From a 'Girls' Game' to a 'Man's Sport': The Gendered Development of Basketball in Scotland

Citation

Walker R (2024) From a 'Girls' Game' to a 'Man's Sport': The Gendered Development of Basketball in Scotland. Sporting Traditions, 41 (1), pp. 35-59. https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/informit.T2024072000007692050322709

Abstract
This article focuses on the early history of basketball in Scotland. The game introduced for girls in the 1890s transitioned into a sport for men by the 1930s. Various actors from the education system to the Armed Forces and the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) contributed to this transformation. Using local and national newspapers from across Scotland, this article covers five themes: (1) the spread of basketball worldwide and how it was culturally and socially perceived in a new host country; (2) the assimilation of basketball into a different culture and social landscape; (3) the development and transformation of an aggregate minority sport within a nation; (4) diverging gendered participatory pathways within sport for males and females; (5) the pace of diffusion and uptake of a non-traditional and quintessential sport in a new environment.

Keywords
Basketball; Culture; Development; Gender; Scotland; Society

Journal
Sporting Traditions: Volume 41, Issue 1