A central purpose in Physical Education (PE) is to provide sporting experiences, learning opportunities, and social inclusiveness to all students, regardless of their gender, skill level, or social status (Rink, 2001). However, research has reported extensively the replication of socially and culturally instituted gender stereotypes and unbalanced power relations within traditional PE settings. Particularly, the individual constructions of learning, the unregulated competition, or the developmentally inappropriate practice are known to act as stimulus to male-dominance and consequent girls’ and less-skilled students’ marginalisation (Ennis, 1999). Connell (2005) has theorised this problematic through the concept of Hegemonic Masculinity (HM), defined as “the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (p. 77). Typical examples of HM inside PE settings are the assignment of girls to secondary roles during game-play based on their lack of ability or the exaltation of boys grounded on their aggressiveness and sporting ability (Ennis, 1999).

Sport Education (SE) (Siedentop, 1994) is an alternative teaching model grounded on constructivist and social learning theories, therefore pedagogically structured to promote more inclusive and authentic sporting experiences to boys and girls. It keeps a student-centred ethos by framing students’ sporting experiences within a six features structure   referenced to real community-based sports (i.e., extended seasons; student persistent team membership; formal competition; record keeping; culminating events; and a festive climate). The model’s pedagogical structure stimulates students’ curriculum ownership through several combinations of teacher- and student-led tasks, cooperative, and peer-teaching work.  Inclusion and equity are fostered by means of developmentally appropriate practice and competition, whereby students participate evenly and take on roles than simply as player basis (e.g., coaches, referees, trainers, scorekeepers). Considerable research has shown that students can develop a ‘sense of community’ within SE with the potential to disrupt male-dominance (Ennis, 1999), stimulate cooperative skills in higher-skilled students (Kinchin, 2001), and enhance girls’ sense of belonging as well as perceptions of positive contributions to their teams (Harvey et al., 2011).

There is, nevertheless, a potential downside of SE that is seldom acknowledged in research. Regardless of the model’s inclusive orientations, there is the potential that some teachers may fit students into flawed versions of institutionalized sport implicit in the way students and teachers were socialized, admitting the prevalence of HM within SE (Curtner-Smith & Sofo, 2004). Reports of HM in SE seasons driven by  careless supervision of students’ autonomy, have shown unbalanced participation levels of students in light of their attractiveness, social influence, or skill level (Brock, 2002), or  boys’ dominance of power roles and decision-making processes providing them more practice opportunities (Hastie, 1998).

Despite the efforts of recent research in mediating power inclusiveness and intervene towards more equitable PE environments through social critical Action-Research (AR) (Casey & Dyson, 2009; Gubacs-Collins, 2007),  to date, research on SE has fully disregarded a critical orientation and/or active intervention over the model aimed at proactive resolution of its potential faults (Parker & Curtner-Smith, 2012).Therefore, the objectives of the current study were to employ an AR approach, inspect SE from a critical perspective, and analyse, reflect, and act upon exclusionary behaviours prevailing among students in search of a more inclusive and equitable learning environment to boys, girls, lesser-, and higher-status students. Using HM as a theoretical lens, the ultimate goal of this research was to inform PE teachers and the scientific community of the potential of SE to change latent and harmful stereotypical preconceptions of students over the interplay between sports, gender, status, and skill level within PE settings.

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