Kerry R. McGannon

• PhD
• Professor at Laurentian University

While significant research has focused on athlete mothers returning to competition, the experiences of retired athlete mothers remain largely unexplored. In this study we explored the less studied research path of motherhood and sport retirement to learn more about these athletes’ lives. We sought to build on sport media research centralizing elite...

There has in recent years been a growth of interest in co-production (Masterson, Areskoug Josefsson, Robert, Nylander, & Kjellström, 2022). This interest is in varying degrees based on claims that co-produced research can generate better impact. What though is meant by co-production and impact? Why co-produce research and why is impact increasingly...

Although motherhood is a well-documented time when recreational sport pursuits decline, researchers have shown that some women participate in sport after becoming mothers. Recreational running is one sport where mothers (re)negotiate their subjectivity in ways that resist constraining good mother ideals by expanding strategies to enhance well-being...

With the 2024 Olympic Games touted as reaching gender parity (i.e., same number of female and male athletes participating), media conversations are continuing about elite athlete mothers. Researchers interrogating media stories of Olympic athlete mothers have shown that their sporting journeys are not straightforward due to tensions linked to gende...

Sport media is a public pedagogy that impacts sportswomen’s embodied subjectivities by circulating gender ideologies and discourses as forms of truth. In this study we used relativist narrative inquiry to build on sport media research exploring socially constructed motherhood and sport. We interrogated ‘comeback meanings’ in sport media stories of...

Abuse has been acknowledged as an adverse event which leads to trauma and long-term health effects in sport. Given the high rates of abuse occurring in elite sport contexts, many Olympic athletes will not only be subjected to abuse while residing and competing at the Olympic Games but may also experience trauma and its effects. In this article, we...

In this article, we draw on research employing creative nonfiction (CNF) in psychology and the sport sciences, to outline the value of one untapped CNF methodology: the hermit crab essay. We expand the methodological repertoire for CNF in arts based research by advocating for hermit crab CNFs that borrow from ready-made structures, to present ‘real...

Trauma has become a global health epidemic which means that researching the experiences of those impacted is central to qualitative researchers’ work. Subsequently, people affected by trauma may require support during the research process. In this paper, we outline how arts-based autoethnography and the methods of poetry, digital mixed media and dr...

Although sport participation holds potential to facilitate substance use recovery, the role of sport and links to identity transformation, are contentious. Using an instrumental and intrinsic case study, we used narrative inquiry to explore autobiographies as cultural sites of analysis in relation to the role that one sport (i.e., triathlon) plays...

As athlete mothers continue with sport careers and gain visibility in the media, scholars have explored media representations of high profile athlete mothers in discourses, from several disciplinary perspectives. This paper focuses on synthesizing these multi-disciplinary qualitative media research findings, to gain understanding of key themes that...

The need to focus on abuse prevention in sport has been prioritized due to widespread athlete maltreatment occurring across many sports, levels, and regions. One recommendation to prevent athlete maltreatment is through evidence-based education. Despite this recommendation, surprisingly little has been done in this area. A recently proposed idea is...

Research shows that athletes across levels and sports have been subjected to maltreatment with non-sexualized forms such as psychological abuse and neglect found to be the most common. With the normalization of many of these forms of abuse occurring in sports, researchers have called for the ‘safeguarding’ of athletes to focus on prevention through...

This edited book aims to provide an original, comprehensive and unparalleled overview of motherhood and sport by bringing together an international collection of scholars employing a range of qualitative research methods and methodologies. Coinciding with stories of ‘sporting mothers’ in a variety of contexts that now proliferate the social, cultur...

Coinciding with athlete mothers’ stories gaining media visibility, sport media researchers are studying media discourses to learn more about socially constructed motherhood and sport. The present study extends media research on elite athlete mothers, by using feminist narrative inquiry to interrogate discrimination meanings in sport. North American...

In this paper, findings from an investigation into the gender imbalance in swim coaching in Australia, particularly at the higher levels of accreditation, are reported. Stories of experience of two elite female swim coaches were analysed with reference to the concept of hegemonic masculinity. Analysis found that some male coaches and attendants to...

Within research on retirement due to injury, transitional difficulties (e.g., mental health issues, identity loss) have been identified and linked with a singular athlete identity, early or forced retirement, and difficulty comprehending life beyond sport. More research is needed to learn further about the socio-cultural context of athlete retireme...

Despite the focus on motherhood and sport participation in recent years, the motherhood and recreational sport participation nexus is not well-understood. Using an instrumental case study, we explored running facilitators for competitive recreational mother runners, to advance research using a novel theory (i.e., narrative inquiry). We used a dialo...

In this chapter, one prominent Canadian elite 800-m runner's (i.e., Melissa Bishop-Nriagu) public stories of motherhood and negotiating a running career are explored. Data collected from digital media (e.g., Instagram, running magazines, news) are re-presented as an ethnodrama. Ethnodrama involves the creation of a play script, by dramatizing selec...

In this chapter, we re-envision research into motherhood and sport, by centralizing suggestions for future research in the qualitative landscape. To accomplish this aim, we provide reflections on existing research and gaps, followed by reflections on the contributions of each of the chapters in the present volume, and how each fills research gaps....

Motherhood marks a transition in many women's lives when sports participation decreases due to child rearing responsibilities and “good motherhood ideals.” However, female athletes, at all levels, have also shown that motherhood is not incompatible with sport participation. In some instances, athletes have achieved their best sporting performances...

In the present study, post-partum embodied subjectivity of five competitive recreational mother runners of children under 6 years of age, was explored using narrative inquiry from a story analyst and a story teller position. This focus expands understanding of sport, embodiment and good mother ideals using narrative inquiry as a novel theory to cen...

Objectives: Although research on elite sport and motherhood is growing, more research is needed to understand the narratives that shape their identities and lives. We sought to build on sport psychology research centralizing the media as naturalistic data resources to explore elite athlete mother identity. The specific aim was to explore how elite...

Sport is often touted as a context that can foster the development of positive relationships between people from diverse cultures. Researchers seeking to develop knowledge about how integrative sport programs may be developed have rarely recognized the agency and expertise of asylum seeking and refugee (i.e., forced immigrant) youth. Our focus stem...

The purpose of this study was to explore how the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation (HSFC) and Twitter users linked women’s experiences and health identities with the #MoreMoments cardiovascular disease awareness campaign. Critical discourse analysis of Twitter data between September 2017 and November 2017 identified two primary discourses (trage...

Descriptive reviews of qualitative research across two decades – 1990–1999 (Culver, D., Gilbert, W., & Trudel, P. (2003). A decade of qualitative research published in sport psychology journals: 1990–1999. The Sport Psychologist, 17, 1–15) and 2000–2009 (Culver, D., Gilbert, W., & Sparkes, A. C. (2012). Qualitative research in sport psychology jour...

Popular culture has recently seen the emergence of the so-called comical wine mom persona, particularly on social media sites such as Instagram. Given the increasing use of alcohol amongst women, and the emergence of alcohol as a tool for women and mothers to assert agency and gender equity, a critical analysis of wine mom culture warrants attentio...

In the 2016 International Olympic Committee Consensus Statement on harassment and abuse, it was outlined that psychological abuse in sport research has been heavily focused on the coach–athlete relationship resulting in a lack of research on other members of the athletes’ support system such as their ‘entourage.’ Researchers of abuse have further n...

Objectives To facilitate intercultural understanding by centralising forced immigrant youths' voices in the knowledge development phase of a CBPAR project. The aim of this paper is to reveal the role of sport in forced immigrant youths' acculturative journeys in different communities. Methodology We utilized ‘get-to-know-you’ arts-based conversati...

Within the cultural sport psychology (CSP) genre, researchers have considered multiple and intersecting athlete identity expression, in order to enhance sport participation, inclusion and performance. The aim with the present paper was to build upon, and expand a CSP research agenda that focuses on socially constructed identities, through exploring...

In this study, scholarship was extended on cultural meanings of race and athlete activism by interrogating one key media spectacle surrounding athlete protests: President Trump’s 2017 speech questioning NFL player’s character, with a focus on NFL owner’s responses. NFL owner’s statements (n=32) were subjected to critical discourse analysis (CDA). D...

Within the present chapter, the benefits of studying the media as a cultural site to expand sport injury psychology research are explored by bringing together research in sport sociology, sport communication and sport psychology. To accomplish this purpose, what constitutes ‘sport media research’ is outlined, followed by research in sport sociology...

Sport and physical activity contexts are entrenched with ableist perspectives which view disability as abnormal or negative. Consequently, those who deviate from cultural norms may experience inequity, exclusion, stigmatisation, non-accidental violence and maltreatment. Despite the commitment to ensuring sport and physical activity is safe and incl...

Women’s cardiovascular disease (CVD) portrayals were explored on Facebook by the U.S. non-profit organization Women’s Heart Alliance and public users in February 2017. Portrayals were explored using critical discourse analysis which also identified subject positions. Women’s CVD was constructed within two central discourses: achieving health equity...

Recently, coach accreditation structures have involved the ‘fast-tracking’ of former elite athletes into coaching roles. This means that former athletes are having their coach education shortened for their time already served in the sport. Some of the reasons for fast-tracking include the perception that former athletes will quickly gain player res...

The aim of this study was to explore the meanings of women’s cardiovascular disease constructed within the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation (HSF) Facebook page. Posts from HSF and public user comments surrounding the launch of the HSF re-branding were of interest. Ethnographic content analysis was employed to analyze text (n=40), images (n=32),...

Within this chapter a relativist and social constructionist approach to ‘culture’ is drawn on to advocate for studying autobiographies as cultural sites in relation to the role of sport in alcohol and drug addiction recovery. The central purpose of this chapter is to make the case for adding athlete autobiographies of substance addiction recovery a...

Although extreme sport athletes’ experiences have been explored in sport psychology, more research is needed to understand the nuanced identity meanings for these athletes within the context of health and well-being. A case study approach grounded in narrative inquiry was used to explore identity meanings of one elite extreme sport athlete (i.e., s...

Purpose: There is contentious understanding of the role of sport in adult recreational drug and alcohol addiction recovery. This study explored athlete autobiographies as cultural sites of analysis in relation to the role that one sport (i.e., ultrarunning) plays in addiction recovery capital pathways. Design: Working at the intersection of an auto...

Within sport psychology researchers have explored elite athlete mothers’ experiences (Appleby & Fisher, 2009; McGannon, Gonsalves, Schinke & Busanich, 2015). More work is needed to understand the nuanced psychosocial aspects of their athletic journeys. Studying autobiographical narratives is useful toward understanding the psychosocial nuances of m...

In this paper, narrative analysis using a story analyst approach is used to explore how three former athletes (i.e. amateur and elite swimmers) self-managed their abuse experiences post-sport with a focus on the use, and meaning, of ‘indirect self-injury’ forms. Using the concept of ‘emotion work’, the swimmers’ stories show how they reconfigured t...

Sport and physical activity contexts are entrenched with ableist perspectives which view disability as abnormal or negative. Consequently, those who deviate from cultural norms may experience inequity, exclusion, stigmatisation, non-accidental violence and maltreatment. Despite the commitment to ensuring sport and physical activity is safe and incl...

Descriptive reviews of qualitative research across two decades–1990-1999 (Culver, Gilbert & Trudel, 2003) and 2000-2009 (Culver, Gilbert & Sparkes, 2012)—outlined qualitative research trends in three North American sport psychology journals (The Sport Psychologist, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology and Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology). T...

Families play an important role in the development of elite athletes. However, little is known about the unique role subsumed by the families of elite immigrant athletes. Our authors sought to extend this understanding through a narrative inquiry approach with nine elite immigrant athletes. Combining transcript data derived from arts-based conversa...

Purpose: To explore the discursive construction of disordered eating and athlete identity meanings within elite female athlete’s stories. Published athlete autobiographies were interrogated as cultural sites of analysis to accomplish this aim. Design/methodology/approach: A critical social constructionist perspective on disordered eating is outline...

Sports coaching and sport psychology researchers have explored the challenges for those parents who undertake the role of coach. Arising from previously conducted research on the parent-coach, a number of strategies and practices have been suggested by researchers to assist parent-coaches to be more effective as they negotiate the dual roles. As ye...

Research on abuse in sport reveals that sporting environments are unique contexts where athlete abuse can occur. An international panel on ‘safe sport’ identified the need to implement strategies to ensure sport is safe for all. One strategy identified as a way of preventing abuse from occurring in sport is to educate the parents of athletes. This...

Within sport psychology, little research on fathers has been done, with no research yet exploring the social construction of athlete father identities to learn more about gendered parental identities in sport. Building on media research within sport psychology, the present study sought to extend understanding of athlete father identities in a cultu...

Since the American Medical Association and the American College of Sports Medicine partnered to launch Exercise is Medicine® (EIM) in 2007, the program has gained traction in 43 countries. The EIM discourse has been fruitful for framing exercise/physical activity as a form of disease prevention and/or symptom management for chronic conditions and m...

Pregnant women, their partners, and women of childbearing age frequently report obtaining information about alcohol use during pregnancy from the mass media. Trusting mainstream media sources (e.g., television) can be problematic when information is inaccurate, contributing to inconsistent messages about ‘safe levels’ of alcohol consumption during...

Objectives: Qualitative research on physically active mothers has shown that recreational sport allows for personal, social and cultural barriers to be renegotiated in ways that facilitate well-being and sport participation. The purpose of this study was to extend this understanding by examining competitive recreational athlete mothers' negotiation...

There is a lack of research on the social construction of gender and sexuality in elite women’s boxing and the social psychological implications. Building on research that theorizes gender and sexuality as intersecting identities, this study explored elite women boxers’ (n= 10) identities in relation to inclusion and marginalization on the Canadian...

Background: Ethnic minority groups including Asians in Canada have different knowledge and perceptions of heart disease and breast cancer compared with the ethnic majority group. Aim: Examine relationships between perceptions of heart disease and breast cancer, and lifestyle behaviors for Canadian women with British and with South Asian ancestry...

Background: The purpose of this research was to examine the relationships of self-reported physical activity to involvement with messages that discuss the prevention of heart disease and breast cancer through physical activity, the explicit believability of the messages, and agreement (or disagreement) with specific statements about themessages or...

The purpose of this study was to extend understanding of how athletes and coaches in a women’s cycling talent development and selection program negotiate and normalise athlete abuse in the media. A thematic analysis of six online cycling magazine articles and their representations of the Australian women’s elite cycling development camp was analyse...

To expand understandings of motherhood, identity and sport participation in social-cultural context, studying “new media” and its use as a tool for community building, has much to offer. The aim with this chapter is to explore on-line forms of media representations of athlete-mothers in an internet running community (i.e., ‘Another Mother Runner’)...

This paper presents two meta-autoethnographies written by a former elite swimmer. In the first meta-autoethnography, the swimmer revealed doubts in relation to details, emotions and inner-thoughts that she had included in her historical autoethnographic work. As a means of sorting and pondering these tensions and uncertainties, the swimmer explored...

Ethnodrama combined with Goffman’s ‘presentation of self’ is used to explore three elite swimmers’ ‘presentation of self’ in relation to the dominant ideology of ‘slim to win’. The ‘presentation of self’ of three swimmers is presented and analyzed according to their front stage (e.g., posting of specific images; direct media quotes) and backstage (...

Qualitative research has grown within sport and exercise psychology and is now widely conducted. The purpose of this review is to discuss three commonly used ways to demonstrate rigor when conducting or judging qualitative research in sport and exercise psychology. These are the method of member checking, the method of inter-rater reliability, and...

This qualitative project is focused on the challenges newcomer athletes revealed when they considered their earliest encounters with a receiving culture during general daily life. Conversational interviews with 24 national and international amateur newcomer athletes were subjected to interpretive thematic analysis and developed into a composite vig...

This film is presented as a docudrama, where video diaries and other elements of film production capture the six-month journey of a former elite swimmer who re-immersed herself into an elite swimming culture as a 40-year-old woman. Over a six-month period, the former swimmer subjected herself to the same training schedule and coaching practices tha...

Objectives: The project responds to calls for research that attends to issues of cultural diversity within sport and that facilitates expanded understandings of socially constructed identities. The intersecting identities of elite female boxers are explored in terms of how they shape experiences of marginalization and well-being within sport. Focus...

Given that research outside of sport and exercise has found that stigma may cause severe consequences (e.g. depression), it is important to explore the concept in regard to its connection to socio-cultural issues in the development and persistence of stigmatisation in sporting contexts. Analytic autoethnography and Goffman’s theory of stigma was us...

Purpose: Although daily variation in weather impacts physical activity (PA) levels among relatively healthy individuals, it is largely unknown whether this relationship occurs for those living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The purpose of this study was to examine how daily variation in temperature, rain, and snow is related to...

Qualitative research has grown within sport and exercise psychology and is now widely conducted. The purpose of this review is to discuss three commonly used ways to demonstrate rigor when conducting or judging qualitative research in sport and exercise psychology. These are the method of member checking, the method of inter-rater reliability, and...

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and disability among women world-wide. Narratives circulated by the media regarding women’s identities and health constitute one source of meanings by which conceptualizations about risk, risk reduction, and disease prevention are formed and framed. An interpretive and integrative meta-synthesis...

Objectives: Qualitative research on physically active mothers has shown that recreational sport may allow women to resist good mother ideals that often constrain exercise. The purpose of this study was to extend this understanding in a socio-cultural context by examining how recreational athlete mother identities were constructed within one form of...

This study explores a composite vignette of athletes acculturating in a national sport system. The research questions were: What acculturation narratives did the athletes’ construct when they considered the notion of their receiving culture’s national sport system? And within these; what are the key challenges in relation to support that the athlet...

Although the presence of elite athlete mothers is growing in sport, these athletes have received less attention in sport psychology research. The purpose with this study was to extend understanding of elite athlete mothers in socio-cultural context by examining how news media constructed elite athlete identities of one high profile athlete mother,...

Although a small body of research in sport psychology has begun to study media representations, the analyses of media representations and athlete identities are on the margins of sport psychology. In this article we outline why the study of media representations and athletic identities is useful for sport psychology. The purpose is accomplished by...

A series of four poems were generated as a result of Author 1’s re- immersion into an elite swimming culture to revisit emotional and mental pain experienced 15 years earlier. Her re-immersion resulted in the re- engagement of torturous training and bodily regimes that the other swimmers were subjected to and subjected themselves to. By presenting...

Background: The Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation launched the Heart Truth campaign to increase women’s awareness of heart disease. However, little is known about how such campaigns intersect with broader understandings of gender and health. Methods: A discourse analysis of campaign materials examined the construction of gender, risk and prevent...

Two female athletes’ embodied experiences in two different aquatic nature based sports are explored using collaborative autoethnography in conjunction with Foucault’s theory of the body as a site of discipline. The first section of this paper provides an overview of literature addressing body practices occurring in sport as a means of better contex...

Differences in perceptions of susceptibility, seriousness, and fear of heart disease and breast cancer were examined and related to attentional bias for disease-related words among Canadian women of various ethnic ancestry. Women (n = 831) completed an online survey, and 503, among them, also completed an attentional bias task. Perceived seriousnes...

The authors of this article engage in a commentary regarding broad thematic areas identified within the special issue on sport and terrorism. The commentary begins with the authors situating themselves within the field of sport psychology, and as critical scholars more specifically within the emerging cultural sport psychology genre. To further con...

Despite the importance of critical media work, much is to be learned about breast cancer representations within media discourses and the implications for women’s identity construction. Building on research from Australia from a discursive perspective, the current paper used an eclectic approach to critical discourse analysis to explore the cultural...

The Heart Truth® campaign was implemented in the United States (U.S.) by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in 2002 to increase women’s awareness of heart disease and encourage risk reduction of cardiovascular disease. The present study explored representations of women’s cardiovascular disease, the meanings generated and the implication...

While researchers in sport and exercise psychology have provided new insight into the sociocultural construction of disordered eating and the complexity of athletes’ embodied experiences in recent years, our knowledge of these experiences in male athletes remains limited and is confined by verbal expression (e.g., interviews and analyses of the spo...

Masters athletes compete in athletic events at the elite level after the point when most elite athletes retire (Tanaka and Seals 2008). These athletes typically begin this stage of their competition careers between 30-40 years and continue in this journey in some cases to the age of 90 or older. The purpose of the present study was to explore media...