Much writing on gender and sport is focused upon the negative impact of girls' exclusion from the arena, suggesting by inference that current practice in sport and physical education offers an uncomplicatedly positive sport experience for boys, and that gender, in and of itself, offers a simple starting point for research into young people's experience of sport.

Rethinking Gender and Youth Sport articulates certain themes which, it is suggested, might contribute to broadening and furthering discussion in the area of gender, youth sport and physical activity. This...

Sport, Fun and Enjoyment explores the pleasurable aspects of sport within the context of everyday recreational and competitive physical activities. While much recent work has focused on the relationships between physical activity, health and wellbeing, much less attention has been paid to pleasure and fun, key aspects of our engagement with sport but not so easy to measure in terms of specific outcomes. By offering a critical exploration of what can be constituted as fun in a sporting context, this book reveals the complex ways in which individuals approach sport and engage with it...

Sport, Fun and Enjoyment explores the pleasurable aspects of sport within the context of everyday recreational and competitive physical activities. While much recent work has focused on the relationships between physical activity, health and wellbeing, much less attention has been paid to pleasure and fun, key aspects of our engagement with sport but not so easy to measure in terms of specific outcomes. By offering a critical exploration of what can be constituted as fun in a sporting context, this book reveals the complex ways in which individuals approach sport and engage with...

In spite of the rapid increase in the number of gyms and the diversification of fitness practices within them, there has been a lack of empirically-based research that explores the embodied experiences of 'gym goers' and the fitness cultures that are constructed within these spaces. This fascinating new book offers a personal, interactive, ethnographic account of the multiplicity of contemporary gym practices, spaces and cultures. It argues that gym bodies are historically constructed, social, sensual, emotional and political; that experience intersects with multiple embodied identities;...