Post by doctorwho on Apr 20, 2009 5:52:00 GMT -6
You know where I'm headed with this --
]"It is who they are, the basis for their social network "
It would be nice if they all had the same opportunity in 204....
-----------------------------------------------------------------
www.suntimes.com/news/education/1533007,CST-NWS-newgirl19.article
April 18, 2009
BY KARA SPAK Staff Reporter/kspak@suntimes.com
When 9-year-old Megan Keefer plays soccer, she plays to win.
"It's cool to be in sports," said Megan, a fourth-grader at Welch Elementary School in Naperville who plays for the Chicago Jaguars soccer club.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Megan Keefer, 9, gets in some soccer practice in Aurora. Her older sister, Courtney, 13, also plays soccer -- as well as volleyball and basketball. She also runs track.
(Rich Hein/Sun-Times)
-----------------------------------------------------------
That's not how her mom remembers her own school days. Back then, few of her classmates were clamoring to compete on a handful of girls' teams.
"Now, if you're not in a sport and you're a girl, you're too girly," said Laura Keefer.
She relishes cheering on Megan and her other daughter, 13-year-old Courtney, who, besides soccer, also plays volleyball and basketball and does track.
Like the sporty Keefer sisters, middle school-age girls across the country are increasingly chasing their goals with gusto, both on the field and in the classroom, said Barbara Risman, head of the University of Illinois at Chicago's sociology department and executive officer of the Council on Contemporary Families. Risman co-authored a study on contemporary middle school children being presented this weekend in Chicago at the council's yearly convention.
With fellow researcher Elizabeth Seale, Risman spent months interviewing and observing middle school students at a racially integrated, largely middle-income school district in the southeastern United States.
"What I found was that girls seem remarkably free to do many kinds of behaviors that a generation ago would have been closed to them," Risman said. "They were very comfortable with being competitive at sports. Being athletes is part of an ideal-girl kind of package these days."
Today's middle school girls are also "perfectly willing" to compete with boys in the classroom, she said.
"I did not get any indication that girls felt they had to be less smart than the boys to be attractive to boys," she said.
Risman calls this phenomenon the "second wave of feminism." The notion that girls need to be less than boys in order to appear feminine is "a relic of the past," she said.
There is a downside, though, Risman found in her research. Some of the 10- to 12-year-old girls she studied are dieting and "almost obsessive" about their appearance as a way to channel femininity, she said.
And while girls are free to pursue activities that once might have been considered the purview of boys, the same options aren't available to boys, she said. Cheerleading, for example.
"Everyone thought a boy who would do something like that would be mercilessly teased," Risman said. "The gender revolution has had an impact in making the girls' movement broader and wider. It hasn't for boys."
Phil Nielsen, the academy director of the Team Chicago soccer club in Aurora, said he thinks participation in girls sports has "absolutely" become a barometer of classroom coolness. Nielsen spent eight years coaching at all-women's Smith College in Massachusetts before joining Team Chicago.
"They definitely derive a lot of their pride and confidence though their association with the team, regardless of what team that is," he said of girl athletes. "They wear their [team] backpacks and warm-ups at school. There's a sense of camaraderie and pride."
Carolyn Rodman, 14, of Wilmette, is an eighth-grader at Wilmette Junior High School. She plays soccer, basketball and softball -- the latter two on travel teams. Her mother, Mimi Rodman, said Carolyn and her friends don't think of themselves as tomboys, though all are extremely athletic.
"They don't all play the same sports, they don't play on the same teams, but it's absolutely a common identity of theirs," Rodman said. "It is who they are, the basis for their social network."
Carolyn has been playing sports since kindergarten. Her mom never played team sports as a kid.
"The few girls who were athletes were considered to be masculine," she said. "There weren't all these options."
Jim Cortez, of Logan Square, is father to three daughters, ages 13 to 17, who are all competitive swimmers. He's also the swim coach at Walter Payton College Prep and for the Iguanas USA Swim Club, where he trains swimmers from 6 to 21 years old.
Boys and girls compete at the same levels until they are about 12 years old, when the boys' times start getting faster, he said.
Cortez said he has "absolutely never" seen one of his middle school girls back off in a race with boys.
"If anything, they want to beat them, especially in practice," he said. "The boys gain respect for them -- a heck of a lot more respect."
The middle school girls on the Iguanas team are now clamoring for training in a new sport -- water polo.
]"It is who they are, the basis for their social network "
It would be nice if they all had the same opportunity in 204....
-----------------------------------------------------------------
www.suntimes.com/news/education/1533007,CST-NWS-newgirl19.article
April 18, 2009
BY KARA SPAK Staff Reporter/kspak@suntimes.com
When 9-year-old Megan Keefer plays soccer, she plays to win.
"It's cool to be in sports," said Megan, a fourth-grader at Welch Elementary School in Naperville who plays for the Chicago Jaguars soccer club.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Megan Keefer, 9, gets in some soccer practice in Aurora. Her older sister, Courtney, 13, also plays soccer -- as well as volleyball and basketball. She also runs track.
(Rich Hein/Sun-Times)
-----------------------------------------------------------
That's not how her mom remembers her own school days. Back then, few of her classmates were clamoring to compete on a handful of girls' teams.
"Now, if you're not in a sport and you're a girl, you're too girly," said Laura Keefer.
She relishes cheering on Megan and her other daughter, 13-year-old Courtney, who, besides soccer, also plays volleyball and basketball and does track.
Like the sporty Keefer sisters, middle school-age girls across the country are increasingly chasing their goals with gusto, both on the field and in the classroom, said Barbara Risman, head of the University of Illinois at Chicago's sociology department and executive officer of the Council on Contemporary Families. Risman co-authored a study on contemporary middle school children being presented this weekend in Chicago at the council's yearly convention.
With fellow researcher Elizabeth Seale, Risman spent months interviewing and observing middle school students at a racially integrated, largely middle-income school district in the southeastern United States.
"What I found was that girls seem remarkably free to do many kinds of behaviors that a generation ago would have been closed to them," Risman said. "They were very comfortable with being competitive at sports. Being athletes is part of an ideal-girl kind of package these days."
Today's middle school girls are also "perfectly willing" to compete with boys in the classroom, she said.
"I did not get any indication that girls felt they had to be less smart than the boys to be attractive to boys," she said.
Risman calls this phenomenon the "second wave of feminism." The notion that girls need to be less than boys in order to appear feminine is "a relic of the past," she said.
There is a downside, though, Risman found in her research. Some of the 10- to 12-year-old girls she studied are dieting and "almost obsessive" about their appearance as a way to channel femininity, she said.
And while girls are free to pursue activities that once might have been considered the purview of boys, the same options aren't available to boys, she said. Cheerleading, for example.
"Everyone thought a boy who would do something like that would be mercilessly teased," Risman said. "The gender revolution has had an impact in making the girls' movement broader and wider. It hasn't for boys."
Phil Nielsen, the academy director of the Team Chicago soccer club in Aurora, said he thinks participation in girls sports has "absolutely" become a barometer of classroom coolness. Nielsen spent eight years coaching at all-women's Smith College in Massachusetts before joining Team Chicago.
"They definitely derive a lot of their pride and confidence though their association with the team, regardless of what team that is," he said of girl athletes. "They wear their [team] backpacks and warm-ups at school. There's a sense of camaraderie and pride."
Carolyn Rodman, 14, of Wilmette, is an eighth-grader at Wilmette Junior High School. She plays soccer, basketball and softball -- the latter two on travel teams. Her mother, Mimi Rodman, said Carolyn and her friends don't think of themselves as tomboys, though all are extremely athletic.
"They don't all play the same sports, they don't play on the same teams, but it's absolutely a common identity of theirs," Rodman said. "It is who they are, the basis for their social network."
Carolyn has been playing sports since kindergarten. Her mom never played team sports as a kid.
"The few girls who were athletes were considered to be masculine," she said. "There weren't all these options."
Jim Cortez, of Logan Square, is father to three daughters, ages 13 to 17, who are all competitive swimmers. He's also the swim coach at Walter Payton College Prep and for the Iguanas USA Swim Club, where he trains swimmers from 6 to 21 years old.
Boys and girls compete at the same levels until they are about 12 years old, when the boys' times start getting faster, he said.
Cortez said he has "absolutely never" seen one of his middle school girls back off in a race with boys.
"If anything, they want to beat them, especially in practice," he said. "The boys gain respect for them -- a heck of a lot more respect."
The middle school girls on the Iguanas team are now clamoring for training in a new sport -- water polo.