Kari Fasting

Life and work

The story behind the role.

Kari Fasting is Professor Emerita in the Department of Sport and Social Sciences at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. The institution identifies her as its first female rector and documents a long academic career in sport sociology and equality research.

Her principal safeguarding work examines sexual harassment and abuse in sport, including conduct by peers and coaches and the experiences of athletes of different genders. The school records that this became the main focus of her research over the two decades preceding its institutional award profile.

Fasting's work combines international sport-sociology research with institutional leadership. In 2021 the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences reported that she received the Dorothy Ainsworth Research Award in recognition of her international contribution to physical education and sport research.

Kari Fasting (born 1943) is a Norwegian sport sociologist. She was the first female rector of the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. Fasting worked at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences from 1972 until 2013, when she became a professor emerita. She became Norway's first female professor of sport when appointed as such in 1987. From 1989 to 1994 she served as the School of Sport Sciences' rector. Among her main fields of research have been equality and sexual harassment in sport. Fasting served as vice president of the International Sociology of Sport Association from 1990 to 1992 and president from 1992 to 1996, as well as sitting on the editorial board of its journal International Review for Sociology of Sport. In 2011 she received honorary membership of the International Sociology of Sport Association. She was later president of Women Sport International from 2003 to 2010. Fasting also received honorary degrees at the University of Bern, University of Chichester and Malmö University. In 2023, she was decorated as a Knight, First Class of the Order of St. Olav. She resides at Fossum, Bærum.

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