| 1. |
- Downing, Charlotte
(författare)
-
Early specialising aesthetic performers : An investigation of conceptualisation, motivation, and context
- 2023
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral research project is situated within the wider debate of talent development in so-called early sports, where early specialisation is often normalised. The overarching aim is to investigate early specialisation within the context of Swedish aesthetic activities. Two research questions guided this research: 1) what characterises early specialisation, and 2) in what ways are aspects of early specialisation related to motivation?This doctoral research project includes four individual papers. The first paper is a systematic review that investigated the contextual underpinnings of recommendations regarding early specialisation and psychological aspects (e.g., motivation, burnout). The second paper outlines the development of a measurement tool for capturing degrees of early specialisation within the context of Swedish aesthetic activities. The third paper is a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study which used this measurement tool to explore the relationship between degrees of early specialisation and motivation (autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and dropout intentions), and explored perceptions of parental influence as a moderator. The fourth paper is a qualitative interview-based study that investigated reflections on motivation throughout the training history of high-level gymnasts and figure skaters who specialised early. Additional data regarding perfectionism and parental participation in sport, collected in relation to this research but not included within the four papers, is also outlined and discussed in this thesis. Results highlight the complexity of early specialisation in terms of how it is defined, measured, and conceptualised, as well as the possible relationship to psychological aspects (e.g., motivation, perfectionism). Overall, the results do not align with the notion that early specialisation leads to lower quality motivation and an increased risk of dropout. While this research has made methodological, theoretical and empirical contributions to this research area, it is also clear that more research is needed to better understand and explain the possible outcomes often associated with early specialisation.
|
|
| 2. |
- Karlsson, Jesper
(författare)
-
Barn- och ungdomsidrott till salu : Om begär, immateriellt arbete och kommersialisering
- 2022
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In recent decades scholars have noted a trend in Swedish child and youth sport, namely that businesses are emerging parallel to the Swedish Sports Confederation (SSC), Sweden’s leading ideally driven sports organisation. Despite this recent trend of businesses starting to organise child and youth sport, research on the phenomenon is as yet scarce. This is also true for the overarching research area of the commercialisation of youth sport. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to analyse how commercially driven child and youth sport in Sweden functions and how leading representatives from child and youth sport businesses perceive Swedish child and youth sport.The thesis consists of four sub-studies. Three of the studies are based on data from different child and youth sport business websites, while the other is based on data from interviews with leading representatives from different child and youth sport businesses.The results identify four different commercial de-territorialisation processes that have been established, or territorialised, in Sweden. These four de-territorialisation processes consist of businesses that target their services to different potential customers groups. They also identify how the different businesses produce immaterial values regarding child and youth sport in order to attract potential customers. These values are enunciated differently depending on the kind of de-territorialisation processes the businesses stem from. Furthermore, the thesis illustrates that in their website images the businesses often visually represent their ideal customers as white boys and girls who are actively pursuing some kind of sport. It also shows that the leading business representatives position themselves and their services as passionate sport enthusiasts, child and youth sport actors and actors in a changing society.The conclusion is that the commercialisation of child and youth sport functions in four different ways and creates boundaries between ideally- and commercially driven sport. The challenge for ideally driven sport is to keep control over sport as a social and cultural product. This is especially important in a post-industrial society, where businesses aspire to take control of the social and cultural content of sport and make it profitable
|
|
| 3. |
- Waerner, Thérèse, et al.
(författare)
-
Participation Rights in Youth Sport: Voices of Young Swedish Equestrians
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Young - Nordic Journal of Youth Research. - : Sage Publications. - 1103-3088 .- 1741-3222.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Convention on the Rights of the Child states that all children and young people have the right to have a voice in matters concerning them, in accordance with age and maturity. In the endeavour to make youth sport a safe place free from abuse and harassment, it is crucial to ensure that young athletes can exercise their participation rights. Drawing from an online study involving over 550 Swedish young equestrians aged 15–17, the aim was to investigate whether and in what ways young equestrians can make their voices heard. The results show that the possibility to have a voice is conditioned by sociocultural factors such as what type of stable the youths are active in. The results are analysed from ‘The ladder of participation’. In sum, social interaction and access to horses are important conditions for how young equestrians experience the possibility to have a voice.
|
|
| 4. |
- Agergaard, Sine, et al.
(författare)
-
Children's Rights to and in Sport : A Comparative Analysis of Organizational Policies in the Scandinavian Countries
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Social Sciences. - : MDPI. - 2076-0760. ; 13:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It has long been stated that children have the rights to protection from, e.g., abuse and to the provision of age-appropriate leisure, play, and recreational activities along with participation in all matters that concerns them. Yet, the full range of children's rights to and in sport has not yet been explored in detail. To do so, it is relevant to turn to the Scandinavian countries, which are praised for promoting children's rights and well-being, with organized sport forming part of the daily lives of many children and youths. In this paper, we examine the organizational policies in Scandinavian sport in order to develop foundational knowledge about how the range of children's rights to and in sport may be supported. Comparing key policy documents of the major sports confederations in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, these analyses identify great variety in the following: 1. when and how children's rights to and in sport have been made explicit in the three countries; 2. whether the emphasis is on protection and/or provision of sport to children and youths or their participation in shaping sporting activities; 3. the degree to and ways in which such rights are regulated. In sum, our findings reflect a disparity between organizational policies in the three countries, with a more liberal and individualistic approach to public policy in the Danish context, providing some explanation of the only recent development in and scattered enaction of regulations to support children's rights to and in sports. Furthermore, we identify that political attention has mainly been drawn to the protection and provision of sports to children and youths, while their participation in shaping sport is a shared challenge for sport confederations in the Scandinavian countries and beyond.
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
- Redelius, Karin, Professor, 1961-
(författare)
-
Exploring young athletes (social and political) participation rights
- 2023
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- During the last decades there has been a growing interest in issues concerning children’s rights in sport, and problems that concern the welfare and well-being of youth in sport have been addressed. Research acknowledges for example the role of overtraining, sexual and emotional abuse, burnout and dropout (David, 2005; Donnelly, 2008; UNICEF, 2010). One aspect that is less studied but nevertheless has been pointed out as an important factor that may prevent many violations, is to secure that youth always have a voice i.e., to guarantee that they can exercise their participation right This endeavor is tantamount to the intentions in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). It concerns the child's right to express his or her views in all matters that concern them. A child is regarded a person up to 18 years of age which means that the convention also covers those we usually call youth. In this study, we are inspired by Elvstrand (2009) who acknowledges that participation is part of the concept of democracy and thereby has a broad meaning that includes both the right to influence and the right to be included. In that sense, we assume that it is possible to distinguish between different forms of participation – a political form and a social form. Political participation is about the right to influence, to have "a voice", and to be part of decision-makings. For this to be possible, young people need information, be asked, and encouraged to comment and be listened to. In other words, young people should be included in such a way that the practice can be designed to suit their needs and desires). Social participation is about the right to be included and part of a community, for example to be part of sporting activities carried out in a club. We are thus seeing the concept of participation both as a social right (to be a part of a group, such as a gymnastic or ice hockey club) and as a political right (to have an impact and the power to influence decisions).One premise for this study is that having something to say about one’s participation is closely related to whether the participants are primarily constructed as subjects of experience and willingness, or as objects of external forces and demands, and this is in turn affected by norms and values that dominate different sporting practices. We are thus interested in illuminating young peoples’ chances to be subjects in their own thinking and acting when participating in movement cultures of various kinds. Consequently, both young participants and adult coaches are regarded as socio-culturally situated.The aim of this study is to examine young athletes' perspectives on different forms of participation and to analyse the conditions for competitive sports participation in club sport. Central questions are: What experiences do young athletes have of social and political participation in club sport? What are the possibilities in general for young athletes to have something to say about central matters, such as goal settings, training frequency, training content, selections, tactics, and team rules? Method and sampleData was gathered through an on-line questionnaire answered by 426 young athletes aged 15–17. They were active in four different sports: gymnastics (57), football (116), floorball (120) and ice hockey (133) in sport clubs in from the regions of Stockholm and northern Sweden. The average age was 15.5 years, and the gender distribution of the sample is 221 boys and 205 girls. About one of four were active in an academy team or a selected competition group. The sports were selected to include both a team sport and an individual sport that are well established among children and youth in Sweden. While athlete voice should be of key importance across all sports, we argue that the sports they represent are particularly interesting contexts from which to explore degrees of participation. Football and gymnastics are among the most popular sports for children yet concerns over athlete voice within these contexts have been reported. In football, recent research has highlighted that several regulations and policies from Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) contradict the UNCRC . For example, a blanket ban in international transfers for players under 18 years became a policy without any input from children (Yilmaz et al., 2020). In gymnastics, there is a long-standing tradition for early selection and reaching elite level at an early age Recently, former gymnasts have also stepped forward and voiced stories of abuse happening when they were younger (Barker-Ruchti, 2009). Therefore, we view football and gymnastics as important sports to explore in relation to participation and children’s rights. There is even less scientific knowledge about how the conditions for young ice hockey players are regarding their particpation rights, although a wealth of research points at strong hegemonic masculine norms that prevail the hockey culture and calls have been made for investigations about the potentially problematic consequences a community based on undemocratic attitudes and values may have for young individuals. This study is responding to these calls.ConclusionAn important result is that young athletes’ participation is ambiguous; it is both high and low at the same time. Their experience of social participation is quite large, to a lesser extent they experience political participation (some more than others), and they can to a small or no extent at all affect the conditions for their competitive sport participation. The question is what the consequences may be of young people's participation being large and highly limited at the same time.One conclusion is that this ambiguity is part of the explanation why the voice of young athletes are not stronger. The social participation that many feel in the form of a sense of community and belonging seems to "infect" their experience of political participation; that is our interpretation because the majority of young athletes can hardly be said to have any real influence over how their sport is being organized. The fact that they experience a certain kind of participation thus risks hiding shortcomings regarding other forms of participation, which can also be a reason why the problem is downplayed and reduced. Research in this area shows that young people's participation is not a prioritized issue to work with for sports clubs. Whether it is due to lack of interest or lack of knowledge is difficult to know, but perhaps the weak commitment can be attributed to the ambiguous participation - the shortcomings are simply not visible and then the incentives to work to strengthen young people's participation in sports clubs are as great. ReferencesBarker-Ruchti, N. (red.) (2019). Athlete Learning in Elite Sport. New York: Routledge.Cervin, G., Kerr, R., Barker-Ruchti, N., Schubring, A. & Nunomura, M. (2017). Growing up and speaking out: Female gymnasts’ rights in aging sport. Annals of Leisure Research, 20(3): 317–330.David, P. (2005). Human Rights in Youth Sport: a critical review of children’s rights in competitive sports. Routledge: London and New York.Donnelly, P. (2008). Sport and human rights. Sport in Society, 11(4): 381–394.Elvstrand, H. (2009). Delaktighet i skolans vardagsarbete. Institutionen för beteendevetenskap och lärande. Avdelningen för pedagogik i utbildning och skola. Linköping: Linköpings universitet.Hartill, M. & Lang, M (2018). Official reports of child protection and safeguarding concerns in sport and leisure settings. Leisure Studies, 37(5): 479–499.Hong, F. (2006). Innocence lost: Child Athletes in China. I: D. MacArdle & R. Giulianotti (red.), Sport, Civil Liberties and Human Rights. London: Routledge.Lang, M. & Hartill, M. (red.) (2015). Safeguarding, Child Protection and Abuse in Sport: International perspectives in research, policy and practice. New York: Routledge. Lang, M. (2022). Advancing children’s rights in sport: coaching childhood agency and the participatory agenda. Sport Coaching Review, e-print: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21640629.2021.1990655
|
|
| 7. |
- Redelius, Karin, Professor, 1961-
(författare)
-
Ungdomsakademier – en miljö för de bästa – i den bästa miljön?
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Program Svensk förening för beteende- och samhällsvetenskaplig idrottsforskning (SVEBI) årliga idrottsvetenskapliga konferens. ; , s. 47-48
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- IntroduktionEn trend inom den organiserade idrotten är framväxten av så kallade akademier. De förekommer inom olika idrotter och drivs ibland av privata aktörer, men oftast utgör de en del av en förenings barn- och ungdomsverksamhet. I Sverige finns drygt 60 fotbollsklubbar på herrsidan som bedriver akademiverksamhet. Enligt Svensk Elitfotboll (2019) innebär fotbollsakademier att ”talangfulla ungdomar tränar fotboll i ett elitsatsande syfte”. I akademiverksamheten befinner sig alltså de ungdomar som anses vara de mest talangfulla och därmed är det en statusfylld och värdeladdad verksamhet, som ofta framhålls som föredöme (se SvFF:s hemsida). Svensk Elitfotboll (SEF) utvärderar årligen denna ungdomsverksamhet enligt ett specifikt certifierings- och poängsystem. Syftet är att ur olika aspekter kvalitetssäkra klubbarnas arbete med spelarutbildning i åldern 10–19 år. De klubbar som granskas kan få maximalt 10 000 poäng och upp till sju stjärnor. Frågan är vad som värdesätts – vika parametrar ger poäng och vad anses vara en god utvecklingsmiljö. Syfte och teoretisk ramStudien utgör en del av ett större forskningsprojekt, Idrottens barn på 2020-talet, där det övergripande syftet är att utforska och analysera relationen mellan barn- och ungdomsidrottens centrala retorik och dess lokala praktik. I denna pilotstudie riktas blicken mot ungdomsakademier för fotbollsspelande pojkar, med särskilt fokus på certifieringssystemet för kvalitetssäkring. Syftet är att kritiskt granska systemet ur dels ett pedagogiskt perspektiv, dels ett barnrättsperspektiv. Centrala frågor är: Hur konstrueras en god utvecklingsmiljö? Vilken syn på pedagogik och lärande är framträdande? Vilka aspekter som värdesätts kan relateras till ett barnrättsperspektiv? Vad värdesätts inte? Det teoretiska ramverket utgår från Pierre Bourdieus begreppsapparat, främst symboliskt kapital och doxa, och inspiration hämtas även från den nya barndomssociologin MetodMetoden utgörs av en text- och innehållsanalys av det certifieringssystem som används av organisationen Svensk Elitfotboll för att certifiera fotbollsakademier för pojkar som drivs av herrfotbollsklubbar. Materialet som analyseras är ”Akademicertifieringen 2022: en nationell rapport som utgörs av 154 ppt-bilder.DiskussionDiskussionen och slutsatserna kommer att kretsa kring frågan om akademier, som sägs utveckla de bästa ungdomarna, också utgör den bästa utvecklingsmiljön.
|
|
