Sport and Physical Activity Practices Examined Through Parents’ Discourse About Children’s Rugby League

Abstract

This study examined the ways in which discourses operate when parents talk about their children’s participation in rugby league in New Zealand. The primary interest was in the recruitment and reinforcement of sport and physical activity discourses. The paper uses a critical discursive psychological approach to identify regularities in the ways a sample of parents spoke about their children’s sport and links these patterned ways of speaking to the dominant discourses that they both comprise and are composed of. The navigation of discourses, chiefly those around masculinity, revealed that children’s sport and physical activity are regarded in gendered ways. The parents’ engagement with dominant discourses enabled them to position themselves as both knowledgeable of social norms and acting in the best interest of their child(ren).