WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS
Sport: Why isn’t it a girl thing? BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS TO PARTICIPATION IS KEY FOR GIRLS’ DEVELOPMENT
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obody, however sport-averse, could have missed hearing about the dazzling achievements of the Lionesses – the England women’s
Once upon a time, most schools had a clear distinction between who played what. Very often, it was rounders and netball for the girls and football and cricket for the boys. Today’s parents probably didn’t give it a second thought when they were children – it was the natural order of things and that was that. Unfortunately, things haven’t changed as much as they should over the years. The huge success of the Lionesses seems to be in spite, rather than because, of the
way sport is structured – girls just aren’t getting the same access to popular sport as boys. Of course, entrenched attitudes about what girls can and should do don’t just hold them back in sport. Take gender divisions in subject choices. Despite years of campaigning, girls are still way behind boys when it comes to studying maths, physics and computing at A-level, even though they achieve more top grades when they do. However, with sport, perceptions about what girls should and shouldn’t be doing seem to be further handicapped by the fact that they’re just not getting equal access to the same team games as boys. While primary schools are on the case, with over seven in ten offering some football coaching to girls, according How do you capitalise on the sky-high interest levels?
football team – who won Euro 22 this summer. A rare bit of good news for one of our national teams. The question that many sports leaders have been asking since is: how do you capitalise on the sky-high interest levels it has generated, and increase levels of participation in sport among girls?
60 AUTUMN/WINTER 2022
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