Young people doing dance doing gender: relational analysis and thinking intersectionally

Scraton (1992) asserts in her conclusion to ‘Shaping up to Womanhood’ that feminist analysis of PE (and sport and leisure more broadly) needs to engage more directly with masculinity as a means to understanding the ‘dynamics of gender’. Focusing on young people’s involvement in recreational dance, this paper demonstrates how some of those dynamics of gender are played out, reproduced and resisted by both boys and girls who participate at community based dance organisations. Selective data in the form of research frames are incorporated to illustrate how gender is constructed, enacted and embodied by young people engaged in recreational dance. Masculine and feminine hegemonies are highlighted and demonstrate that gender is both relational and intersectional. This contributes to ongoing analysis of masculinities and femininities as practices and processes imbued with complex power relations for young people.