Los proyectos deportivos como medio de promoción de actividad física en los centros escolares gallegostratamiento desde una perspectiva de género

Abstract

In recent years, lifestyles and specifically the practice of physical activity have been the subject of study from different areas, such as health, education, social and a wide range of disciplines. Thanks to them, we now know that a high percentage of young people in the world, do not comply with the recommendations and how this situation is aggravated in girls. The “Xunta de Galicia” seeks to modify this reality by acting in the school. Its proposal "Sports Projects of Centre" is framed on an ecological model trying to reach a physically educated youth, with a family, group of equals and environment involved in the process and seeking a greater impact of what is reserved exclusively to the curricula. Our research focuses on knowing the influence of this proposal for the school community and its sports environment. That is why we have divided it into two differentiated and complementary parts: a descriptive study of development, referring to the entire school population with Sports Projects of Centre, composed of a total of 2,382 subjects; and a case study related to school children from a referral centre among those studied with a total of 96 subjects and their social agents that are related to the developed project with a total of 25 subjects surveyed and interviewed. With them, we performed a quantitative analysis of the evolution of students, after the application over two to three academic years of Sports Projects of Centre in the practice of physical activity and various factors associated with it; and a qualitative analysis on the opinions and perceptions of the project participants about how the measures were applied and whether they took any particular action in favour of diminishing the differences regarding gender and the visibility of these in the centre’s organizational documents. With this we can highlight among the results how Sports Projects of Center managed to slow the decline in the practice of physical activity in 11 of the 16 centers studied, as well as that the lectures and training measures achieved significantly improved the students' conception of their own practice, increasing their desire to be more active. In addition, the age usually identified as a correlate of the practice did not influence the students and physical activity was maintained in all the sample groups. However, the prevalence of competitive activities among the adopted strategies was also found, something that could cause the measures not to reach some of the students, identified mainly in the girls. These differences between genders were marked in the self-concept, in the satisfactions towards the ego or in the taste towards the regular practice of physical activity, but in the case study thanks to the use of inclusive methodologies such as the organization of competitions by themselves according to their preferences and where female participation prevailed, it achieved a complicated objective: that the boys could increase their taste towards the place where they spend the greatest number of hours and that the girls increased significantly in the practice of physical activity during breaks, as well as a slight increase in his taste towards school Physical Education. Once the state of the situation had been defined, we were given the opportunity to disseminate the guidelines for modifying and adapting social action programs in relation to physical inactivity and health promotion and to be able to respond to the needs of society current in the best possible way. As contributions to the Sports Projects of Center, therefore, a series of recommendations are included among them which are spelled out: the continuous and obligatory application of this type of strategies throughout schooling, where the way to achieve it is still considered as an end; and the new configuration as a fundamental aspects of the Sports Projects of Center, teacher training and the organization of support systems that help teachers and schools to develop their strengths and face their weaknesses.