Fictional girls who play to play: pushing on narratives of competition in young adult sports literature

Abstract

ABSTRACT Traditional narratives of sport posit winning as the defining goal in ways that can feel and be exclusionary to young people and result in a lack of enjoyment and subsequent decision to avoid or discontinue involvement in sport. This is particularly true for girls and young women who participate in sport at lower rates and quit at higher rates than boys and young men. Shifting the focus of sport away from winning can open space for a wider range of girls and young women to see themselves as athletes. Scholars have highlighted how story in the form of counter-narratives can play a role in changing readers’ perspectives. However, no attention has been paid to fictional representations of athletes engaging in non-competitive sport and how these depictions might invite girls and young women to imagine themselves differently in sporting spaces. This paper employs thematic inductive analysis to examine three, girl-centric young adult sports novels that work as counter-narratives to examine what happens when winning is not the central goal of participation in sport. Specifically, it explores what fictional young women athletes gain through their participation in non-competitive sport and what young adult readers might gain in their engagement with these titles. Findings reveal how participation in non-competitive sport gives the fictional athletes a sense of full personhood, confidence and pride in what their bodies can do, and connection with something larger than themselves. These titles can show readers that their engagement in sport is desirable, that non-competitive sport is beneficial to them, and that their engagement in sport is possible, that non-competitive sport is for them. The paper suggests that stories of non-competitive sport have the potential to open equitable access by inviting more young people, particularly those who have not seen themselves in stories of sport, to engage as athletes.