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 sample
Data 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.
Conclusion
An 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.
References
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