“Women easily feel that they have lost a year if they don’t ski faster” : Finnish ski coaches’ discursive constructions of gendered dual career pathways
Saarinen, M., Ryba, T. V., Kavoura, A., & Aunola, K. (2023). “Women easily feel that they have lost a year if they don’t ski faster” : Finnish ski coaches’ discursive constructions of gendered dual career pathways. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 64, Article 102322. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2022.102322
Published in
Psychology of Sport and ExerciseDate
2023Copyright
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Objectives
Earlier qualitative researchers studying athletes’ dual careers (DCs) have shown that sociocultural discourses on gender are ingrained in DC policies and practices, creating gender inequalities and hierarchies. In this study, we aimed to extend this body of research by examining how Finnish elite youth ski coaches discursively construct athletes’ education and gender in their talk and coaching practices. Similarly, we examined how coaches’ beliefs about athletes' holistic development are interlinked with broader sociocultural discourses on gender.
Design
Qualitative study.
Methods
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 Finnish ski coaches (seven male, three female) aged 25–62 years (M = 38.5), and then analyzed the data using reflexive thematic analysis, interpreted through a feminist poststructuralist lens.
Findings
Coaches’ discursive practices regarding education depended on their athletes' ages. For athletes in secondary education, the coaches predominantly drew on DC discourses that emphasized the compatibility of sports and education, but for athletes transitioning to senior-level sports, they drew on dominant performance discourses, believing that athletes at the senior level should prioritize their sports. Moreover, coaches discursively constructed athletic development as especially important for female athletes, who were perceived as less capable of excelling in sports and therefore needing to invest in multiple careers.
Conclusions
By drawing on gender stereotypes and binary understandings of gender, the coaches discursively reproduced gender hierarchies and unequal power relations in sports. These gendered discourses influence athletes' DC aspirations and the gendering of DC pathways.
...
Publisher
ElsevierISSN Search the Publication Forum
1469-0292Keywords
Dataset(s) related to the publication
Ryba, Tatiana V.; Aunola, Kaisa. Dataset of Winning in the Long Run: Towards a Psychosocial Sustainability of Adolescent Dual Careers. V. 10.12.2022.Publication in research information system
https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/159298287
Metadata
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Related funder(s)
Ministry of Education and CultureFunding program(s)
OthersAdditional information about funding
This research was supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture with a grant for Tatiana V. Ryba (grant number OKM/13/626/2015 and OKM/39/626/2017).License
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