Youth Sport Participation Trends Across Europe: Implications for Policy and Practice.

Purpose: Despite the known health and wellbeing benefits of taking part in sport for children and adolescents, it is reported that sports participation declines during adolescence. The purpose of this study was to explore current organized youth sport participation rates across Europe for both males and females and update current understanding. Method: Sport participation registration data was collected for 18 sports from 27 countries. In total, participation data was collected from over 5 million young people from Under 8s (U8s) to Under 18s (U18s). Differences in the participation rates between age categories were investigated using a generalized linear mixed effects model. Results: Overall, males were four times more likely to participate in organised youth sport than females' participants, with this trend apparent across all age categories and across most sports. There was a significant decrease across sports in participation rates for males during adolescence from U14-U16 and U16-U18. There was a significant decrease in participation rates for females from U14-U16 for most sports except but an increase in participation rates from U16-U18 for 12 out of 18 sports. Soccer (1262%), wrestling (391%) and boxing (209%) were the sports that had greater male sport participation rates. In contrast, dance sports (86%) and volleyball (63%) had more female participants than males. This research shows male sports participation is significantly greater than female in youth sport across Europe. Conclusion: Furthermore, findings showed that for both male and female participants, participation rates increased from U8-U14 for the majority of sports followed by reduced participation rates during adolescence. Findings of this research can be used by national governing bodies and sporting organizations to inform youth sport participation initiatives.

Looking Back and Looking Around: How Athletes, Parents and Coaches See Psychosocial Development in Adolescent Performance Sport.

Sport has the potential to support psychosocial development in young people. However, extant studies have tended to evaluate purpose-built interventions, leaving regular organised sport relatively overlooked. Moreover, previous work has tended to concentrated on a narrow range of outcomes. To address these gaps, we conducted a season-long ethnography of a youth performance sport club based on a novel Realist Evaluation approach. We construed the club as a social intervention within a complex system of agents and structures. The results are published in this special issue as a two-part series. In this first paper, we detail the perceptions of former and current club parents, players and coaches, using them to build a set of programme theories. The resulting network of outcomes (i.e., self, emotional, social, moral and cognitive) and generative mechanisms (i.e., the attention factory, the greenhouse for growth, the personal boost and the real-life simulator), spanning across multiple contextual layers, provides a nuanced understanding of stakeholders' views and experiences. This textured perspective of the multi-faceted process of development provides new insights for administrators, coaches and parents to maximise the developmental properties of youth sport, and signposts new avenues for research in this area.

Roots to Grow and Wings to Fly: An Ethnography of Psychosocial Development in Adolescent Performance Sport.

This study aimed to explore the potential for sport to support psychosocial development in young people in a youth performance setting using a novel realistic evaluation approach. Part 1 of this two-paper series published in this Special Issue identified the programme theories-how the programme is supposed to work. A wide and deep network of context, generative mechanisms and outcomes responsible for psychosocial development in this youth performance basketball club emerged. The first paper also concluded that the outcomes and the experience are highly contextual and individualised. In this second part, the stakeholder's programme theories were tested during a full-season ethnography of the same club. Immersion in the day-to-day environment generated a fine-grain analysis of the processes involved, including: (i) sustained attentional focus; (ii) structured and unstructured skill-building activities; (iii) deliberate and incidental support; and (iv) feelings indicating personal growth. Personal development in and through sport is thus shown to be conditional, multi-faceted, time-sensitive and idiosyncratic. The findings of this two-part study are considered to propose a model of psychosocial development in and through sport. This heuristic tool is presented to support sport psychologists, coaches, club administrators and parents to deliberately create and optimise developmental environments.

Examining European Talent Development Environments: Athlete, Parent and Coach Perceptions.

Talent Development Environments (TDEs) aim to provide the appropriate conditions for youth athletes to realise their full sporting potential. How TDEs are designed and operated is therefore of great importance for the development of elite athletes. Stakeholders are vital in this process, yet their perspectives are poorly understood. This study assessed the quality of TDEs across 5 European countries, comparing athlete, parent and coach perceptions. A total of 571 athletes (Mean age = 15.2 ± 1.5 years), 759 parents and 134 coaches were recruited from TDEs across 27 sports. Participants completed the Talent Development Environment Questionnaire-5 or adapted versions. Overall, perceptions of European TDEs were positive. Coaches reported higher perceptions of TDE quality compared to athletes and parents, athletes reported marginally higher perceptions compared to parents. Across stakeholders, Long-Term Development was highest rated, followed by Communication. Support Network was lowest rated. Stakeholder perceptions varied most for the Holistic Quality Preparation subscale, highlighting perceived differences in TDE support for rounded athlete development. From an organisational perspective, identified strengths and weaknesses provide direction to coach and parent education. Practically, TDE leaders should consider how they can refine stakeholder coordination through integrating stakeholder perceptions as valuable feedback into their environment, especially for intangible factors.

No Coach, No Gain: The central role of the coach in the personal development of youth performance athletes

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