Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

Den här artikeln undersöker hur kommersiella idrottsentreprenörer inom barn- och ungdomsidrott positionerar sig själva och sina verksamheter i förhållande till den svenska föreningsidrotten. Studien undersöker olika positioner som entreprenörer intar i relation till barn- och ungdomsidrotten och diskurserna som omgärdar den utifrån entreprenörers perspektiv. I resultatet lyfts tre olika positioner fram: (1) Den vanliga, passionerade barn- och ungdomsidrottsentusiasten; (2) entreprenörer som kompletterande aktörer i relation till föreningsidrott; och (3) företagarnas position i relation till det omgivande samhället. Sammanfattningsvis positionerar entreprenörerna sig inte som ett hot mot den svenska idrottsrörelsen. Men samtidigt hävdar de på olika sätt att deras verksamhet överträffar idrottsklubbarnas när det gäller att tillhandahålla idrott för barn och ungdomar. Dessutom tycks de positionera sina tjänster gentemot utvalda familjer framför andra, och verka inom en ram där barn- och ungdomsidrott i allt högre grad behandlas som en kommodifierbar enhet i det nutida samhället.

Child and youth sports entrepreneurs on a commercial playing field – a positioning analysis

This article examines how commercial sport entrepreneurs position themselves and their businesses in relation to Swedish voluntary youth club sport. The study investigates the various positions that entrepreneurs take in relation to youth sport and the discourses surrounding it from the perspective of entrepreneurs. In the results, three different positions are highlighted: 1) The regular, passionate child and youth sport enthusiast; 2) the entrepreneurs as complementary actors in relation to organized sports; and 3) the position of entrepreneurs in relation to the surrounding society. In conclusion, the entrepreneurs do not position themselves as a threat to the Swedish sport movement. But at the same time, they assert, in diverse ways, that their business surpasses those of sport clubs in terms of providing sport for children and youth. Furthermore, they appear to position their services towards selected families over others, operating within a framework in which child and youth sports are increasingly treated as a commodifiable entity in contemporary society.

The contexts in which young people participate in sport are diverse. In Scandinavia, as in many other countries, child and youth sport is mainly organised in non-profit, membership-based and voluntary driven sports clubs. In Sweden, this model is now challenged by commercial businesses providing child and youth sport services. The overall aim of this article is to provide empirically based knowledge about these ongoing and largely unexplored commercialisation processes. The focus of the article is to illuminate how commercial businesses produce immaterial values through the promotion of sport services. In this article, we have explored the cultural and social values produced and promoted by commercial businesses in youth sport. Drawing on the website communications of eight commercial businesses from four different commercial strands, we use the concept of immaterial labour to consider the values produced when child and youth sport is turned into a desirable product on the market. The values generated from the texts on the selected websites are the immaterial values of (i) competence, (ii) individually adjusted training and, (iii) happiness. These values are enunciated differently by the businesses in the different strands. We situate the findings in relation to western social and cultural values and discuss the potential consequences of these value productions for contemporary ideas about youth sport and the way it should be organised.

Recent scientific debate in sports has come to focus on how neuroscience can help in explaining sports performance and the development of expertise; and in the process of talent identification. It has been argued that instead of relying on coaches’ subjective assessments the process of selection should be based on general metrics of the brain through standardized testing.

Cognitive executive functions (CEF) are highlighted as one of most important neurological function in the search for talents. Studies of brain activity have suggested that children should undergo neuroscientific testing to determine the appropriate cognitive executive functions (CEF) for elite sports. This presentation builds on previous work on the implications of a neuroscientific ontology in sports and Bruno Latour’s work on the construction of scientific facts.

Using discourse analysis, the presentation discusses the production and popularization of CEF as scientific facts. In our findings we identify how representations of brain activity are visualized and legitimized and how the out-of-context tests are translated into facts about brain functions. The CEF test results are produced as inscriptions of undisputable facts, claiming that the results show prerequisites for sporting success. On the contrary, we argue that the mind-brain-behaviour relationship cannot be reduced to CEF tests. Instead, we urge other researchers to direct a critical gaze on neuroscientific truth-claims and taken-for-granted facts in the area of sport in general and in talent selection in particular.

This paper draws on detailed analyses of authentic coach-athlete-interviews during the final selection camp for the Swedish national youth team in hockey. The audio-recorded interviews between the coaches and the individual players (20 players and two national team coaches) covered various issues, involving both the individual players´ goal-setting and sports character, as displayed in his self-presentation during the interview. If the presumptive elite level player presented a vague or low goal or an overly humble self-presentation, this was contested by the coach through jokes, laughter or ironic teasing. Such conversational joking exchanges formed part of each coach´s toolkit for giving critical feedback to interview questions. In their uptake to the coaches playful corrections, the players were expected to engage in po-faced receipt or to laugh along. The selection involved character contests both on the ice rink and in the talk-in-interaction that formed part of the performance appraisal procedure.

One central issue in sports is the role of informal learning in organized child and youth sport in contrast to learning in the school context of physical education (PE). In Scandinavia, the model for organizing sports include an independent sports organization that organizes child and youth training on many levels, including the grassroots level and elite competitions organized within non-profit clubs and based on non-salaried voluntary work. In contrast to the public schooling context where physical education is led by educated and professional PE-teachers, organized child and youth club sports are based on parental engagement. Drawing on ten interviews with male coaches training their own children, this study examines how fathers are handling learning in the dual position as a father and a coach. This narrative analysis focuses on the theoretical concept of dilemmatic spaces in interviews and shows how shared cultural and societal storylines are used by the parental coaches in their personal stories. The results illustrate three dilemmatic spaces of learning that the participants must rhetorically handle. The first dilemma illuminates the dual position of both being a father, and at the same time acting as a coach. In the second dilemma, the fathers are seeking to balance between care of their child and increasing performance development. The third dilemma is balancing the training as child/parent quality time and the need for children to develop autonomy. The results show how the dual position of being a father and a coach can be both an asset in the relational building but also highly problematic and, in any case, involves a relational identity change. Learning in this dual position means that the fathers cannot act entirely as a coaches and disregard or override their parental position.

An increasingly central part of the scientific debate in sports has come to focus on how neuroscience can help to explain sports performance and development of expertise. In particular, the process of identifying young talents has been increasingly influencedby neuroscientific tests to identify future potential. It has been argued that instead of relying on coaches’ subjective assessments the process of selection should be based on general metrics of the brain through standardized testing. One key neurological functionhighlighted in the search for talent is cognitive executive functions. In the contemporary debate, studies of brain activity have suggested that children should undergo neuroscientific testing to determine the appropriate cognitive executive functions (CEF) for elite sports.This paper builds on previous work on the implications of a neuroscientific ontology in sports and Bruno Latour’s work onthe construction of scientific facts. Departing from discourse analysis,this paper studies the production and popularization of CEF as scientific facts. The findings illustrate how representations of brain activity are visualized and legitimized and how the out-of context tests are translated into facts about brain functions. The CEF test results are produced as inscriptions of undisputable facts, claiming that the results show prerequisites for sporting success.We argue that the mind-brain-behaviour relationship cannot be reduced to CEF tests and instead calls for a critical gaze on neuroscientific truth-claims and taken-for-granted facts in the area of sport.

Att samtidigt vara förälder och tränare innebär flera utmananingar och det kan vara svårt att skilja på de två rollerna. Men engagemanget som föräldratränare bidrar även till att bygga och stärka sociala band. Det visar en studie där tio pappor som tränar sina egna söner har intervjuats.

Vi är idag ständigt värderade och bedömda: som hyresvärdar på Airbnb, som arbetstagare under utvecklingssamtal och som potentiella partners på Tinder. Detta gäller också för barn i deras vardag. Bedömningar blir ett kvitto på en position i gruppen och i samhället i stort. Med hjälp av olika bedömningsverktyg positionerar vi inte bara oss själva och andra, utan vi blir också positionerade av förväntningar och normsystem. Ingen behöver påpeka att vi bör hålla oss i form, laga mat från grunden eller låta våra barn idrotta och konsumera teaterkultur hellre än att spela Fortnite. I detta självdisciplinerande samhälle kan vi alla se vårt värde i relation till samhälleliga ideal – men det kan också alla andra. Att utvärdera, bedöma och välja den bäst lämpade individen passar väl in i dagens idé om meritokrati. 

This article examines the long historical interest for the selection of young talented children in sports. This seemingly everlasting search for talents and the quest for the especially gifted is followed by the practice of trying to find and select the right individuals. This paper elucidates historical representations of talent and talent selection in a series of professional sports literature in Sweden during the 1930s, 1980s, 1990s and 2010s.

Drawing on a discourse analytic approach, it illustrates the historical understanding of selection and how such practices produce formations of legitimacy. The study shows how certain historical elements reoccur in contemporary selection discourse and how specific actions are transformed into personal characteristics. These selection processes construct a rationale for a legitimate selection and illustrate how talent selection is based on historically specific assumptions, normative and moral statements and activities connected to a specific discursive formation. This insight can underlines that talent selection cannot be understood as essential skills identified through observation, tests or interviews. It is rather to be understood as a discursive repertoire responding to a specific historical legitimacy.