Youth Sport, Physical Activity and Play

Policy, Intervention and Participation

Andrew Parker, Don Vinson, Andrew Parker, Don Vinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136510380
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Physical Education

Sport, physical activity and play are key constituents of social life, impacting such diverse fields as healthcare, education and criminal justice. Over the past decade, governments around the world have begun to place physical activity at the heart of social policy, providing increased opportunities for participation for young people. This groundbreaking text explores the various ways in which young people experience sport, physical activity and play as part of their everyday lives, and the interventions and outcomes that shape and define those experiences.

The book covers a range of different sporting and physical activities across an array of social contexts, providing insight into the way in which sport, physical activity and play are interpreted by young people and how these interpretations relate to broader policy objectives set by governments, sporting organisations and other NGOs. In the process, it attempts to answer a series of key questions including:

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• How has sport policy developed over the last decade?

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• How do such policy developments reflect changes at the broader political level?

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• How have young people experienced these changes in and through their sporting lives?

By firmly locating sport, physical activity and play within the context of recent policy developments, and exploring the moral and ethical dimensions of sports participation, the book fills a significant gap in the sport studies literature. It is an important reference for students and scholars from a wide-range of sub-disciplines, including sports pedagogy, sports development, sport and leisure management, sports coaching, physical education, play and playwork, and health studies.

Part I

Policy

1 Youth sport and UK sport policy

Mike Collins

Introduction

In this chapter I begin by looking at recent and current sports participation in school and community by youth, and then at how sport policy interacts with other social factors, producing a kaleidoscope of groups and needs to which there are no simple policy responses: as stated by Macdonald et al. (2012: 21) ‘the discourses of sport clash and intersect with other discourses related to, for example, gender, religion, family, ethnicity, school achievement, work and the like’. I then summarise phases of UK youth sport policy and conclude the chapter with the short-term prospects for sport under the present Coalition government.

Youth sports participation

Numerous studies from around the world show four common patterns in terms of young people and sport: (i) post-school drop-out; (ii) a narrowing of activity choices; (iii) lower participation by women and girls; and (iv) a marked income/status gradient. Downward and Rasciute (2012) reworked data from three recent British surveys which demonstrated these continuing features in England. Those data also show a large gap for children with disabilities, despite nearly two decades of attempts at mainstreaming disabled children in local state (rather than special) schools (see also Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), 2011).

Over the years, many sociologists have argued that education would level out the class legacy gaps, but recent research on social mobility following up 1946, 1958 and 1970 birth cohorts in Britain (Bukodi and Goldthorpe, 2011) shows little evidence of this. Rowe, Sport England's Head of Research (Rowe et al., 2004) admitted that this was the most resistant of gaps. Other national occupational mobility studies from Germany, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands found similar patterns to Britain. Thus, the UK government's Game Plan (DCMS, 2002) strategy of trying to make British sports participation like that of Finland, thereby closing the gap from the fourth most unequal situation in the developed world to the third most equal (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009) in 16 years, never stood the slightest chance of succeeding (Collins, 2010).

Income and status reinforcing other social structural features in sport

I reiterate my argument (Collins, 2003) that the basis of most social exclusion is poverty/income inequality, but that other social features can ally and reinforce this in youth sport, including gender, sexuality, disability, ethnicity and social cohesion/disaffection. Interestingly, it is structural enough to appear also in expressions of sporting ability.

Gender

The 1989 National Curriculum was introduced with a premise that it would ensure ‘equal opportunities for all pupils’, but this did not happen, with still a wider range of sports for boys than girls, a majority policy attitude favouring team games, many of which are unpopular with girls, and competition promoted above recreation, embedding stereotypes of male masculinity. Clearly there is still gender inequality in coaching and in sports administration nationally and internationally, though countries like Norway have passed regulations to counter this (Ottesen et al., 2010), and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) set a target of 20 per cent female membership of National Olympic Committees (NOC) by 2005. Henry and Robinson (2010) reported that the IOC's target had been met, in that 21.3 per cent of members of NOC commissions were, by then, female and were usually very well qualified and active, but some saw this as a norm or maximum. To this end, there appears to be an ‘illusion of achieved gender equality’ (Azzarito, 2012: 77). Sport England is still concerned about this issue, having launched a £10m programme for Active Women in 2010, including £2.29m of Streetsports in various cities.

Sexuality

Sexuality is still a developing facet of sports research (Collins, 2012). Wellard (2012) spoke of a dominant adult, male, heteronormative model, based on dualist male and female roles, overshadowing other norms of sexuality, and not allowing sexuality in schoolchildren to be properly addressed, who often feel they cannot raise related issues (Dismore, 2007).

Disability

As already stated, children with disability have lower provision than the majority of schoolchildren (Collins, 2012; Sport England, 2001). Thomas and Smith (2009) and Goodwin and Peers (2012), however, have pointed to the plethora of domestic and international rules and classifications that make both participation and competition a maze, and reify differences. Improvements in teacher training provision, buildings and equipment planning, and the choice and design of activities are still needed to facilitate developments in this area.

Ethnicity and religion

Collins (2012) demonstrates that, while curricular provision includes all ethnicities, the gaps widen in club competition and in adult sport, particularly for Asian groups (and women). Religion has become part of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's portfolio of statutory equality policies, including for Sport England, but is only now being opened up by research. As for Muslim girls and women, Dagkas and Benn (2012: 112) have spoken of the ‘racialisation of religion’ (i.e. currently, Islam); there are popular misconceptions that Muslim girls and young women lack interest in sport, yet two in five mosques and Muslim centres provide multisport programmes for them as well as for boys and men (see also Farooq and Parker, 2009). The Koran neither forbids segregation of the sexes nor physical activity, but there are varying interpretations within Islamic groups over practical issues of singlesex provision and bodily modesty. This provides challenges for those in positions of leadership and management in schools, clubs and public facilities, and to pupils, parents and teachers alike. In schools this is hindered by the fact that PE has the lowest recruitment and retention of black and ethnic minority teachers (Flintoff, 2008). There are places in the UK, e.g. Birmingham, where Muslim girls are frequently withdrawn from PE, and the city has had to devise specific strategies to balance this (Jawad, Benn and Dagkas, 2012).

Youth sport and social cohesion

One strong focus of youth sport policy since 1980 has been the issue of socially costly outcomes of misbehaviour either on the pitch or in wider society by disaffected and delinquent youth (Collins, 2003). It is clear that many interventions are grossly under-resourced, poorly focused and with overambitious delivery, too short term and often returning youth to the toxic contexts that originally produced anti-social rather than pro-social behaviour (Coalter, 2007; Collins, 2012; Audit Commission, 2009; Nichols, 2007). In terms of wider social cohesion, Spaaij (2011) portrays the different ways in which, in Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro and Melbourne, local agencies and clubs have opened up opportunities for disadvantaged and immigrant youth in an attempt to build social capital.

Ability and performance

As a result of the ‘world-wide arms race for medals’ (De Bosscher et al., 2008), coaching for adults and children has received much attention and investment over the last 20 years. Bruner et al. (2011) have identified three important transitions in youth sport coaching:

• entry into sport (at around 5–7 years of age);
• movement into performance-based sports participation (around 12–14 years of age, though younger in gymnastics and trampolining) and;
• movement into recreational sports participation (also around 12–14 years of age).

Côté et al. (2012) continue by contrasting an efficient process of transmitting motor skills without any thought to allied costs to young athletes, and effective programmes focusing on developing appropriate competencies. Their concerns are that too much specialisation and coaching occurs at too young an age, driving out spontaneity and enjoyment. Hay (2012) has further suggested that coaching focuses too much on the anthropometric, physiological and psychological aspects of youth performance that can be measured and can act in exclusionary ways (see also Padley and Vinson, Chapter 10).

The social gradient in elite sport showed strongly in the national squads of 12 sports in the Development of Sporting Talent study (English Sports Council (ESC), 1998: 13):

the opportunity to realise sporting potential is significantly influenced by an individual's social background. So for example, a precociously talented youngster born in an affluent family with sport-loving parents, one of whom has (probably) achieved high levels of sporting success, and attending an independent/private school, has a ‘first-class’ ticket to the sporting podium. His or her counterpart, equally talented but born into less favoured social circumstances has, at best a third class ticket and at worst no ticket at all. The chances of the former achieving high levels of sporting success are very good while the chances of the latter are minimal. The differences in opportunity clearly affect the country's ability to compete and win in international competition.

It would be timely to repeat this study, but there is no reason to believe that the differences will have lessened. I now go on to consider how PE has been treated since 1960.

Phases of policy for youth sport in school and community

Collins (2011) identified three key phases in the development of policy in this area. These comprise:

• the Sports Council going solo: 1960s–1980s;
• the challenges of the 1990s;
• a double priority under New Labour: 1997–2010.

Table 1.1 sets out a chronology of major events in each period, on which I offer brief commentaries. Youth has been a constant policy priority, often to the exclusion of mature adults and older people who can derive health-related benefits at lower unit costs than their younger counterparts (Collins, 2010).

The Sports Council going solo: 1960s–1980s

PE has been a core subject in secondary schools since 1945, but it has often been looked down upon by teachers of academic subjects and administrators as ‘not a serious subject’ (Peters, 1966). Its resourcing is not cheap and, when public sports facilities were lacking, it made economic sense for communities and schools to share sites and equipment and to invest jointly (Department for Education (DfE), 1965). However, there was little or no contact between the DfE and the growing provision for sport by the Sports Council and local government before the 1990s – what Houlihan and White (2002: 63) called, first, ‘disdain’ and then, ‘neglect’. In the meantime, PE continued with basic movement learning and then games-based teaching – almost a hangover from Edwardian muscular Christianity; then some suggested a wider range of activities to meet the growing demand for individual and countryside pursuits and, from the 1980s, others sought a fitness and health-related diet. Squabbles between various factions did not endear PE to the education mandarins and, despite PE bodies merging, such tensions rumble on behind the scenes.

School populations and budgets had shrunk; pupil profiling and other stewardship tasks squeezed the time of non-specialist teachers supporting school sport; the Labour Party niggled at the idea of competitive sport. School sports facilities needed improving, there was no proper talent identification method, and coaching was very amateur, but the Sports Council promoted the National Coaching Foundation (NCF) in 1993, and Sue Campbell became its Head. Sebastian (now Lord) Coe, who was vice-chair of the Sports Council 1986–1989, constantly complained that British elite athletes were badly underfunded compared to their competitors.

The challenges of the 1990s

The 1990s saw some real changes in youth sport policy. Prime Minister John Major was the first to back elite sport, with a new national strategy Raising the Game (Department of National Heritage (DNH), 1995); sports science and medicine support started to develop, and the new National Lottery provided what Coe had wanted: income support for individual athletes’ training and support for their National Governing Body training programmes, in the Talented Athletes Scheme, leading in a few years to major improvements in medal-winning in several sports. The Lottery funded major provision at universities, which formed a distributed network of bases for the English Institute for Sport. The NCF – rebranded into Sports Coach UK in 2001 – developed an ambitious programme for a UK-wide professional structure (North, 2009), including specialist coaches for children; basic and increasing numbers of intermediate grade coaches were going into schools to support PE teachers. Sue Campbell identified a need for support for teachers of PE, including non-specialist primary teachers and, with patron Sir John Beckwith, started the Youth Sport Trust (YST) in 1994, which rapidly attracted funds and provided a wide suite of training, obtaining support from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), DCMS and Sport England, despite some minor frictions. A Lottery programme, Space for Sport and the Arts, started to improve school facilities from 1999.

Table 1.1 Major events for PE and youth sport in the UK (1960–2012)

The Sports Council going solo: 1960s–1980s
1960	Lord Wolfenden reported Britain lagging in facilities, support for elite; advisory Sports Council formed 1965; major progress in 1970s in sports halls, pools, golf courses through grant aid and advice to local authorities
1965	DfE A Chance to Share school facilities with communities
1983	National Coaching foundation formed, CEO Sue Campbell develops Champion Coaching to support PE teachers, coaches
1987	BBC Panorama documentary Is Your Child Fit for Life? provides early warning bell about ‘couch potato’ children – electronic games/computing give a growing threat to fitness (see Burrows and McCormack, 2012)
1988	Education Reform Act
1989	National Curriculum supposedly providing equal opportunities for all pupils; PE made a foundation subject 1991.
The challenges of the 1990s
1994	YST formed, with sponsorship then exchequer money for TOPs teac...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Youth Sport, Physical Activity and Play
• Part I Policy
• Part II Intervention
• Part III Participation
• Afterword: Reconsidering Youth Sport, Physical Activity and Play
• Index