Fastest on the Playground: Four Generations of Female Sport Experience

Authors

Jessica B. Kirby, University of Colorado, Colorado SpringsFollow

Abstract

The life sport experiences of four generations of females were explored through narrative family research and presented through research poetry. Their stories powerfully represent the transformation of sport and exercise culture across seven decades of overlapping life experiences and demonstrate the generational transmission of value for, expectation of, and experiences with sport. A poem representing each girl/woman’s story was crafted by the author, through the process of poetic transcription, and is presented alongside a photo illustrating each individual’s experiences. The generational experiences and implications of the findings are discussed within the broader sport psychology and sport sociology literature.

Keywords

sport socialization, women, girls, poetry, narrative

Author Bio(s)

Jessica Kirby is an assistant professor in the Health Sciences department, and the assistant director of the Center for Critical Sport Studies, at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Her research explores experiences with, and access to, sport and physical activity across the life course. Please direct correspondence to jkirby@uccs.edu.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Maria Lahman for her mentorship in the processes of research poetry.

Publication Date

8-13-2021

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4822

Recommended APA Citation

Kirby, J. B. (2021). Fastest on the Playground: Four Generations of Female Sport Experience. The Qualitative Report, 26(8), 2558-2576. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4822

ORCID ID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0063-6546