18. Research in Sports Pedagogy
Paper
Examining Sport Clubs as 'Missing Spaces' for Care-Experienced Young People in England
Rachel Sandford1, Thomas Quarmby2, Oliver Hooper1, Robert J. Booth1
1Loughborough University, United Kingdom; 2Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Sandford, Rachel;
Hooper, Oliver
Internationally, there has been growing interest in the lives of care-experienced youth and literature has highlighted the more significant needs and vulnerabilities of this population (Mannay et al., 2017). Care-experienced youth are routinely identified as among the most disadvantaged within society and ‘at risk’ of negative outcomes (e.g. relating to health, education, and life chances). Research shows that care-experienced young people are likely to have been exposed to greater incidents of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) – including physical and sexual abuse, and neglect – and that those who have experienced such trauma can suffer poorer physical and mental health (Denton et al., 2016; Dye, 2018). Such concerns are exacerbated by the fact that the number of young people being placed in the care of the state is increasing internationally (UNICEF, 2023). Concerns regarding the challenges care-experienced youth face have also led to a growing interest in activities that can better support their positive development, including sport/PA. However, there remain concerns about the piecemeal nature of such opportunities for care-experienced youth at a local level and, notably, their capacity to access formal, organised sport activities (Sandford et al., 2020).
This paper presents early findings from an ongoing study that seeks to examine care-experienced young people’s engagements with sport clubs. The Right to Be Active ‘Clubs and Coaches’ project (also referred to as R2BA2), builds on a previous study – the Right to Be Active project (R2BA) - which focused more broadly on the sport and physical activity (PA) experiences of care-experienced young people (see Sandford et al., 2021). Findings from the first R2BA project highlighted the complex social landscapes that care-experienced youth navigate on a day-to-day basis and noted the significance of people, places, and activities in shaping these engagements (Sandford et al., 2020; Sandford et al., 2021). For care-experienced youth to have ‘good’ experiences of sport/PA there needed to be an intersection of these key factors. However, the complex structure of the care context in England resulted, often, in a shifting landscape where opportunity and access to activities were problematic (Sandford et al., 2021). Consequently, some ‘missing spaces’ were evident for many care-experienced young people – with a notable example being sport clubs. Indeed, it was apparent that for many individuals the transient nature of their lives meant that it was difficult to both access and maintain connections with these more formal sporting contexts. However, those who were able to successfully engage with them often noted positive outcomes, such as personal growth, skill development and the acquisition of social capital. Thus, there is significant support for sport clubs to potentially aid positive youth development (e.g. Holt, 2016; Morgan et al., 2019) but these benefits are only available if young people can access these spaces.
Sport clubs are key spaces that are well placed to provide care-experienced youth with a sense of stability that is often absent from their lives and to facilitate valuable opportunities for developing positive relationships with peers and trusted adults, such as coaches (Quarmby et al., 2022). However, while there is a growing evidence base to draw on in relation to care-experienced youths’ engagements with sport/PA and physical education (O’Donnell et al., 2020; Sandford et al., 2021), there is currently a dearth of literature focusing on sport clubs and/or the role of coaches in supporting potential development. In focusing on sports clubs and the policies that shape practice within these, as well as the knowledge, perspectives and experiences of both coaches and care-experienced young people, it is intended that the R2BA2 ‘Clubs and Coaches’ project can help to address some of these gaps in knowledge.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe aim of the R2BA2 (Clubs and Coaches) project is to explore sport clubs as ‘missing spaces’ for care-experienced youth. This is considered to be important given the developmental potential of sport clubs and the difficulties reported by care-experienced youth in accessing and maintaining connections to these contexts. To this end, the project seeks to address the following questions: 1. What can we learn from the limited existing research about care-experienced young people’s engagements with sport clubs?; 2. What do sport clubs/coaches both know and need to know about care-experienced young people in order to shape positive sport/PA experiences?; and 3. What can we learn from care-experienced youth about their engagements with sport clubs that could shape future practice within these contexts? To address these questions, a mixed methods approach comprising a scoping review of relevant policy documents, online surveys, interviews/focus groups and interactive workshops has been designed. This presentation will present data only from the first phase of the project, which was the scoping review of policy documents relating to provision for care-experienced young people’s engagements with sports clubs.
Drawing on information from Sport England (a non-departmental public body with responsibility for encouraging and supporting participation in sport), a database was generated of recognised sport National Governing Bodies (NGBs) responsible for delivery within England (n=200). The website for each NGB was accessed and searched for relevant policy documents that might inform practice with care-experienced youth, focusing, in particular, on issues of equality, diversity and inclusion, safeguarding and welfare. These documents then underwent a qualitative content analysis (Flick, 2009), aided by utilising keywords for searching such as ‘care-experienced’, ‘children in care’, ‘looked-after children’ (a legislative term often used to identify care-experienced young people in England), ‘trauma’ and ‘duty of care’. Documents containing these terms were then read for contextual detail, with relevant information being transferred to the Excel spreadsheet detailing all entries. A further analysis of data within this spreadsheet was then undertaken to draw out key themes and ideas of relevance to the study.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsInitial findings suggest that the vast majority of NGB policies (n=162, 82%) have no overt reference to provision for care-experienced young people, with only 9 (4.5%) NGBs specifically making reference to this youth population. Instead, care-experienced young people are more likely to be visible as part of a broader efforts to recognise marginalised groups, address known disadvantage and ensure the inclusion of those with protected characteristics. Where this is the case, most references to care-experienced youth come via safeguarding policies and speak to the ‘duty of care’ that organisations have for those young people that they work with. Within these, there is some (limited) reference to recognising trauma and understanding the potential impact of this on young people, though this is largely framed within reporting structures. This scoping review raises some interesting points for further consideration. Firstly, it is notable that where NGBs specifically refer to care-experienced young people, these are often sports that would not be considered ‘mainstream’ or those typically accessed by/accessible to care-experienced youth (e.g., motorsports, aquathlon, fencing and skiing). Secondly, it is evident that few NGBs have bespoke policies but rather that there is some sharing of generic policy (e.g., around safeguarding and inclusion), which perhaps contributes to the lack of specific recognition of populations - such as care-experienced young people – with specific needs (e.g., related to the impact of trauma). Finally, the identification of protected characteristics as a key factor influencing efforts towards inclusion is interesting. While some local authorities in England have moved towards identifying care status as a protected characteristic (see MacAlister, 2022), this is not yet a standardised approach – though the analysis would suggest that it could help to facilitate care-experienced young people’s access to sports clubs. These points of interest will help to inform further phases of the study.
ReferencesDenton, R., Frogley, C., Jackson, S., John, M. & D. Querstret. (2016). “The assessment of developmental trauma in children and adolescents: a systematic review”. Child Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry. 2: 1-28. doi:1359104516631607.
Dye, H. 2018. “The impact and long-term effects of childhood trauma”. Journal of Human Behaviour in the Social Environment, 28 (3): 381-392, doi:10.1080/10911359.2018.1435328
Flick, U. (2009). An introduction to qualitative research (4th ed.). Sage
Holt, N. (2016) Positive Youth Development through Sport (second edition). London, Routledge.
Morgan, H., Parker, A., Meek, R. & Cryer, J. (2019) Participation in sport as a mechanism to transform the lives of young people within the criminal justice system: an academic exploration of a theory of change, Sport, Education and Society, DOI: 10.1080/13573322.2019.1674274
Mannay, D., Evans, R., Staples, E., Hallett, S., Roberts, L., Rees, A. and Andrews, D. (2017). The consequences of being labelled ‘looked-after’: Exploring the educational experiences of looked-after children and young people in Wales, British Educational Research Journal, 43(4): 683-699.
MacAlister, J., (2022). The independent review of children’s social care. The independent review of children's social care. Available at https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/birth-companions/file_asset/file/491/The-independent-review-of-childrens-social-care-Final-report.pdf Accessed 31.01.24
O’Donnell, C., Sandford, R. and Parker, A., (2020). Physical education, school sport and looked-after-children: Health, wellbeing and educational engagement. Sport, Education and Society, 25(6), pp.605-617.
Quarmby, T., Sandford, R., & Hooper, O. (2022). Coaching care-experienced children and young people in sport. In Toms, M. & Jeanes, R. (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Coaching Children in Sport. (pp 204 – 212). London: Routledge
Sandford, R., Quarmby, T., Hooper, O., & Duncombe, R. (2020). Right to be active: Final project report (Adult/Youth versions). Loughborough/Leeds: Loughborough University/Leeds Beckett University.
Sandford, R., Quarmby, T., Hooper, O. & Duncombe, R. (2021) Navigating complex social landscapes: Examining care experienced young people’s engagements with sport and physical activity, Sport, Education and Society, 26(1) 15-28.
UNICEF (2023) Children in Alternative Care. Available at https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/children-alternative-care/. Accessed 31/01/24.
18. Research in Sports Pedagogy
Paper
Coaching for "Fitting In": Coaches, Soccer, and Education in Professional Sports Clubs in Low-SES Towns in Israel
Tamir Erez1, Avihu Shoshana2
1Ono Academic Collage, Israel; 2Haifa University, Israel
Presenting Author: Erez, Tamir;
Shoshana, Avihu
One of the strongest cultural ideals in many Western countries is that education is the great equalizer, a panacea that can resolve socioeconomic and personal ills caused by structural inequality. At the same time, considerable evidence underpins the durability of inequality (Tilly, 1998). These include reports about the persistence of disparities between rich and poor, the increase in the Gini Index in many democratic countries, low socioeconomic (SES) mobility rates (Rivera & Tilcsik, 2016), and differences in the academic achievements of groups from different ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds (Lareau, 2015). In the context of this decline in the plausibility of the neoliberal assumptions about equal educational opportunity, educational anthropologists and sociologists have addressed at length the question of how to reconcile the promise of formal equity in schools with the stubbornness of class inequality.
In this context, many education studies have shown how formal education in schools has a central role in the transmission of social inequality and privilege through practices such as specific discourses, structural practices (such as tracking), pedagogies, and student-teacher relations (Calarco, 2018; Tyson, 2011). Only few studies have examined how these stratificational dynamics are manifest in informal spaces (Friedman, 2013). For example, some studies have described how enrichment programs, competitive after-school activities, and organized sports are closely associated with children's and parents' SES backgrounds (Andersen & Bakken, 2019). The current study proposes examining the linkage between SES and informal education through in-depth interviews with professional soccer coaches who coach high school students living in underprivileged urban neighborhoods in Israel.
Two main questions are explored in this paper: How do coaches who work in professional soccer clubs with low-SES youth perceive their role, their values, relations with the youths' parents, and the imagined future of the youth? Do the coaches' perceptions of their roles operate to perpetuate social inequality, and if so, how?
The findings revealed five primary themes reflecting the coaches' descriptions and explanatory accounts: a description of the youth athletes' life spaces, the coaches' perceptions of their own roles, the core values to which the coaches subscribe, the relationships between the coaches and the youth athletes' parents, and a description of the youth athletes' future orientation. These findings contribute to a discussion of the linkage between education, sport and SES or the implications of SES in informal education spaces.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedA total of 15 male soccer coaches from low SES localities were interviewed. All the coaches attended official training institutions for trainers and coaches in Israel and, at minimum, held a certificate of soccer counselor (the first level of coaching certification in Israel), which enables the certificate holder to coach children and youth. Half of the coaches held a coaching certificate (the second level in Israel), which authorizes them to coach youth and adult teams up to the amateur leagues level. Most of the coaches were not employed as full-time soccer coaches, working in at least one additional job during the workday for their primary source of income. They coached soccer as a part-time job in the afternoon and evening.
The participants were chosen through purposeful sampling (Patton, 2002). The primary criterion was their being coaches in competitive clubs and coaching teams of players aged 12–16. Appropriate interviewees were located through acquaintances at various clubs (team managers, coaches, directors). The first author had been a soccer player and now works as a field activity manager for a sports-related educational organization. These connections helped greatly in cultivating conversations with the coaches by utilizing concepts from their world, thereby gaining their trust.
The research method adopted for this qualitative study was semi-structured interviews. The interviews, lasting about an hour, consisted of several parts: coaches' background details; main values; parents’ expectations; working in various life spaces; and future orientation.
All the interviews were analyzed through grounded theory methodologies (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). First, transcripts were read openly to identify various themes freely mentioned by the coaches, independent of the research questions. For the next stage, focused reading was conducted per the research questions: the perception of the coach’s role; the primary values the coaches transmit to the players through coaching and play; parents’ expectations; and the youths’ future orientation. For the final stage, the transcripts were read to examine whether the coaches addressed various themes and issues other than those identified in the previous readings.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe findings reveal a linkage between position and disposition, highlighting that sports activities (or extracurricular education) are part and parcel of the endurance of inequality and intergenerational class replication (Bourdieu, 1978). The findings describe how the coaches expressed their role based on family-oriented metaphors, such as “father figure,” “father substitute,” and viewed themselves as providing their charges with a proper education not imparted to the youth by their parents. The coaches also emphasized the "parental" aspects of their work, (“to raise them”).
Moreover, the coaches frequently applied the perspective of deficit (Atkins, 2010), which is based on the numerous deficits and hardships affecting their youth (“economic poverty,” “cultural poverty”). They view their charges as “at-risk youth” who should be thwarted from “getting into trouble” and “engagement in criminal activity” by guiding them to take “the straight path”.
The future the coach-educators imagined for their students expressed a pedagogy of low expectations (“only few of them will succeed”). The coaches described the “regular” future path awaiting their students, including military service (compulsory in Israel for Jewish citizens), work, and family.
Consistent with studies of the linkage between education and class (Calarco, 2018; Lareau, 2015; Tyson, 2011), these findings have consequences for the maintenance of educational stratification, and how class operates in informal educational spaces. The coaches’ engagement with instilling discipline and obedience to the ideal norms, a product of specific social construction, comprises a hidden curriculum (Perry-Hazan & Birnhack, 2018).
we assert that the soccer coaches, who work with high school students at professional soccer clubs in low-SES towns in Israel, view their professional identity as characterized by good intentions, benevolence, and caring. However, this identity is prone to perpetuate social inequality.
ReferencesAndersen, P. L., & Bakken, A. (2019). Social class differences in youths’ participation in organized sports: What are the mechanisms? International Review for the Sociology of Sport 54(8), 921–937.
Atkins L. (2010). Opportunity and aspiration, or the great deception?” The case of 14-19 vocational education. Power and Education, 2 (3), 253–265.
Bourdieu, P. (1978) Sport and social class. Social Science Information, 17(6), 819-840
Calarco, J. M. (2018). Negotiating opportunities: How the middle class secures advantages in school. Oxford University Press.
Friedman, H. L. (2013. Playing to win: Raising children in a competitive culture. University of California Press.
Lareau, A. (2015). Cultural knowledge and social inequality. American Sociological Review, 80(1), 1–27.
Patton, M. Q. (2002) Two decades of developments in qualitative inquiry: A personal, experiential perspective. Qualitative Social Work, 1(3), 261-283.
Perry-Hazan, L., & Birnhack, M. (2018). The hidden human rights curriculum of surveillance cameras in schools: Due process, privacy, and trust. Cambridge Journal of Education, 48(1), 47–64.
Rivera, L. A., & Tilcsik, A. (2016). Class advantage, commitment penalty: The gendered effect of social class signals in an elite labor market. American Sociological Review 81(6), 1097–1131.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research techniques. Sage.
Tilly, C. (1998). Durable inequality. University of California Press.
Tyson, K. (2011). Integration interrupted: Tracking, black students, and acting White after Brown. Oxford University Press.
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