NOT Playing to Win: Why Recreational Gymnasts Tumble On

• In Event: 315 - Open Refereed Roundtables Session. B. Table 01 Shared and Contested Spaces
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 07. Education and Educators

Abstract

The logic and structure of programs offered by one children’s extracurricular activity organization is investigated in this ethnographic study of girls’ programs in a gymnastics club in the suburban Midwest. By exploring how instructors utilize charismatic symbols and practices both to encourage children’s buy-in and to regulate the promotion of individuals within a hierarchically structured system, I suggest some of the benefits perceived by children participating in the lower-level, recreational programs offered by the gym. I find that the gym encourages large enrollment in the lower levels in order to financially support its highly competitive and resource-demanding team, that coaches view themselves as providing transferable cognitive and social skills, and that recreationally involved girls understand gymnastics knowledge and skills as symbolic capital that can be converted into social capital in other youth contexts. These findings shed light on more general processes by which children turn to their advantage activity participation that they may not have begun voluntarily, and which is structured by organizations with goals imperfectly aligned with their personal objectives.

Author

• Amy Michelle August, University of Minnesota