Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport

Sport has enormous significance in American culture—as entertainment, business, leisure activity, health and fitness maintenance. It provides metaphors for everyone from politicians to poets to sociologists. Mary Jo Kane, professor, director of the School of Kinesiology, and director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, is a sport sociologist. Both her personal research projects and the collaborative outreach coming out of the center reinforce her belief that sport is a legitimate filter for academic research.

She is working with colleagues in North Carolina and California to examine how male and female athletes are portrayed in sport media aimed at individuals with disabilities. To date they are finding the same pattern that Kane has found in the general media—a strong tendency to show male athletes pursuing their sport and female athletes posing in fashionable, sexy clothing that has nothing to do with their sport.

“One hope we have is that, through our work, girls will know that they never again have to sit on the sidelines, in sport or in life.”

Kane also is co-editor of the national report, Physical Activity & Sport in the Lives of Girls, sponsored by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. The report received extensive national attention when published, especially the data showing dramatic growth in female participation in sport and its documentation of the positive impact sport can have in the lives of girls and women. A new edition with updates and additional research, The 2007 Tucker Center Research Report, Developing Physically Active Girls: An Evidence-based Multidisciplinary Approach, was published in 2008.

The center also strives for impact through outreach programs such as lecture series, videos, and mentorship programs. For example, Image Is Everything: Achieving Equitable Media Treatment for Females is a program for high school girls that brings school athletes and leaders together with adult mentors to analyze female athletic imagery in the media and to share their analyses through school projects and public speaking to community groups.

The Tucker Center hosts a twice-yearly distinguished lecture program that emphasizes race, class, and gender issues in relation to girls and women in sport. These lectures, often co-sponsored by organizations such as the MacArthur Foundation, Dads and Daughters, and Melpomene Institute, bring in top scholars from around the world come to the University to discuss different topics and, with the Tucker Center’s involvement, one of those was an examination of the Olympic Games and their place in nations’ cultural narratives.

“I feel that the impact of my work and the work of the center is to add to the body of knowledge about girls and women in sport, and to create a better awareness of the role of sport in our culture. It has value as a tool for looking at issues of great importance to all of us,” Kane says.

What others say about Tucker Center research

Pam Ryan, a Twin Cities entrepreneur and product development consultant who holds patents on sports equipment developed especially for girls, began wondering why parks and schools saw such a significant drop-off in sports participation among adolescent girls. “I spent hours and hours trying to research the answer on my own without success,” Ryan says. “Then I found out about the Tucker Center, called Mary Jo, and she provided the understanding, the research base, that allowed me to come up with some solutions that I hope will encourage girls to stay with sports and enjoy them. This is the kind of support that only can be provided by the Tucker Center.”

Joah Ianotta, who received a Ph.D. from the University while working as a graduate student in the Tucker Center, now works at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. One of her own research projects, on female action heroes, builds on some of the work done by Kane. “Dr. Kane has done seminal work in sport imagery and media presentation,” Ianotta says. “Researchers hope they’re making a difference but after a while you can begin to wonder how much of an impact you’re really having. At the Tucker Center we all knew we were having an impact because we were out there in the schools and community centers. It’s very powerful.”

Cynthia Hasbrook, a professor of sport sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and former editor of Sociology of Sport Journal, praises Kane’s work as “cutting edge. It always has been. Mary Jo has always focused on issues of prime interest to people’s daily concerns.”

Another academic colleague, Chris Shelton, chair of the exercise and sports studies program and codirector for the Project on Women and Social Change at Smith College, says that every researcher in the field of women and sport looks to Kane for leadership. “She is a model. She’s learned how to apply her research, how to take it into the world, and get people to believe in and understand the value of this kind of work. The center has benefited every girl or woman who loves sport.”

Why this research matters

Research clearly documents the fact that men and women of all ages can improve the quality of their lives through regular physical exercise, reducing the risk of coronary heart disease, hypertension, colon cancer, and diabetes. Regular physical exercise also has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, help control weight, and help build healthy bones, muscles, and joints. Moreover, we know that childhood and adolescence are critical times for laying the foundation for lifelong physical activity. Through research and outreach at the Tucker Center, including Mary Jo Kane’s groundbreaking work in media portrayals of female athletes, girls and women are finding the knowledge and support to understand and pursue these physical and psychological benefits, to overcome barriers working against female participation in sports, and to change negative perceptions of female athleticism in ways that make a difference.

For more information

Mary Jo Kane, 612-625-3870, maryjo@umn.edu

February 2001
revised August 2007 and April 2008