The higher the organization level, the lower the percentage of women in governance. The purpose of the present study was to explore how men and women negotiate women's 'fit' as candidates for boards of national sport organizations. We based our analysis on in-depth interviews with male chairs and female board members. The results provide evidence that men can control boards by affirming and negating affirmative action policies and by framing the process of recruitment and selection in such a way as to reproduce the male-dominated culture in the board. Women, in their turn, tend to negotiate their entry by distancing themselves from their gender and proving their 'fit.'

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The diversity of sport participants in the Netherlands is beginning to reflect the diversity within the general population. Sport as a whole is becoming more accessible, and participation in sport of different social groups takes place within both mainstream and “separate” sports clubs and in differently organized sports groups. In our paper we critically analyze the broader social integrative functions ascribed to sport by policy makers. We attempt to show that the ongoing democratization of sport participation is not always positively correlated, let alone causally related, to a broader social integrated society. We argue that social integration in itself is a multidimensional process and distinguish three dimensions of integration (structural, social-cultural, and social-affective), which can all occur in and through the practice of sport. Furthermore we argue that the integrative meanings of sport depend on which social groups and which of the dimensions of integration are examined. The complementary and contradictory aspects of the dimensions of social integration with regard to four different social minority groups (ethnic minorities, the elderly, the physically challenged, gays and lesbians) are examined.

The lack of women in senior management functions in sport may in part be attributed to dominant discursive managerial practices in sport organizations. The purpose of this study is to explore ways in which the discourses and their subtexts used by directors of Dutch national sport organizations to talk about their work, sustain homologous reproduction. Close reading of the transcripts of interviews by both researchers followed by a continuous cycle of data reduction and verification and researcher agreement enabled four dominant discursive themes to emerge. We show how an overlap of various discursive practices related to instrumentality, relationality, emotionality/passion and homogeneity strengthen the gendered nature of senior managerial work in large sport organizations.

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This article discusses various approaches that have been used to explain coaching as a male-dominated occupation. Individual approaches look at the interests, qualifications, and choices of women to explain their absence in male-dominated jobs. Structural approaches assume that gender-differentiated work behavior is more a function of location in organizational hierarchy than of gender. In the third approach, social relations, gender is seen as a verb in that women and men collectively struggle over the power to give meaning to social facts, including the meaning of coaching. This approach shows how structures, jobs, activities in those jobs, workers, and places of work are gendered through the meanings we assign to them. The ways those meanings may be altered if and when the number of women in coaching begins to increase are described.Coaching, a male-dominated occupation, has been subjected to attempts to increase the number of women: workshops, certification programs, affirmative action, brochures, job postings, recruitment, and so on. Theberge (n.d.) found that the female coaches in her study had benefited from such approaches. Their entry into the coaching ranks had been relatively easy; in fact, many had been asked to apply for the jobs they were currently holding. Yet, in spite of these and other efforts, the proportion of female coaches has declined. In 1978, 58.2% of the coaches of women's college teams were women; in 1988, that percentage was 48.3%, and in 1990 it was 47.3% (Acosta & Carpenter, 1990). There is good reason to believe this revolving-door pattern will continue. Only 12.3% of the women and 50.3% of the men respondents in a study of Division I college coaches indicated that they intended to coach until they were 65 years old (Knoppers, Meyer, Ewing, & Forrest, 1991). If women, who are already underrepresented in coaching, continue to leave at the rate that this percent indicates, then coaching will stay a male-dominated occupation. In addition, although women are still becoming coaches of women's college teams, less than 1% of the coaches of men's teams at the college level are women, a figure that has changed little over the past 5 years (Acosta & Carpenter, 1990). If one combines the total number Annelies Knoppers is at the Oecumenische Vrouwensynode, Postbus 19,3970 AA

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Processes of sense making enable individuals to explain or give meaning to their experiences including those pertaining to gender. Meanings shape both individual behaviors and expectations for the behavior of others. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine how board members of national sport associations in the Netherlands made sense of gendered arrangements. We used a sense making approach that acknowledges the significance of context (gender ratio) and constructions of meaning in shaping organizational practices. The results, based on 29 semi-structured interviews, showed how board members gave meanings to gender skewness that included defining board work as gender (in) appropriate and sustaining and challenging behaviors defined as stereotypical. We discuss how the results reflect doing and undoing gender.