A good education: girls' extracurricular pursuits and school choice

This paper draws on the case studies of six girls between the ages of 10 and 13 and considers their transition to secondary school and involvement in extracurricular sports. Within it, I explore how the girls' understandings of 'a good education' affects both their academic and extracurricular/sporting choices. Despite government educational targets which seem to value 'performative' academic results, I argue that ideas about a 'well-rounded student' continue to hold particular resonance for middle-class parents and students. Conversely, I suggest that models of excellence and achievement within education are increasingly echoed in students' sporting participation and that this has specific consequences for working-class and middle-class students. I draw particular attention to the girls' experiences of these systems with a view to their ability to convert physical capital accrued in physical activity into other forms of social or cultural capital.