ABSTRACT
In 2016, Sport England and UK Sport jointly published a new code for sports governance. This included an aim to improve gender balance on the Boards of English national sport federations. This chapter draws on Bourdieu’s conceptualisations of field, capital and habitus to analyse trends in the gender balance of English sport leadership, and strategies used to improve this. Our findings demonstrate a continued underrepresentation of women across leadership positions in English sport. Ongoing challenges include differential access to capital for women and men, the sustainability of government-initiated targets, and problematic organisational cultures reproducing gendered hierarchies of dominance.
