Socialization through organized youth sports : A study of young people’s psychosocial development

The overall purpose of this study was to examine organized youth sports in Sweden and the possible influences over time (2 years) on some of the intended socialisation effects in terms of children’s and adolescent’s self-esteem, perceived physical and social competence, self reported pro- and antisocial behaviours, self reported psychosomatic health, and use of alcohol and tobacco. In an attempt to capture some of the complex social interactions in sports, which undoubtedly leads to different socialisation experiences, an additional purpose of this study was to examine possible relations between children and adolescent athletes’ dispositional goal orientations (task and ego), perceived motivational climate in sports, perceived sport-specific competence, perceived prosocial coaching and presumptive psychosocial effect variables. This study’s theoretical framework was primarily based on previous works by Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1992, 1995, 2001), Bronfenbrenner and Morris (1998), Nicholls (1984, 1989) and Patriksson (1995). The design of the study was a three-occasion longitudinal multiple cohort design including elements of retrospective questions. Data was collected from pupils residing in schools situated in Western and Middle parts of Sweden. The sample was based on a randomly stratified sampling procedure and comprised of 1378 pupils in total (10-18 years) distributed in primary school, lower secondary school and upper secondary school. The answering rate was high (T1=85%; T2=80%; T3=80%), but wave non-response made it necessary to impute missing data values. In total 1212 respondents were included in the final analyses. The main results showed that sport socialisation effects on youth’s prosocial development in general were rather small, with some minor exception for perceived physical competence and smoking tobacco. Consequently the results challenge the public notion that participating in organized sport “builds character.” Results related to the specific sport environment, though showed that organized sports have the potential to act as a more positive socialisation arena. It is proposed that creating a mainly task-oriented motivational climate, and helping the individual to foster a balance between task- and ego-oriented goal orientations, will increase the probability that young athletes will perceive higher levels of competence. This will, in turn, enhance the chance that participation in organized sports will have a positive effect on youths’ psychosocial development