Women and sport. A teaching and research experience related to university students’ perception of gender stereotypes in the media

Resumen

One of the main ways in which gender stereotypes are reproduced is through the media. This research focuses on the treatment of female sportspeople in the press in the first World Cup played by the Spanish women’s national football team (2015) and in the last one, which they won (2023). The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of media communication on the perpetuation of gender stereotypes by university students, as well as to encourage students to engage in critical reflection on the role of the media in the inequalities affecting female athletes. The methodology employed was an exploratory study adopting a mixed approach through participant and direct observation, as well as a semi-structured survey of a sample of 48 participants. The results show that students express themselves, participate and interact, creating a collaborative work space and a collective construction of knowledge, and that 93.8% of the students surveyed stated that the space and attention devoted by the media to sportswomen is not proportional. Likewise, 95.8% also perceive a correlation between the space allocated in the media and the perpetuation of gender stereotypes. Only 39.6% considered, before undertaking the project, that the quantitative imbalance in representation was similar to what they found in the newspaper analysis, compared to 56.3% who asserted that it was not. The findings suggest that the denialist tendency of the youth can be successfully combated by putting students at the center, through discovery and meaningful learning. Furthermore, the university students were able to transmit the knowledge constructed from their own learning to the educational community of secondary education centers.