Till vad fostrar ridsporten? En studie av ridsportens utbildningar med utgångspunkt i begreppen tävlingsfostran, föreningsfostran och omvårdnadsfostran

The purpose of this article is to analyze the importance and meaning of educationwithin one of the Swedish horse riding organizations – Ridfrämjandet. The organizationwas formed in 1948, and shortly after its establishment it is clear that it attractedespecially young people and children. Ridfrämjandet, as many other sports associations,achieved governmental subsidies for their youth activities and a large amount oftheir work was devoted to courses. The sociologist Tomas Peterson has used twoconcepts to characterize the educational strivings within the sports associations: educationfor competition and education for citizenship. Furthermore he has demonstratedthat the courses arranged by the Swedish Football Association soon after theirintroduction developed competitive characteristics. By contrast, the courses arrangedby Ridfrämjandet focused on citizenship education. In order to characterize the educationalstrivings in Ridfrämjandet, another concept has to be used as well – educationfor caretaking. It is possible that the caretaking characteristics in the equestrianorganization can be connected to the process of feminization