Fitting in/activity
Subtitle: a qualitative exploration of second-generation Indo-Canadian adolescent girls and their gendered bodies in physical activity.
Published: 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
Description: Some literature has correlated declines in physical activity participation to increases in body dissatisfaction. Gendered body awareness, body dissatisfaction, and physical activity in Indo-Canadian adolescent girls remain absent in the literature. Employing feminist postcolonial and relational theories, this qualitative study explored social factors influencing the gendered body awareness and physical activity experiences and participation of eight, middle-class, able-bodied, Hindu, Indo-Canadian adolescent girls. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews. What remained unique in this group of girls was their lack of desire to be identified as 'Indian girls' while faced with the inescapability of the gendered and racialized signifiers on their bodies. As a result, the participants tried to actively and creatively devise ways to fit, resist, cope, and respond to expectations from both Hindu Indian and Canadian social and cultural influences while managing their position in their relationships with family, friends, and peers at school and in the community.
Notes: Adviser:  Margaret MacNeill.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Toronto, 2004.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 43-03, page: 0747.

MICR copy on microfiche (3 microfiches).