ABSTRACT

The Female Tradition in Physical Education re-examines a key question in the history of modern education: why did the remarkably successful leaders of female physical education, who pioneered the development of the subject in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, lose control in the years following the Second World War? Despite the later resurgence of second wave feminism they never regained a voice, with the result that male leadership was able to shift the curriculum in ways that neglected the needs and interests of girls and young women.

Drawing on new sources and a range of historiographical approaches, and touching on related fields such as therapeutic exercise and dance, the book examines the development of physical education for girls in a number of countries to offer an alternative explanation to the dominant narrative of the ‘demise’ of the female tradition.

Providing an important contextualization for the state of contemporary female physical education, this is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the development of sport and physical education, women’s and gender history, and physical culture more generally.

chapter 1|20 pages

Re-examining Women First

Rewriting the history of the ‘end of an era'

chapter 2|22 pages

The displacement of Ling for Laban

A growing alliance of dance with the arts

chapter 3|19 pages

Dancing in new directions

Transatlantic connections

chapter 4|13 pages

Under the critical eye

An insider's experience of the female tradition

chapter 5|21 pages

Behind and beyond Women First

Hidden histories and silences in the female tradition

chapter 6|9 pages

Moving to the ‘midway model'

The longer-term development of dance education

chapter 7|17 pages

‘Masculinisation’, ‘sportification’ and ‘academicisation’ in the men's colleges

A case study of the Carnegie curriculum

chapter 8|19 pages

Transformation or accommodation?

The entry of women students into Carnegie

chapter 9|12 pages

Refuge

The female tradition, gender, class, sex and sport in northern England, 1960s–1970s

chapter 11|15 pages

The rediscovery of a female tradition in the physical activity field

The case of therapeutic exercise

chapter 12|20 pages

Women First revisited

Recent historical research and perspectives on US physical education

chapter 13|14 pages

Troubling the progress and loss narratives

Insiders and outsiders, silences and omissions, signs and route-markers