Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

Introduction: Youth participation in organized sport, a longstanding leisure-time activity in Sweden, is both popular and polarized. There are variations in levels of participation related to sociocultural aspects such as gender, socioeconomics, and demography. This ongoing doctoral project investigates young people's evolving engagement in different forms of movement culture, emphasizing and investigating young people’s taste for different forms of movement culture and their perceived reliance on digital technologies. Situated within the research school"School, sport, screens," the study primarily explores youth participation in movement culture. The project is, to some extent, a continuation of earlier studies regarding young people’s participation in movement culture (Larsson 2005, 2008, 2019; Nilsson 1998).

Aim and Theoretical Framework: This research examines young people's participation in movement culture and how it is valued and perceived in the digital era. Drawing on sociocultural and pedagogical perspectives, the theoretical framework, inspired by Bourdieu and Engström, incorporates the contextual role of digital technologies. Movement culture, defined as socially formed physical activity outside daily obligations (Engström, 2013), is used as a foundation to describe different forms of organized physical activity and is analyzed using Bourdieu's concepts of practices, logics, habitus, and taste.

Method and Selection: Using a mixed-method approach, the study combines interviews and a cross-sectional survey in four different Swedish regions. This enables a comprehensive exploration of participation influences and trends, including sociocultural factors and the participant’s own perceived reliance on digital technologies. Data collection spans from December 2023 to February 2024.

Results, Discussions, and Conclusions: Preliminary findings will be presented at the conference.