One of the boys? Doing gender in European Scouting

Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen.  2003

Abstract

This research report was commissioned by the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM). I would like to thank WOSM for entrusting me with this very interesting and challenging research task, in particular the Director and Deputy Director of Youth Programme, Dominique Bénard and Jacqueline Collier, at the World Scout Bureau in Geneva for all their support and cooperation. I would also like to thank the Centre for Women’s Studies and Gender Research at the University of Oslo for providing me with workspace and an inspiring scholarly environment. 

The project was carried out in collaboration with Scout leaders from different countries. They played an essential role in making this research project a reality, and most of their work in terms of data gathering and organising transcriptions and translations was done on a purely voluntary basis. My warm thanks to Martin Kristensen, Jesper Schaumburg-Muller and Ulla Voelker from Denmark, Fernando Fradique and Lídia da Conceição dos Santos Pedro from Portugal, Yulia Bulanova, Egor Sergeev and Evgeniya Shamis from Russia, and Sona Figedyova and Zuzana Mazancova from Slovakia. I would certainly also like to thank the leaders and young people in the troops studied in Denmark, Portugal, Slovakia and the Russian Federation (Bashkortostan and the Moscow region) for their hospitality and willingness to let their beloved Scout life be an object of study.

Several of my research colleagues in - and beyond - Norway took time to read various chapters of the report. This was an invaluable help, especially in terms of understanding the different national cultures. I am gratefully indebted to Ann-Dorte Christensen, Ning de Coninck-Smith, Haldis Haukanes, Alexandra Leontieva and Sverre Varvin. Alexandra Leontieva also helped me find statistics on Russia, and Stein Terje Vikan at UNECE (the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) in Geneva kindly checked other parts of the statistics. I thank them all!

The title of this report refers to "doing gender". Although this may seem to be an unusual expression, it is used consciously and you will soon understand what it means.

Relevance to Scouting

Research report on Scouting