A Mixed-Method Exploration of the Perceived Impact of Gender on Men’s and Women’s Experiences of Playing Gaelic Games

Gender inequalities continue to shape athletes’ experiences within amateur sport, yet limited research has examined these disparities in the dual-career context of Gaelic games. This study explored gendered differences in the academic and athletic lives of elite Gaelic games student-athletes at third-level education in Ireland. Four focus groups (N = 14; 7 men, 7 women) were conducted to investigate support structures and access to resources across academic and sporting domains. Reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) identified three interrelated themes: unequal access to training facilities and resources, competing academic and athletic priorities, and financial inequities in support. Findings reveal that the amateur status of Gaelic games operates unevenly across gender lines, creating systemic barriers that place greater financial, temporal, and psychological burdens on women athletes. This study extends existing dual-career research by introducing the concept of gendered amateurism, demonstrating how structural and cultural norms reproduce inequality within an ostensibly shared amateur framework.

The journey through youth sport is often associated with changing motivations and increasing emphasis on competition. Using rapid, semi-structured interviews with 140 participants (players, parents and coaches from under-13, under-15 and under-18), we sought to better understand the youth sport experience in Gaelic games following the journey from modified games to competitive programmes, through the intended-enacted-experienced, and hidden curriculum framework. Two themes were developed following a reflexive thematic analysis, ‘it's the perceived seriousness’ and ‘it means a lot to us’. Findings suggest that the administration of games, the intended curriculum, was a source of frustration. We suggest that games programmes require attention and articulation by governing bodies to provide meaningful games for players. However, the greatest impact on experienced curriculum seemed to be interactions between players and coaches, the enacted curriculum, highlighting the need to support coaches in meeting participant needs. Furthermore, community was at the heart of the experience, perhaps explained by the cultural importance of Gaelic games. This led to acceptance of certain coaching practices, detrimental to the individual, as being necessary for the betterment of the team, an indication of the hidden curriculum.

This study explores the experiences of elite Gaelic games student-athletes (EGSAs) in managing dual careers while pursuing third-level education in Ireland. Using a reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) approach, data were generated through four semi-structured focus group discussions (N = 14) with current senior inter-county athletes (7 male, 7 female) enrolled in full-time third level education across multiple sporting codes and academic disciplines. Two overarching themes were identified: (1) well-being and the dual-career experience, and (2) athletic identity and its impact on academic life and social perception. Participants described significant challenges in balancing academic responsibilities with the demands of elite level sport, including financial strain, travel fatigue, social isolation, and institutional inflexibility. A dominant athletic identity, reinforced by peers, coaches, and institutional cultures frequently overshadowed academic engagement, leading to perceptions of academic disadvantage and uncertainty regarding future career transitions. This study offers new insights into the dual-career realities of amateur elite athletes within a culturally embedded, non-professional sport context. It contributes to the limited empirical literature on Gaelic Games and dual-career management and puts forward actionable recommendations, including dedicated dual-career liaisons, structured recovery periods, peer support networks, and targeted financial aid for universities, sporting bodies, and policymakers aiming to build athlete-centred systems of support.

Background: Reflexive thematic analysis is widely used in qualitative research published in Palliative Medicine, and in the broader field of health research. However, this approach is often not used well. Common problems in published reflexive thematic analysis in general include assuming thematic analysis is a singular approach, rather than a family of methods, confusing themes and topics, and treating and reporting reflexive thematic analysis as if it is atheoretical. Purpose: We reviewed 20 papers published in Palliative Medicine between 2014 and 2022 that cited Braun and Clarke, identified using the search term ‘thematic analysis’ and the default ‘relevance’ setting on the journal webpage. The aim of the review was to identify common problems and instances of good practice. Problems centred around a lack of methodological coherence, and a lack of reflexive openness, clarity and detail in reporting. We considered contributors to these common problems, including the use of reporting checklists that are not coherent with the values of reflexive thematic analysis. To support qualitative researchers in producing coherent and reflexively open reports of reflexive thematic analysis we have developed the Reflexive Thematic Analysis Reporting Guidelines (the RTARG; in Supplemental Materials) informed by this review, other reviews we have done and our values and experience as qualitative researchers. The RTARG is also intended for use by peer reviewers to encourage methodologically coherent reviewing. Key learning points: Methodological incoherence and a lack of transparency are common problems in reflexive thematic analysis research published in Palliative Medicine. Coherence can be facilitated by researchers and reviewers striving to be knowing – thoughtful, deliberative, reflexive and theoretically aware – practitioners and appraisers of reflexive thematic analysis and developing an understanding of the diversity within the thematic analysis family of methods.

Body-related shame – operationalised as feeling inadequate about one’s appearance, fitness, function, and bodily behaviours – is an emotional experience with particular relevance to athletes given the evaluative, social, and achievement-oriented nature of sport. To date, in-depth explorations of athletes’ body-related shame have been scarce and have had a restricted focus on the domain of bodily appearance. Exploring body-related shame is particularly important for women, given consistent evidence for the gendered experience of shame contextualised to the body. As such, the present study explored the phenomenological experiences of body-related shame in women athletes. Sixteen purposefully sampled women athletes aged 18–26 with a history of body preoccupation were recruited to participate in two semi-structured interviews separated by a week-long reflective journaling exercise. Participants shared experiences of body-related shame related to appearance, health behaviours, training, and performance in the sport context. Using reflexive thematic analysis, researchers identified five themes that highlighted women athletes’ experiences of body-related shame. Themes included (a) striving to be a worthy athlete; (b) conflicting body ideals and changing roles in sport; (c) the objectified sport body; (d) anti-fatness as the bedrock of sport; (e) shame resistance and athletic invincibility. Results from this study highlight the unique factors that contribute to body-related shame among women athletes from a variety of sport backgrounds and provide preliminary insight to inform the measurement of body-related shame and potential individual and systems-level interventions to improve the emotional well-being of women athletes.

Underpinned by critical feminist psychology and in response to repeated calls to explore how the dynamics of gender inform coaching practices, this study aimed to explore the experiences of men and women coaches to better understand the role of gendered expectations in elite sports environments and how these are reproduced within a Western European country’s elite sport system. Data were collected over 18 months via fieldwork observations and semi-structured interviews with 10 elite coaches, from five Olympic and professional sports. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Using the concept of hegemony as a theoretical lens to interpret the data, macro (i.e., wider socio-cultural norms), meso (i.e., organizational practices), and micro (i.e., coaches experiences working with women athletes) levels were identified. The findings demonstrate that each level plays a role in actively producing and reproducing the broader power relations between genders within and beyond the sporting environment. ‘Moments of intervention’ are offered to coaches and sports personnel to create more inclusive environments to provide optimal support for women athletes. Lay summary: Over an 18-month period of observations and interviews, this research explores elite coaches’ perceptions of working with world-class women athletes across a range of sports. Underpinned by critical feminist psychology, the importance of using a holistic approach to understand how multi-level factors impact the support elite women athletes receive was identified. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE The findings demonstrate the need to encourage people working in elite sports to reflect on their underlying gender biases. Coaches should be cautious of stereotyping elite women athletes, with an aim instead to understand individuals against the backdrop of a gendered world. Gender should be seen as a complex set of social relations that requires open and frequent dialogue to assess and challenge the narrative of how women athletes are viewed, spoken about, and treated within the elite sports environment.

A transparent analytical process contributes to the methodological rigor of reflexive thematic analysis. To enhance such transparency in reflexive thematic analysis, novice researchers need to document and present the analytical processes of theme development. In this article, we showcase how qualitative comparative analysis can be integrated into reflexive thematic analysis as a strategy for novice researchers. We demonstrate how novice researchers can develop codes and categories, use qualitative comparative analysis to facilitate the exploration of the complex causal relationships between categories, and construct candidate themes based on these analyses. We then show how novice researchers can continue developing these themes by creating relationships between codes and categories on the basis of qualitative data and existing literature. Such integration of methods not only facilitates theme development, but also assists researchers in justifying the decisions made in a reflexive thematic analysis process. The analytical procedures presented in this article may thus help novice researchers engaged in reflexive thematic analysis to enhance the transparency of their analytical process.

Few game-based digital mental health interventions have been adopted in clinical practice, where mental health professionals (MHPs) play a critical role in the uptake of new technologies. Existing evidence suggests that MHPs' views on game-based interventions and entertainment video games are mixed, reflecting broader tensions surrounding video games, which are perceived as both harmful and beneficial. However, the underlying reasons for these perceptions have remained unclear, even though they may substantially influence MHPs' willingness to adopt or refuse new clinical solutions. This qualitative cross-sectional study investigates how MHPs view entertainment video games and gaming in clinical contexts. By examining these perceptions, the study aims to inform the implementation of game-based digital mental health interventions in health care. This study combined 3 qualitative interview datasets (n=19, n=16, and n=6) capturing Finnish MHPs' views on video games and gaming, resulting in a combined sample of 41 participants, of whom 56% (n=23) were women and 59% (n=24) reported playing games. The interview data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Additionally, 2 post hoc analyses were conducted with complementary qualitative questionnaire data (n=80) collected alongside the first dataset. In total, 3 themes were generated to reflect the MHPs' views. First, personal recreation, clinically harmful: MHPs demonstrated a self-client attitude asymmetry, describing their own gaming primarily as positive and recreational, while associating clients' gaming with problems. Second, adverse technology and meaningful culture: MHPs expressed attitudinal ambivalence, making sense of gaming through conflicting frames as both potentially harmful technology and meaningful culture. Third, holistic exploration of clients' gaming: MHPs evaluated their clients' gaming within the broader context of the clients' lives. The first post hoc analysis reinforced the observed self-client attitude asymmetry, showing that MHPs associated their own gaming experiences with more positive and fewer negative meanings compared to their clients' gaming. The second post hoc analysis suggested that MHPs expected game-based interventions to be approachable, motivating, and complementary to other treatments, and particularly suited for children and youth, people with strong digital competencies, and clients who were withdrawn. Existing qualitative research on MHPs' perceptions of video games remains limited and has not examined clinicians' broader sense-making of gaming to inform the implementation of game-based interventions. This study identifies how clinician education can build on MHPs' existing perceptions while addressing potential misconceptions by clearly differentiating game-based interventions from entertainment games, clarifying their clinical aims and mechanisms of action, situating them within clients' broader care and recovery processes, and challenging narrow assumptions about their target audience. Together, these contributions address a critical gap in the literature and inform strategies to improve clinician education, communication, and the adoption of game-based interventions in mental health care.

BackgroundRecent advances in digital health technology offer the potential to overcome established access barriers to mental health support, such as stigma and geographical location. The World Health Organization recommends integrating digital technologies into mental health care, underscoring the need for countries to develop national digital mental health (DMH) strategies to guide efforts. The rate of development and availability of DMH tools currently outpaces the existing policy or regulatory guidance required to guide their use. In Ireland, a key requirement of the national mental health strategy, Sharing the Vision, was the development of a national DMH strategy. Key stakeholders in DMH research, policy, practice, and lived experience were brought together as part of a focused stakeholder engagement event to develop a shared vision for digital mental health in Ireland.ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the views of DMH stakeholders to set priorities for the development of a national DMH strategy.MethodsForty-seven stakeholders were each assigned to 1 of 6 focused strategy discussion groups. Invited stakeholders included experts in DMH research, clinical practice, and mental health advocacy and policy, together with those with lived experience of accessing mental health services. Qualitative data were analyzed using a reflexive thematic analysis approach. Researchers followed the 6-step framework proposed by Braun and Clarke. Reflexive thematic analysis emphasizes intentionality and critical thought, highlighting researchers’ deliberate interpretation of data while being aware of how their perspectives shape the conclusions.ResultsA total of 5 major themes were identified: inclusive access, being user-led, trust, education and training, and connectedness. These major themes were related to 15 subthemes. The inclusive access theme comprised inclusivity, accessibility, and early intervention subthemes. The user-led theme encompassed coproduction, choice, and needs-led subthemes. Compelling narrative; regulation, policy, and governance; and evidence base subthemes were identified within the theme of trust. The subthemes of digital literacy, mental health literacy, and transformation were identified within the education and training theme. Finally, the connectedness theme incorporated the subthemes of integration, relationships, and stigma.ConclusionsOverall, delegates viewed digital technology as a potential enabler of accessible and inclusive mental health support. However, it was also seen as a potential barrier to access and inclusion if concerns regarding data privacy, education and training needs, regulation, and the need for a more a robust evidence base were not addressed. Coproduction at all stages was identified as key to reducing access barriers, enhancing inclusion, and maintaining trust. Themes identified informed a follow-on consensus-seeking process to further refine and prioritize the proposed actions of the first national DMH strategy.

With the momentum of the TOKYO Olympics, there has been an increase in corporate, media, and business interest in women athletes and sports events. Using reflexive thematic analysis (RTA), we examine the visual and verbal content of Instagram posts from 47 Olympic athletes to understand how women construct their self-brand within the framework of postfeminist agendas and Türkiye’s socio-political environment. Drawing from analysis, we conceptualise “Strong Turkish Women” to illustrate how athletes embody multiple identities, blending athleticism with cultural and historical memory, demonstrating strong physical and mental resilience, while respecting religious sensitivities, and serving as role models for women and girls. The knowledge emerging from this study reveals a form of branding that has developed in Türkiye, where women athletes negotiate both post-feminist empowerment narratives focused on individual achievement and local cultural norms as agents of collective resistance to women’s rights. This comprehension may elucidate the self-branding literature of women athletes from both secular and religious national perspectives.

In 2019, the Government of Canada announced their goal of achieving gender equity in sport by 2035; and since then, numerous organizations have worked to create sport programming to increase the participation and retention of girls and women. It is currently unknown how these programs serve the needs of girls and women with disabilities who may experience sport differently due to their intersecting identities. This study explored the experiences of a national gender equity program within the disability sport context from the perspective of sport leaders and program facilitators. We recruited three Para sport or integrated sport programs from across Canada. Four sport leaders and two program facilitators voluntarily participated. Sport leaders completed three online journals over the course of the program to document “in-the-moment” reflections, and following completion, sport leaders and program facilitators engaged in individual interviews. We analyzed our data using a reflexive thematic analysis and found that participants enhanced their understanding of gender equity in the disability sport setting as a result of engaging in the program, identified diverse challenges that girls and women athletes with disabilities experienced that prevented or hindered the quality of their sport participation, and implemented tailored strategies to promote the recruitment and retention of this population in sport. This study provides a first step into showcasing how gender equity programs can promote intersectional understanding and awareness to sport leaders who can ultimately provide a safer and more inclusive sport environment for girls and women athletes with disabilities.

Queer people may experience barriers to accessing safe and affirming perinatal care. Representative doula support may mitigate barriers to accessing care and improve outcomes. The objectives of this qualitative study were to understand priorities for key queer community stakeholders to address the needs of queer patients/families and to identify potential roles for doula support in improving care. Recruitment for this community-university partnership study was conducted using purposeful and snowball sampling. Interviews with key stakeholders in the field of perinatal health were conducted in summer and fall 2022. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. A total of 12 participants participated in an interview. Key themes include the challenges accessing and navigating affirming care, steps forward for improving perinatal experiences and the role of doulas. Findings suggest gaps in care persist for Queer patients/families, and appropriately trained and representative doula support may interrupt heteronormative bias in perinatal care to improve experiences and outcomes.

As part of project on children’s sporting identities, this paper explores the significance of Gaelic games in the lives of children in Ireland. The study is framed by Putnam’s work on social capital, with aspects of bonding and bridging social capital used to explain the local identities manifested by children through Gaelic games. Data was collected via twenty-one focus groups with 147 schoolchildren in the Republic of Ireland. Reflexive thematic analysis resulted in the construction of three themes, described as (1) people, (2) the club, and (3) the sidelines. The findings describe the social significance of Gaelic games for children in Ireland, particularly in terms of their relationships with family, friends and neighbours and local places and spaces, with physical facilities important for children who are moving to an age where they begin to ‘hang out’ independently of their parents. While the children quoted in this cohort exhibited a strong sense of community and solidarity, it is possible that the exclusivity that comes with this could be a threat for Gaelic games. Implications for integration are discussed given the impending move towards future amalgamation of the Gaelic games governing bodies.

Enjoyment of sport is an important factor in preventing dropout or drop off. Using a cross-sectional design, and a sample of 4,594 Gaelic games players (aged 13 to 20), the present study was a secondary analysis, examining which factors (if any) were significantly related to self-reported past-year experience in sport. Results show that when comparing those reporting their experience as very poor/poor, fair, or good against those reporting it as very good, the three variables that were consistent in their statistical significance were, age (being younger associated with a better experience), mean scores on a coaching autonomy measure (higher associated with a better experience), and self-reported playing time (higher associated with a better experience). There were nuanced results depending on the nature of the comparisons. At the most extreme comparison (‘very poor or poor’ versus ‘very good’), the former were significantly more likely to report playing other sports, and reported a lower likelihood of continuing to play Gaelic games. Results in the comparison of ‘fair’ and ‘very good’ were slightly different. Here, rather than playing other sports being statistically significant, there was a lower likelihood of playing in multiple contexts (or viewed conversely, a higher likelihood of playing Club only). Finally, when comparing those reporting their experience as ‘good’ versus ‘very good’, the former were significantly more likely to be male. The standout finding of this study (regression coefficients) is that coach autonomy score is significantly related to past year experience of Gaelic games, adjusting for a range of other relevant variables.

Reflexive thematic analysis (reflexive TA) originated within psychology and the social sciences and has become an increasingly popular qualitative analytic method across a range of disciplines. In this article, we offer a brief methodological guide for researchers hoping to use the method, suitable for beginners through to those experienced in qualitative research. Reflexive TA can be used to analyze data generated via a range of methods. Reflexive TA is highly flexible, and we outline the choices that researchers need to address when conducting their research. These choices relate to the theoretical approach (realist through to relativist/experiential to critical), their orientation to analyzing the data (inductive to deductive), and the depth in which they analyze their dataset (semantic to latent). We offer an accessible but comprehensive discussion of the six phases of reflexive thematic analysis and how best to produce a rigorous analysis. Starting with familiarization of the dataset as a foundation for analysis, data are then coded, before using these codes to generate initial themes. These early themes are then reviewed and developed, before the researcher moves to defining and naming them. The final phase of analysis is the writing up of the research, at which point final changes may still be made to the results. Written from the basis of our experience of using, teaching, and training reflexive thematic analysis within psychology and the social sciences, we see it as useful for those working across a range of disciplines.