‘It’s a bit tough when you’re just trying to have fun’: gendered practices of school sport surfing in France and California

Abstract

ABSTRACT The provision of sports opportunities for youths in schools has expanded beyond traditional competitive offerings, with activities such as skateboarding and surfing now considered important avenues for youth development. This trend follows the recent expansion of action or ‘lifestyle’ sports provision into various community and educational contexts. This paper concomitantly explores how surfing, in particular, is now being formally utilised by schools as a viable sporting opportunity for both boys and girls. Research is lacking in terms of understanding how activities such as surfing may promote specific gender relations. This line of research is critical given that surfing in its unstructured format typically privileges masculine ideals and codes of practice, with women being considered secondary participants. In this paper, then, we highlight data findings about gender relations based on a study of boys’ and girls’ surfing programmes located in coastal regions of California and France. Through our interrogation of semi-structured interview and field observation data, we illustrate how school-based programmes that incorporate surfing served to reproduce gendered hierarchies and power relationships during training sessions and competitions.