BECOMING AVATAR: CO-CREATING GIRL’S PHYSICAL EDUCATION KIT ON 3D GAMING BODIES

For almost four decades, research within the field of physical education (PE) pedagogy has studied girls’ disengagement. Findings from these studies have highlighted several barriers to engagement such as the kit. The exploration of how PE kits affect young girls has not been widely researched within the social sciences and therefore, a gap in the literature has been identified. This pilot study, which is part of a wider PhD project, seeks to understand how the uniformed body affects girls felt experiences of PE. The kits worn for PE can be viewed as a means to discipline and control the body. Therefore, by giving power and agency back to girls to re-design the materiality of their PE kit, an improvement in engagement within PE may occur. A new materialist co-creative methodology was developed that applied fashion design principles and 3D video gaming to enable girls to re-imagine their school PE kit. Using print design on custom-made content for the SIMS 4 video game, four girls ages 10 -14 re-designed their school kit and wore them virtually in the game. The findings showed that using a co-creative approach, incorporating fashion design and video game avatars, to help facilitate the design of a kit relevant to the girls does have the potential to engage girls within school PE lessons. It is suggested that for more robust and conclusive findings, a larger study should be undertaken in UK secondary schools.