Tag: Karin Andersson

Karin Andersson’s mixed methods dissertation Healthism and professional identity: Group fitness instructors navigating health discourses (Malmö University Press) employs a survey, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions to investigate the health consciousness of Les Mills International (LMI) group fitness instructors. Frida Austmo Wågan’s review expresses but a few objections to Andersson’s well written thesis and its essential insights into the field of health, fitness and physical activity.

Sine Agergaard’s and David Karen’s edited collection Social Issues in Sport, Leisure, and Health (Routledge) presents a series of in-depth descriptions of grassroots sport, urban lifestyle sport, physical activity across the life course, and sport for children with special needs. Karin Andersson’s insightful review maps out the theoretical directions at the basis of the study and, while also offering some critical points, concludes that the volume provides a crucial counterpoint to the prevailing individualism by illustrating how broader social determinants shape health, sport participation, and leisure activities.

Sedan historikern Jan Lindroth disputerade med sin avhandling om idrotten som folkrörelse 1974 har det gått ett halvt sekel, och således firar svensk idrottsforskning sitt femtioårsjubileum 2024. Under perioden har idrottsvetenskap vuxit fram som ett nytt utbildnings-, forsknings- och forskarutbildningsämne. Idag finns det idrottsvetenskapliga institutioner eller motsvarande vid tio lärosäten, och fem av dem har forskarutbildning. Forskningsämnena, som från början var pedagogik, historia och psykologi, omfattar idag över trettio olika ämnesdiscipliner.

Karin Andersson’s mixed methods dissertation employs a survey, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions to investigate the health consciousness of Les Mills International (LMI) group fitness instructors. Using Foucauldian concepts such as discourse and bio-power, the study examines instructors’ construction of their professional identity, and the link between professional identity and healthism, a discourse that promulgates health as an individual responsibility.

The concept of health is culturally contingent, and fitness practices provide a venue to gain insights into the construction of health. In this case study–based article, Karin Anderson focuses on group fitness instructors’ narratives on healthiness and fitness rituals. By combining Foucault’s notion of the ‘microphysics of power’ and the socio-cultural phenomenon healthism, Andersson employs a genealogical approach that reveals how healthism renders a discursive space for group fitness instructors to navigate their understanding of health norms.

Academics in various disciplines are writing about sport. Sport in Society is a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary forum for academics to discuss the growing relationship of sport to significant areas of modern life. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: New spatial practices in organised sport following COVID-19: the Swedish case by Karin Book, Susanna Hedenborg & Karin Andersson (open access).

In this feature article, Karin Andersson snd Jesper Andreasson summarize their recent article in Social Sciences, in which they explore how the COVID-19 pandemic and related measures, such as social distancing affect the everyday lives and professions of Les Mills International (LMI) group fitness instructors. According to the participants, online classes as a means of upholding group fitness in times of social distancing is an insufficient substitute to face-to-face instructing.

In order to gain a deeper understanding of how the governmental measures to limit the spread of corona virus affected physical activity, exercising habits, and the conditions for sport clubs, to both exercisers, sport supporters, and coaches this project was initiated. The purpose of the study is to report on how sport and exercise is affected, currently performed, and navigated both from a larger perspective – macro level – and on a lived individual micro level.