Our research

This research concerns how elements of sports and physical activities, as part of institutional addiction treatment, support normative ideas about gender, age, and body. Using theoretical concepts such as functionality, body normativity, and the normative, I explore how institutional staff reason about physical activities in relation to different client groups. My research has shown that staff describes physical activities as problematic for women, as they connect women with a psychological dysfunctionality that is assumed to be physically limiting. For younger men, though, physical activities are understood as unproblematic since their bodies are perceived as always capable of being physically active. Older men and women are partly prevented from participating because of their age and supposed physical illnesses.

Aims

• To increase the knowledge of how physical activity is used and can be used in social work practice

Impact

This research highlights how physical activities may recreate inequality when used as elements in social work, as they interplay with normative understandings of gender, age, and functionality. This knowledge is important to develop equal and anti-discriminatory attitudes in institutional care and social work.

How our research contributes to CoPARLU

This research contributes with gender and norm-critical perspectives on sports and physical activity.