‘Rings on the water’: examining the pedagogical approach at a football program for detained youth in Sweden

Abstract

Studies indicate that sport within youth institutional settings can be beneficial (e.g. learning social skills) or problematic (e.g. social exclusion) depending on how they are structured, delivered and, ultimately, experienced by students. In this article, we examine the experiences of students and staff in an educational sport program at a Swedish all-male youth detention home (ages 16-20) in order to increase understanding of the pedagogical approach of a sports-based program for detained youth. Drawing on interviews with both students and staff, we identify and elaborate four aspects of the program-building a pedagogical platform, 'seeing' and meeting students, creating a supportive environment, and thinking beyond the institution-that were collectively represented to initiate and guide a process of growth and change for students. We discuss how these aspects of the program's pedagogical approach, in contrast to deficiency-based approaches, can provide a useful framework for delivering sport in ways that can benefit detained youth and other young people in socially vulnerable situations.

Pedagogies of Sport in Youth Detention: Withholding, Developing, or Just “Busying the Youth”?

“…When education is viewed as seeing potential in and empowering or enriching the lives of students, doing education in the correctional setting is framed as a contradictory endeavor (Sayko 2005;Costelloe and Warner 2014). This is consistent with a body of Swedish research (Gerrevall and Jenner 2001;Hugo 2013;Roe et al 2019) wherein youth detention is considered to have a "pedagogical calling," or mission, concerned with the growth and development of placed students. These studies reflect a continental European notion of pedagogy as a moral or ethical practice (van Manen 2015), having a calling or responsibility to do what is best for young people, and to guide or lead them accordingly.…”

“…The third pedagogy described in this study was sport as developmental community , where sport was situated as a platform for creating opportunities for students to learn or develop in ways that were experienced to broaden their future horizons. What characterized this pedagogy, and stands in contrast with the other pedagogies, was a message that “you can do this, you have opportunities here,” a message that seems more in line with an educational approach to doing sport (see also Roe et al 2019). Conceptually, doing sport as developmental community can be likened to creating “spheres” (Wright and Gehring 2008) or “free zones” (Hugo 2013)—spaces that stood in contrast to the correctional experience (see e.g., Young-Alfaro 2017).…”

“…Increasingly, youth justice and compulsory care systems have taken interest in sport-based interventions as an innovative way to engage with and facilitate pro-social development for placed youth (see Meek 2014; Morgan et al 2019). Recent research suggests numerous benefits for educational sport in youth justice contexts, including crime reduction, pro-social identity formation, the development of self-confidence and socio-emotional skills, improvement in mental and physical health, and, more generally, optimism and hope for the future (Meek 2014; Meek and Lewis 2014; Parker, Meek, and Lewis 2014; Roe, Hugo, and Larsson 2019). However, while such benefits are attributed to socio-pedagogical processes of sport, rather than participation in itself (Meek 2014; Morgan et al 2019; Roe et al 2019), studies have paid little attention to pedagogies of sport in youth detention, that is, how sport is conceived, delivered, and experienced.…”

“…Although sport is an important aspect of youth detention, often considered to contribute to the rehabilitation of placed youth (Andrews and Andrews 2003; Morgan et al 2019; Parker et al 2014; Roe et al 2019), there is a dearth of ethnographic research examining the role of sport in youth justice contexts. In this article, I examine pedagogies of sport in youth detention, based on ethnography at two all-male youth detention homes (aged 16–21) in Sweden.…”

“…Background: Examining (Sport) Pedagogies in Youth Correctional Settings Roe et al (2019) suggest that sport in youth justice contexts should be understood in relation to its pedagogical practice, that is, how sport is conceived, how it is delivered, and how it is experienced by young people. The theoretical approach of this study is that constellations of discourses (the ideas and structures which guide our practice), practices (pedagogical action) and lived experiences (what young people live through, and what this means for them in their unique lifeworlds) constitute pedagogies, as in significant ways of guiding or forming youth.…”