The Nike Project

            Gareth Ward .
             Research has shown (Nike Project 2002) that between the age of 14 to 16, over 40% of young women stop taking part in sport. Consider the reasons for this.
             Women participation in sport is a modern day topic that evokes much discussion. The levels of women's participation in sport are increasing but levels of participation are not as great as their male counterparts. The Nike project has found that the major age group where women participation levels fall is between 14-16. This is to be expected due to the removal of compulsory physical education from the national curriculum at this age, but the levels of young women choosing to continue to participate in sport, at any level, are low. This report will look into the issues and reasons surrounding this, and attempt to give calculated feedback on the reasons why this occurs.
             Women's sport as a whole is moving in the right direction. For years women's sport has been perceived in the public eye as boring and uncompetitive. But as the standard of women's sport has improved, people have started to take a keener interest in women sport, and media attention has improved. The number of women competing in sport, or just simply joining a sports club, has risen greatly over the last decade or so. Women's participation in sport has risen since 1987 whilst men's participation has fallen. Excluding walking, women's participation increased by four percentage points to 38% between 1987 and 1996. In contrast, men's participation fell by 3 percentage points over the same period to 54% in 1996. (National Statistics, 1996) Women place and perception in society are changing and this is clearly visible in women's sport. The Founder of the modern Olympics and president of the international Olympic committee from 1896 to 1925, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, based his whole philosophy of sport precisely on the exclusion of women (Brooks R 2002).