Paper Presentation IX:
Gender and Participation in Sport
Sunday, April 11, 12.00–14.00

Britt Dahmen
German Sport University Cologne

Leadership in sport is still male dominated. Only about 20% of executive positions in German sport organizations are held by women– without much of a change within the past ten years. One of the recent most promising strategies to raise the potential for more equality is the development of formal mentoring-programmes. „Mentoring“ is defined as a close relationship between an experienced member of an organization (mentor) and a promising young trainee (mentee). Mentors guide and support their mentees in their career by introducing them to formal and informal structures and networks, sharing their career experiences and coaching them in critical situations. Building on years of experience of mentoring women in science and economy the sport sector now starts to establish special features for women in volunteering as well as employed leadership positions. The paper discusses on the one hand the different ways and central challenges of realizing mentoring schemes within volunteer sport sector in Germany. On the other hand it takes a close look on the effects of formal mentoring-programmes with regard to more equality in leadership. Considering the central agents of inequality in executive positions in sport (Combrink, Dahmen & Hartmann-Tews, 2006) the focus of these programmes lies on the potentials of individual development as well as structural changes.

The paper is based on evaluation studies of mentoring-programmes of five German sport organizations, including quantitative as well as qualitative data. Considering the challenges of sport organizations the meta-evaluation shows the special ways in which volunteer organizations mobilize participants (mentees and mentors) with respect to the fact that they follow a volunteering career (rather than a professional career). Regarding the possible effects for a medium-term change of hierarchy in leadership positions it will be shown that the women’s profit of mentoring-programmes is based predominantly on an individual basis. Potentials for long-term structural changes were identified, and the studies also pinpoint the special conditions that are prerequisites for a basic change of the causes of inequality.

Literature

• Combrink, Claudia, Dahmen, Britt & Hartmann-Tews, Ilse (2006). Leadership in Sport – A Question of Gender? In Ilse Hartmann-Tews & Bettina Rulofs (Hrsg.), Handbook Sport and Gender (p. 288-297). Schorndorf: Hofmann.
• Dahmen, Britt (2008). Mentoring and Equality in Sport. Cologne: Sportverlag Strauß.