Physical activity in the everyday life of children: Exploring how intergenerational transfer of habitus frame boys and girls opporunity to generate and negotiate physical activity within their everyday life

Abstract

Several indicators of social background and gender expectations are found to have an important impact on children’s physical activity patterns, yet few studies have explored intergenerational transfer of habitus through the use of triangulation of methods. The aim of this study is to explore how intergenerational transfer of habitus frames children’s opportunit to generate and negotiate physical activity in their everyday life. This is done by examining the relationship between children’s physical activity pattern’s and: parental capital, parental perception of gender appropriate sport, gender expectations, children’s housing, and children’s own experience with sports and physical activity in their everyday life. The empirical material is drawn from a one-year fieldwork conducted at a public elementary school located in Metro Manila, the Philippines, where I worked as a voluntary physical education teacher. A triangulation of methods has been utilized. Methods introduced consist of participatory observation of 385 pupils in grade 4 at the particular school, questionnaires given out to parents and children taking part in the study and in-depth interviews with 18 children.