Natalie Barker-Ruchti

Natalie Barker-Ruchti is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Science at the Department of Food and Nutrition, and Sport Science, University of Gothenburg. Her research focuses on childhood high-performance sport, coach-athlete relationships, coaching practices, and gender dynamics in sport.

• Ongoing Project: Positive coaching practices: Towards best practice (financed by CIF)
• Email: natalie.barker@ped.gu.se

Research Trends: Her work combines critical theory (e.g., Foucault) with ethnographic and historical analyses, emphasizing gendered body practices, power structures in coaching, and cultural discourses around sport participation for marginalized groups like migrant youth.

Selected Articles: Recent publications explore Olympic synchronized swimming transitions, healthism in migration discourses, and 1970s gymnastics photography, reflecting interdisciplinary engagement with sociology, history, and pedagogy.