ArticlePDF Available

The Effect of Cohort on Women's Sport Participation: An Intergenerational Study of Collegiate Women Ice Hockey Players

Authors:

Abstract and Figures

The purpose of this paper was 1) to examine the effect of gender expectations on sport participation by considering the impact of cohort on women's choice to play collegiate ice hockey, a masculine and statistically male-dominated sport, and 2) to show how the "enrichment hypothesis," habitus, and recreational capital can be used as conceptual frameworks to explain this choice. The findings are based on a survey of 85 women who played collegiate ice hockey, a nontraditional sport for women. The respondents reported the importance of significant others; however, cohort effects were evident in the age at which they started playing ice hockey and extent to which friends or family members had influenced them as well as in the degree of participation in team sports and ice hockey, in particular, prior to playing ice hockey in college. The implications of these findings for practitioners as well as suggestions for future researchers are provided.
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
... This process begins early in life, and also has lasting impacts that influence individuals' behavior throughout their lives (Martin and Ruble 2004). For instance, widespread sociocultural forces attributed to the contemporary women's movement, equal opportunity policies like Title IX, and increased media coverage and visibility of women in sport all contribute to long-term shifts in what recreation activities are deemed gender appropriate (Auster 2008;. In this way, gender, cohort, and socialization intersect to cause generational differences in women's participation in sports. ...
... This includes the proliferation of women's participation in organized sports over the past 30 years. Title IX sparked increased opportunities for young women to participate in recreational activities that were not available to previous generations of women (Auster 2008;Paule-Koba 2013). Auster (2008) found generational differences in women's likelihood to participate in the masculine and male-dominated sport of ice hockey, with younger generations of women that had access to organized team sports at young ages being more likely to participate in ice hockey than older women who lacked access to similar opportunities in their youth. ...
... Title IX sparked increased opportunities for young women to participate in recreational activities that were not available to previous generations of women (Auster 2008;Paule-Koba 2013). Auster (2008) found generational differences in women's likelihood to participate in the masculine and male-dominated sport of ice hockey, with younger generations of women that had access to organized team sports at young ages being more likely to participate in ice hockey than older women who lacked access to similar opportunities in their youth. Acknowledging this intersection of gender and cohort helps explain how past gendered expectations and norms have long-term impacts on entire generations, and how recreational behaviors evolve over time as people belonging to different birth cohorts are socialized under different and changing gendered expectations. ...
Article
This dissertation applies feminist theory to investigate women’s participation in wildlife-based recreation and how natural resource management organizations conduct stakeholder engagement in a North American context. Gendered social processes, including norms and expectations, as well as gendered cultures, can constrain women’s participation in recreation through social sanctions and disenfranchisement. Gender and leisure scholars have studied these dynamics in sport and leisure contexts, but how individuals negotiate these constraints is understudied in a wildlife-based recreation context. Social constructions of gender also contribute to imbalances of power within formal natural resource management organizations and influence how stakeholder engagement policies and programs are implemented and evaluated. I applied a mixed methods approach to study how women’s recreational fishing participation trends, and their first-hand fishing experiences, are impacted by gendered expectations among both recreational anglers and fisheries managers. Demographic analysis of women’s fishing participation patterns in the Great Lakes region show women’s fishing participation varies by age and generation. To confirm gender-related reasons for these differences, I conducted a feminist participatory project that provided space for women to share how their fishing experiences were impacted by gendered social processes, age, birth cohort, and other intersecting aspects of their lives and identities. Using the Becoming an Outdoors Woman program as a case study, I demonstrated how historically gendered assumptions about how men and women should interact with fisheries and wildlife can constrain stakeholder engagement programs that serve women by limiting organizations’ ability to evaluate program outcomes and social value. As a whole, this dissertation critically examines women’s experiences as fisheries stakeholders and questions the gendered approaches natural resource organization rely on to engage with women. Key contributions of this body of work include identifying how women and natural resource organizations both perpetuate and resist gendered expectations and norms. Understanding how gender influences North American natural resource management requires creative and more nuanced research approaches that consider how gender intersects with other socially institutionalized systems, processes, and identities.
... Research into the extent to which sport and physical activity has a positive impact on health has shown that involvement in regular physical activity enhances physical and mental health and well-being, including among women and girls (Auster, 2008;Brady, 2005;Clark and Paechter, 2007). Strong evidence supports the role regular exercise can play in controlling levels of fat, reducing the risk of lung and breast cancers. ...
... Some research using the concept of self-esteem suggests that girls and women who participate in sport and physical activity in both developed and developing countries demonstrate higher self-esteem as well as improved selfperception, self-worth, self-efficacy and so on (Constsntinou, Manson, and Silverman, 2009;Auster, 2008;Brady, 2005;Chalabaev, Sarrazin, Stone, and Cury, 2008). These improvements are associated with enhanced feelings of accomplishment, perceptions of improved physical appearance and commitment to exercise. ...
Article
Full-text available
The society expects males and females to adopt, believe in, and fulfill specific gender roles and stereotypes that have been established. Generally, males are expected to be strong, independent, and athletic, whereas females are expected to be quiet, obedient, attractive and nurturers. Society demands compliance to the enforced gender order. When these gender norms are violated, it is common for labels to be given, questions to be asked, and people to be ridiculed. Over the past few centuries, gender roles of men and women have started to change greatly in our society, and especially in the world of sports. Also, female athletes are beginning to establish themselves in the sports world. With the change in gender roles in our society, many female athletes have started to view themselves in a different manner. Even though women athletes have become more prominent in society, many wonder how these women feel about the evolution of gender roles, and how they have affected the perceptions of women athletes. In recent years, there has been a significant shift from advocating for ‘gender equity in sport’ towards using ‘sport for gender equity and personal development’. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n7p25
... The Women's U18 National Team and the women's ice hockey league also entered the network, with eigenvector measures indicating moderate influence levels (26.406 and 26.618, respectively). Auster (2008) argues that the Olympic Games can significantly impact women's participation in a sport because the Games provide a very rare opportunity for women's competitions to be televised on a major network. Similarly, hosting of the 2018 PyeongChang Games pressured South Korean ice hockey to improve the performance of the Women's National Team, which resulted in the establishment of the women's amateur hockey league. ...
Article
Sporting event stakeholders have recognized the potential of events to facilitate development of sport in host regions. Stakeholders must work together closely in order to expedite development of a particular sport. However, little is known about the networks that facilitate the growth of a sport, especially when development is accelerated by the hosting of a major sport event. This study aims to better understand the effect of hosting a major sport event on a sport’s development network and the subsequent advancement of a sport. We adopt a network theory to help frame our exploration of the sport development network with regard to the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games and South Korean ice hockey. The study delineates a sport development stakeholder network, explores the impact of a sport event on its structure, and identifies potential impacts on a sport’s development in the host country.
... Las responsabilidades familiares pueden ser un elemento que dificulten las prácticas deportivas de padres y madres, sin embargo, también suponen una estructura de oportunidad para realizar deporte junto a hijos o mayores (Pérez-Flores y Muñoz-Sánchez, 2017). La familia también es un importante recurso a considerar tanto para la realización de prácticas deportivas, como en la socialización deportiva de los más jóvenes mediante la transmisión de hábitos deportivos y el estímulo de actividades deportivas (Auster, 2008;Klein, 2009). ...
Chapter
Full-text available
El desarrollo teórico de los conceptos del capital social y deporte ha sido muy extenso, puesto que ambos conceptos se han aplicado con diferentes matices teóricos y analíticos sobre diferentes situaciones sociales de análisis, siendo utilizados por la mayor parte de las disciplinas que conforman las ciencias sociales en su desarrollo académico. Es más, se podría decir que se realizan tantas clasificaciones sobre el capital social y el deporte como definiciones se han aportado sobre los mismos conceptos. En este sentido, para plasmar la revisión del estado de la cuestión correspondiente al análisis del capital social y el deporte en las ciencias sociales, hemos utilizado una visión amplia del objeto teórico de estudio, con la intención de ofrecer una perspectiva lo más congruente posible en relación al desarrollo académico de la conjunción teórica del capital social y el deporte en las ciencias sociales.
... representing an important socio-cultural frame of reference. Auster (2008), reveals that 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 F o r P e e r R e v i e w O n l y family members enable individuals to recognise options that fall outside of traditional gender expectations and socio-cultural sporting norms, as viable leisure pursuits. The family schema is a principal reference for perceiving and interpreting life, especially leisure, otherwise defined as habitus ( Bourdieu, 1989Bourdieu, , 2011). ...
Article
Storytelling is a significant vehicle for the transferral of knowledge, perpetuation of collective memories and construction of meaning. Stories and cultural storytellers are attracting dedicated research attention across a number of disciplines, including cognitive science. Yet few examine family storytellers, an avenue of arguable equal import. Nor, their role in perpetuating and regulating the system of shared values that underpin the family structure. Indeed, family sporting narratives are largely absent. Thus, through narrative inquiry, we examine the significance of storytelling practices and sporting stories, to one family which spans four generations and three continents. The findings, which centre on the five themes of narrative resources, identity construction, socialisation, traditions and transcendence, clarify the influence of family storytelling processes on value governance and collective identity construction. They emphasise the significance of individual cricket stories in constructing their own identities. These stories provided an important collective resource that was a source of social capital, enhancing the family’´s narrative equity.
... Playing the role of a wife and a mother place a higher priority on assuring that her family, rather than she enjoys leisure time sports activities. Many women felt that compelling ethics of care for others are important constraints to women's leisure in sports (Auster, 2008;Henderson, 1991). For example, some Malaysian women were reluctant to take up sports because they feel guilty for not staying at home with their husbands besides other factors like culture, religion, and society's perception (Dato' Azalina Dato' Othman Said, the former Sport Minister of Malaysia, quoted in The Star, 2006, April 26). ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The sport world remains a highly segregated one, in which particularly men and women are concerned. Women had shown interest and participated in sports throughout the century. They have organized their own competition based on physical skill. Later, sport in the western countries became institutionalized with industrialization where sport activities were formalized, the existence of sports clubs for women were developed, and physical education programs were offered to college girls. The objectives for these efforts were to maintain the health of women, and to disprove beliefs about female frailty. Somehow, with these developments, women were always disregarded as having equal treatment as men. Since the implementation of Title IX, more American women are playing sports and exceeding previous expectations of women's athletic possibilities. Under Article 8 of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, it lays down the principle of equality for all. Therefore, women should be treated equal as well as in sports arena. In the United Kingdom, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA) prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender. Objectives of this paper are to discuss issues relating to discrimination to participation of women in sports, sexual harassment, pregnancy and maternity rights, the causes, and the theories behind it. Issues relating to law and equality will also be mentioned. The authors will also look at the provisions of laws with regard to this and some recommendations to solve this matter.
... 576). In this sense, gender has affected the activities people pursue, how they modify their participation based on expectations, and constraints to participation (Auster, 2008;Jackson et al., 1993;Johnson et al., 2001;Little, 2002;Wood & Danylchuck, 2012). ...
Article
The effects of gender on involvement in high-risk recreation have received limited research attention despite mounting evidence suggesting the learned interactions between people and places likely vary for men and women. The purpose of this study was to provide insights into how gender influenced the motivation-involvement relationship among whitewater recreationists on a Wild and Scenic River in California. Our results revealed the motivations of Risk, Escape, Learning, and Achievement/Stimulation positively influenced involvement in rafting activities. Although gender did not influence all dimensions of involvement, we found that identity expression varied between subgroups. Specifically, men were more likely to ascribe meaning to rafting than women because this activity allowed them to affirm and express their individual character. The implications emanating from this study advance theoretical understanding of the factors that influence enduring involvement and inform natural resource management decisions about maintaining the desired benefits of activities sought by nature-based recreationists.
Article
Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork, this article explores amateur rugby women’s reflexive negotiation of the bruises they earn as a result of the physicality of the game. On one hand, participants take pride in body marks that confirm their athletic strength and rugby identity and which grants them respect and belonging. On the other hand, these body marks can be anchors of stigma, signalling women’s rugby bodies as ‘deviant’ to non-initiated audiences. The article unpacks this tension between bruises as empowering or disempowering artefacts by demonstrating the situational and interactional nature of gendered dispositions and expectations. I show that the moral and symbolic order of entrenched gendered expectations is perpetuated in the flesh, but that it must be understood as being produced and reproduced in situ through intercorporeal processes. Through the analysis of bruises, I argue that to study bodies is to study (social) space.
Chapter
This chapter looks at narratives of beginnings as participants articulate their current identity as players retrospectively and meaningfully. I take a situational approach to understanding participation, one that looks at how representations and structures shape practice, account not only for existing dispositions but also for social networks and encounters. Through looking at the narratives of my participants, I explore the obstacles and affordances that have shaped their understanding of what they can or cannot do, and how they have come to start rugby. What conditions and circumstances lead them to put on trainers and step on the pitch for the first time? I develop the concept of horizons of possibility to understand participation—what we can “see ourselves do”, what we imagine is possible for ourselves.
Article
Full-text available
Research about women and leisure has grown consistently over the past 30 years. This paper extends four previous integrative reviews about research content regarding women's leisure. Research articles appearing from 2006-2010 in selected major English language research journals were analyzed through an integrative review to ascertain patterns and themes. Analyses indicate a continued use of qualitative approaches. New and recurring patterns in the content of the research emerged. Seven themes related to women, gender, and leisure: resistance and empowerment through leisure, feminist frameworks, international cultural descriptions, social support and friendships, family, physical and mental health, and social inclusion. Intersectionality is discussed as a promising paradigm for the future study of women, gender, and leisure.
Article
The growing body of contemporary professional recreation literature about gender/women and recreation/leisure raises questions about how girls/women and their involvement in recreation were viewed historically. The purpose of this feminist analysis was to describe the ways that women were portrayed in selected recreation literature from 1907–1990. A content analysis was applied with the resulting emergence of themes that described girls and women's social roles in relation to recreation activities, programs, and services during particular historical periods. The conclusion was that authors of the literature have reflected the social roles of females. The social roles were depicted in seven eras that described the roles of women in relation to recreation activities, programs and services: Females Become Visible Era, Play for All Era, Social Control Era, Supportive Female Era, Silence Era, Women as Professionals Era, and Feminist Era.
Article
The purpose of this paper is to provide a feminist analysis of the literature concerning leisure constraints. The assumptions of the paper are that a “leisure gap” exists in many women's lives and that by applying feminist perspectives, constraints to women's leisure, as well as constraints to leisure in general, can be better understood. Feminist frameworks which focus on redefining the value of women's lives and making women more visible in society are used to analyze the literature on constraints as it has implications for women's lives. The primary purpose of this paper is to describe how feminism can function as a critique, a corrective mechanism, and a means for transforming our understanding of research on constraints, and specifically, constraints on women's leisure. The paper is addressed to leisure researchers who want to understand how feminism can contribute to a more inclusive understanding of constraints, as well as to feminist researchers who may want to explore how leisure constraints relate to the contexts of women's lives.
Article
This paper examines three assumptions in previous leisure constraints research: (1) that only two meaningful groups of non-participants exist (those who do not wish to participate, and those who do wish to participate, but for whom a constraint or combination of constaints precludes participation); (2) that lack of interest is the only factor which explains the lack of desire among the former group; and (3) that the only role played by constraints on leisure is negatively to affect participation, by intervening between preferences and participation. Using data from a public questionnaire study conducted in Alberta, Canada, the focus of the paper is on a group of non-participants who apparently did not wish to begin participating in a new activity. Based on innovative concepts recently proposed by Crawford and Godbey (1987) and by Henderson, Stalnaker & Taylor (1988), the findings are interpreted as evidence of “antecedent” barriers to participation, i.e., constraints which negatively affect leisure preferences rather than participation. The results suggest the need to broaden the range of concepts and variables investigated in constraints research, and imply that recreation and leisure practitioners must re-evaluate the notion of “disadvantaged” with regard to access to leisure services.
Article
This paper examines three approaches to the analysis of women's leisure, and discusses ways in which the ideas and concepts from these different approaches can be integrated. The first and dominant approach to understanding women's leisure is analysis of how leisure is constrained. From this perspective leisure is conceptualized as a desirable experience, and constraints to leisure participation are seen to arise out of structured gender relations. The second approach focuses on how leisure activities themselves, especially stereotypical activities, can be constraining through the reinforcement of traditional gender relations. A third, emerging approach examines ways in which women's leisure can be seen to have the potential for resistance to societally imposed constraints. Some guiding principles are suggested for the integration of these three approaches into a broader conceptual framework. Such a framework allows for both the diversity of women's experiences, and the contradictions inherent in women's leisure, to be taken into account.