New research and practical guidelines published today by leading UK charity, Women in Sport, aims to provide sport with the means to engage more effectively with women and girls and increase the number of women playing sport.
Research, funded by Sport England in 2013, helped Women in Sport identify a complex value system that defines the way women live their lives today. In partnership with research agency 2CV, Women in Sport has defined six key values that are fundamental in the lives of women and girls and which, if tapped into effectively, can influence their sporting behaviours.
The values: looking good; feeling good; nurturing family and friends; achieving goals; developing skills; and having fun are influential, the charity has discovered, to varying degrees and at different times in a woman’s life. Understanding these values and how they can be expressed through sport, is key, the charity’s research suggests, to its ambition to transform sport for the benefit of every woman and girl in the UK.
Women in Sport has spent 18 months testing, with National Governing Bodies of Sport, County Sports Partnerships and the education sector, ways in which these values can be used to motivate women to participate in sport.
Today’s publication, ‘Understanding Women’s Lives: Re-Designing and Re-Positioning Sport and Physical Activity to Engage Women’ provides organisations delivering sporting opportunities to women and girls a tried and tested model for understanding what women want from sport. It also showcases practical examples of how to use the values system to engage, in a more sophisticated way, with the 13.2 million women aged 14 and over who say they want to take part in more sport or physical activity.
Commenting on the findings, Ruth Holdaway, Chief Executive of Women in Sport said:
“I’m excited to announce the publication of our Understanding Women’s Lives research which has underpinned so much of our work with the sport sector over the past 18 months. We have been able to demonstrate not just that the research is robust, but that its application really works in helping sport attract more women and girls to take part.
“Getting more women and girls to participate at every level is one of the most significant challenges faced by sport. Sport England’s brilliant This Girl Can campaign has created a groundswell of interest and women are demanding a more engaging and relevant offer from the sport sector to suit their busy lives. I am confident this research, and our expertise, can have a transformational impact on sport for women across the country.”
Women in Sport will continue to disseminate findings and guidelines from Understanding Women’s Lives throughout the sport sector as the charity continues its mission to transform sport for the benefit of every woman and girl in the UK. Sports bodies wanting further information about how Women in Sport can help them apply this research should contact info@womeninsport.org or 020 3137 6263.
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