Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

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Talent stories in youth sports: discursively shared narratives of success
Stockholms universitet.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8684-3724
2017 (English)In: Narrative Inquiry, ISSN 1387-6740, E-ISSN 1569-9935, Vol. 27, no 1, p. 47-65Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Success stories are a frequently investigated genre of shared cultural narratives. This paper will pay particular attention to success stories in sports and investigate how young participants in selection camps in soccer and hockey are using a set of shared narratives in order to produce their personal stories of success. By looking at narratives-in-interaction in this specific context, these interviews are investigated as a narrative genre. The analysis shows how a set of shared narratives are used in storylines in order to legitimize the personal story of success and how a number of dilemmatic spaces are addressed. This study shows how personal success stories are intimately tied to “discursively shared narratives” and how this context constitutes a specific narrative framework.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2017. Vol. 27, no 1, p. 47-65
Keywords [en]
success-stories; talents in sport; talent selection; culturally shared narratives; narrative genre; discursively shared narratives
National Category
Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified
Research subject
Social Sciences/Humanities
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:gih:diva-5414DOI: 10.1075/ni.27.1.03kilOAI: oai:DiVA.org:gih-5414DiVA, id: diva2:1247091
Available from: 2018-09-11 Created: 2018-09-11 Last updated: 2020-06-02Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Talking Talent: Narratives of Youth Sports Selection
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Talking Talent: Narratives of Youth Sports Selection
2017 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

In sports, there seems to be an eternal interest in discovering young talents and refining them into elite adult athletes. The dilemma of selecting talent, while at the same time ensuring every child´s right to participate, needs to be addressed and have consequences in social practice. This dissertation elucidates the discourse of selection and the process of selecting young sporting talents during final selection camps for youth national teams in football, hockey and floorball in Sweden. More specifically, the aim is to analyze how talent selection is organizationally legitimized, how “selectability” is produced in interaction and how specific narratives are used in success-stories. The empirical material includes research interviews, performance appraisal interviews (between district or national team coaches and the player) and field studies during ongoing final selection camp. Drawing on a discursive-narrative approach, the aim is to investigate how selection is discursively legitimized and, by using narrative analysis, how positioning in talk-in-interaction functions. The first article investigates the construction of legitimate selection within the Swedish Sports Confederation by analyzing their organizational documents, sport journals and literature for coach education. The findings show how a specific set of narratives are used to legitimize selection and how legitimacy works both individually to those within the selection system and on a wider arena of welfare politics. The second article investigates the co-construction of selectability in small story-interaction during interviews between the coach and a player in the final selection camp. The analyses highlight how this narrative genre produces certain stories and preferred positions. The third article analyzes how the young participants, in research interviews during final selection camp, uses discursively shared narratives to produce personal stories of success. The findings illustrate how the personal stories of success are balancing the dilemmatic space, positioning yourself as outstanding and at the same time appear a humble team player. The principal contribution of this dissertation is to show how talent is organizationally legitimized and how selectability is produced in interaction, as well as illustrate how specific stories are used in stories of success. This work investigates the discursive framework for selection and how rationalities for talent selection are produced (and reproduced) and coconstructed in narrative interaction. In this apparatus of selection it takes more than physical talent to be chosen; it takes talking talent.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Stockholms universitet, 2017. p. 208
Keywords
talent; selection; talent in sports; narrative analysis; narrative genre; discourse; discursively shared narratives; positioning
National Category
Sport and Fitness Sciences
Research subject
Social Sciences/Humanities
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:gih:diva-5418 (URN)10.13140/RG.2.2.28877.03047 (DOI)978-91-7649-616-9 (ISBN)978-91-7649-617-6 (ISBN)
Public defence
2017-03-10, De Geersalen, Geovetenskapens hus, Svante Arrhenius väg 14, Stockholm, 10:00 (Swedish)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2018-09-11 Created: 2018-09-11 Last updated: 2018-09-11Bibliographically approved

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Kilger, Magnus

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