Leveling the Playing Field: Curriculum Studies and Fast Pitch Softball

Women in sport challenge our cultural assumptions about gender and sexuality. Athletics has been viewed as a male domain, with its emphasis on strength, agility, competition, intellect, and aggression. To play sports, women are pressured to maintain and emphasize their femininity without appearing overly aggressive or possessing masculine traits associated with sport, particularly in the team sport of softball. This research examines the expectations a patriarchal society places on young women who play sports competitively and how such expectations with regards to femininity in both behavior and appearance influence a young female athlete's identity formation. Through the lenses of gender studies and cultural studies, the lived experiences of a female high school athlete are described. This study traces the challenges and successes women have experienced trying to gain entry into the institutionalized world of sport since the Industrial Revolution. It also explores acts of both resistance and conformity with regards to social constructions of gender on a high school softball team.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies (Ed.D.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Roberts, Melinda M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• John Weaver
• Dan Chapman
• Dan Czech

• ETD
• Gender
• Masculinity
• Femininity
• Athletics
• Patriarchy
• Education
• Curriculum
• Sports for women
• Women athletes
• Softball
• Equality

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/575

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1575