Speakers
Description
Gender equality in sports governance remains a distant goal, with the pace of progress described by some as ’glacial.’ Gender Inequality is common at all levels of sport governance, including at the global, organizational-cultural and interpersonal scales. The ERASMUS+-funded SWinG programme represented one attempt to challenge this inequality by developing of a model for change, and through mentoring and empowering women to run for election in sports governance. Ten multi-sectorial programme partners developed and piloted a new, transferable approach to support aspiring women leaders to be elected into decision-making positions. As part of the programme, a mentoring programme aligned 20 aspiring sports leaders with 20 women leaders from the business sector over three years across Europe. We evaluated the programme using a multi-method, naturalistic evaluation approach utilizing data from multi-point semi-structured interviews and focus groups, analysis of administrative records, timelines and meeting records, and evaluative surveys. The nine intellectual outputs, webinars and written resources produced during the programme were well received. Moreover, despite significant disruption to the programme and many elections due to COVID-19, many programme goals were achieved. Only two mentees did not progress as intended, whilst eight were elected to decision-making positions and a further six moved towards this goal. Notably, mentees’ initial misgivings were assuaged by mentors, who often had different perspectives on barriers to election. Although change was primarily enacted at the interpersonal level during SWinG, future work will focus upon challenging the wider socio-cultural context of gender inequality in sports governance.
