Almost All Start But Who Continue? : A Longitudinal Study of Youth Participation in Swedish Club Sports

• Many young people in Sweden stop participating in club sports during their teens but some continue. Drawing on a longitudinal study, the aim of this article is to highlight some of the characteristics of teenagers who continue with club sports and to discuss the relation between club-sport participation, and social and cultural conditions with the help of Bourdieu’s theoretical framework. This is done by studying the characteristics of teenagers who do club sports at thirteen and sixteen years of age and comparing them with non-participants at the age of sixteen. In focus, are girls and boys (n = 289) who participated in both 2004 and 2007 by answering self-reported questionnaires on sporting activity in their leisure time, their academic success, and the social position of their families. The conclusion is that young people who possess specific dispositions and certain assets in terms of a habitus with a taste for sport and a cultural capital remain more often in club sports.

Keyword

club-sport participation

cultural capital

habitus

youth sport

Samhällsvetenskap/Humaniora

Social Sciences/Humanities

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)