“Coaching Boys Into Men”: Exploring Implementation, Evaluation, and Content of a Gender-Transformative Violence Prevention ProgramFields, Alana (2020) “Coaching Boys Into Men”: Exploring Implementation, Evaluation, and Content of a Gender-Transformative Violence Prevention Program. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. (Unpublished)
AbstractThis dissertation presents an analysis of a gender-transformative violence prevention program called “Coaching Boys Into Men” (CBIM) to examine whether implementation of this program reflects the overarching goals of “gender transformative” practices. CBIM mobilizes high school and middle school coaches to engage athletes in challenging individual attitudes and practices and systemic norms and expectations related to gender equity and sexual violence prevention. Coaches deliver CBIM in the context of sports, a setting that emphasizes hypermasculinity and reproduces heteronormativity, sexism, and racism. Critical Race/Systemic Race and Intersectionality theories offer critical lenses with which to view gender-transformative violence prevention program content, implementation practices, and evaluation strategies. Challenges with implementation may help explain mixed findings seen in CBIM evaluations about the extent of changes in athletes’ attitudes and behaviors. The first manuscript investigates gaps among coaches’ retrospective reflections, audio recordings of CBIM sessions, and external observers’ assessments of coaches’ implementations. The primary question is what are coaches actually doing when coaching boys into men. Rather than engaging athletes in dialogs about respect and gender justice and modeling gender-transformative attitudes and behaviors as prompted by CBIM, some coaches go “off script,” contradicting program content, stifling athlete participation, and subverting gender-transformative intent. The second manuscript explores these implementation gaps further by assessing the extent to which both the CBIM program and coaches recognize, acknowledge, and support subordinated and racialized masculinities; critique complex structures of inequality; and support transformative social change. Coaches, influenced by their own identities and schools in which they are embedded, perpetuate benign or hostile sexism, white privilege, and harmful racist ideologies. The final manuscript compares two evaluation strategies to identify how suitable these methods are for assessing fidelity and quality of CBIM implementation and how these methods could help inform refinements to program implementation. Taken together, these three manuscripts demonstrate how Critical Race/Systemic Race and Intersectionality frameworks can elucidate limitations with program content, implementation practices, and evaluation strategies and underscore how even a program that purports to be ‘gender transformative’ can reinforce white patriarchy. Findings may bolster program content, strengthen implementer training, and improve evaluation, towards the ultimate goal of gender transformation. Share
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