because as we know girls are less likely to participate in physical activity than boys.

References

Green, K. Hardman, K. (2005) Physical Education: Essential Issues, London: A SAGE Publications Company

Okely, A.D. Booth, M.L. and Patterson, J.W. (2001) ‘Relationship of physical activity to fundamental movement skills among adolescents’, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 33(11), 1899-1904, available: 10.1097/00005768-200111000-00015 

Riddoch, C.J. Andersen, L.B . Wedderkopp , N. Harro , M. Klasson-Heggbo , L. Sardinha , L.B. Cooper , A.R. and Ekelund, U. (2004) ‘Physical Activity Levels and Patterns of 9- and 15-yr-Old European Children’, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 36(1), 86-92, available: 10.1249/01.MSS.0000106174.43932.92