Becoming-activist: a teacher's journey of engaging with the activist approach in school-based physical education

There has been a plethora of research within physical education that outlines the multiple barriers that young women and girls face to participation (see Flintoff & Scraton, 2006). Importantly, young women and girls are often constructed as the ‘problem’ within physical education settings by being labelled as ‘disengaged’ (Vertinsky, 1992). Yet, this dominant narrative has not held up to scrutiny because of the structural factors including content (Stride & Flintoff, 2018), uniforms and clothing (Fitzpatrick & Enright, 2016), gendered stereotypes (Oliver, 2001), curriculum (Oliver & Kirk, 2015), amongst many others, that work to limit girls’ engagement. Rather than just critiquing physical education, more recently researchers have shifted their focus in order to explore how we can transform physical education to be more equitable toward young women and girls. This paper continues in this line of scholarship.