Dr Lucy Piggott on gender equity in sport governance

Women in Sport and Exercise Academic Network Podcast

Dr Lucy Piggott is a Research Fellow at the University of Chichester. Both her research and applied activities are focused around women and sport. She has recently completed a doctorate looking at gender equity within English sport governance and used a multi-method approach of semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and an analysis of supporting documents to understand the workings of dominant gender power relations within two large English national governing bodies of sport: England Golf and the Lawn Tennis Association. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice as a theoretical framework, she found evidence of simultaneous conservation and resistance of practices that privilege and profit male leaders. She recommends that resistance to male-dominated sport governance needs to occur at all levels of sport organisations (macro/structural, meso/cultural, and micro/individual) to enable sustainable change. She also suggests that gender equitable governance should be linked to organisational values and performance to provide motivation for organisations to make change.

In her current role, Lucy is working with both internal and external colleagues on research ideas, proposals and bids across a range of topics. In addition to her research activities, Lucy sits on the Operational Management Group for the Anita White Foundation (AWF), which is a part of the University of Chichester and aims to combine scholarship and activism for women and sport. The AWF has three key areas of focus: the education and development of women leaders and scholars in sport, preserving the heritage of women and sport, and research and scholarship. The primary project of the AWF is the Women’s Sport Leadership Academy (WSLA), which has a its main component a residential week held at the University of Chichester for women working in middle to senior sport leadership to develop their confidence and competence across a range of leadership behaviours. Lucy was coordinator for the 2019 Women’s Sport Leadership Academy which saw 36 women from 19 countries attend the residential week. WSLA has also run programmes in Botswana and New Zealand. Excluding WSLA 2019 participants, WSLA has a global network of 228 women from 41 countries who have graduated from a WSLA programme.

In this episode, Lucy talks about her PhD on gender equity in sport governance, her advice she has for organisations and individuals to foster gender equality and also her current research projects and activities.