Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

"Kind Of In The Middle": The Gendered Meanings Of The Outdoors For Women Students, Karla A. Henderson, Sherry Winn, Nina S. Roberts

Research in Outdoor Education

The purpose of this study was to examine the links between past, present, and future involvement for females and perceptions about whether the outdoors was perceived as a gendered environment Data were collected using five focus group interviews. Several aspects of grounded theory emerged from this study including aspects of exposure to outdoor opportunities as a child, in­volvement in the outdoors as a result of an4 resistance to a gendered society, and contradictions between idealized attitudes and the realities of women's involvement in the outdoors.