The University of Bedfordshire is hosting a research seminar on the female tradition in physical education to be held at the Park Inn Hotel, Bedford on 24 April 2014 for which a handful of places remain available.  There is no charge for the seminar but anyone who wishes to attend is requested to contact Professor David Kirk at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> to register.

Details of the seminar and a preliminary programme follow:

Women First Reconsidered
Research Seminar at the Park Inn, 2 St. Mary´s Street, Bedford, MK42 0AR
April 24, 2014

2014 is the 30th anniversary of 'Women First: The Female Tradition in English Physical Education 1880-1980', Sheila Fletcher's (1984) still unrivalled account of the unique role of women in establishing and maintaining the profession of physical education in the twentieth century. Women led the field of physical education in England for over 70 years, from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s and have been credited with playing a substantial role in cultivating good citizenship and marking the first line of defence in preventive medicine. Fletcher argued that a new profession emerged for middle-class women that had no parallel for at least its first fifty years in the education of men and focused on Bedford College of Physical Training, which was in its day one of the leading private colleges for women in England. It has maintained a remarkable archive dating from the establishment of the College in 1903 up to 1980 providing valuable insights into the development of physical education and our understanding of women's education and women's work as professionals in education.  The collection compliments archives held by other private women's colleges of this era, now held by other universities, as well as adding to associated physical culture collections in North America and Europe.

Whilst there has been further excellent research in the history of physical education since Fletcher's landmark text none of this work has fully met the challenge posed by Fletcher to better understand the phenomenon of the female tradition in physical education and the depth and breadth of its consequences.

Our research seminar is the result of a partnership between historians David Kirk and Patricia Vertinsky and supporters of the Bedford Physical Education Archive who are interested in using this anniversary of Fletcher's work to reconsider the female tradition in physical education from a number of perspectives. We hope to:

1.       Provide a more nuanced and detailed account than has hitherto been available of the phenomenon of the creation of a field of activity in education that was uniquely female

2.       Open up for further exploration the global network of women scholars in physical education in order to trace their influences on the development of multifarious forms of organised movement activities in an era prior to air travel and internet communications

3.       Offer new insights into and explanations of the dominant contemporary and largely negative and deficit narratives around girls' and women's engagements in physical education, dance, gymnastics, games and sports in educational and other contexts.

The research seminar is supported in part by a grant from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.  A panel of leading researchers in the history of physical education will come together from North American, Europe and the United Kingdom to reconsider the history of female physical education from a variety of new perspectives. We would like to encourage other interested researchers of this topic to join us at the seminar and contribute to refocusing an important debate upon past and present approaches to female physical education and its consequences.

Women First Reconsidered - Draft Programme
9.30-9.45              Welcome and Introduction - David Kirk and Patricia Vertinsky
9.45-10.30           Margaret Whitehead - University of Bedfordshire
10.30-11.15         Maggie Killingbeck - University of Bedfordshire

11.30-12.15         Stephanie Daniels and Anita Tedder - independent scholars
12.15-1.00           Patricia Vertinsky - University of British Columbia

1.00-1.45              Lunch

1.45-2.30              Suzanne Lundvall - Swedish School of Health and Sport Sciences, Stockholm
2.30-3.15              Catriona Parratt - University of Iowa

3.30-4.15              Alison Wrynn - California State University, Longbeach
4.15-5.00              Martha Verbrugge - Bucknell University
5.00-5.30              Reflections led by Joanne Hill - University of Bedfordshire

6.00-7.30              Reception - Including an opportunity to see the film 'Bedford Physical Training College during World Wars One and Two' based on research undertaken in the Bedford Physical Education Archive


Karen Davies
Archive Adviser
Bedford Physical Education Archive
University of Bedfordshire
Polhill Avenue
Bedford
MK41 9EA

Tel: 01234 793257


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