Multiple Voices in Health, Sport, Recreation, and Physical Education Research: Revealing Unfamiliar Spaces in a Polyvocal Review of Qualitative Research Genres

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to outline the potential genres of qualitative research that can be used to research the domains of health, sport, recreation, and physical education. Drawing on Denzin and Lincoln (2000) and Sparkes (2002a), and connecting to the work of six researchers, this article will present five genres of qualitative research that are increasingly informing our understandings in the social sciences and starting to influence research in health, sport, recreation, and physical education. The five genres considered in this article are confessional tales, autoethnography, poetic representations, ethnodrama, and fictional representations. These genres will be presented in contrast to the more dominant scientific and realist accounts of research. Drawing on selected exemplars from health, sport, and physical education, this article will present a synthesis of how each genre can be understood, developed, judged, and used within what has been described as a polyvocal research community (Sparkes 1991).