Social networks and gender in organized youth sports

Abstract

Sports are social, and the sociability of sports (e.g. individual experiences, group cohesion or generalised social trust) and its consequences (e.g. enjoyment, inclusion, or social capital) depends on the social networks in sports teams. In this study we investigate various types of social networks in sports-strong and weak-for boys and girls. We look at the number of social relations in each team (average degree), how centralised and hierarchical teams are, and how each team clusters and consists of subgroups. We hypothesise that: (i) Boys' and girls' teams differ in number of social relations, (ii) Boys' social networks are more hierarchical than girls' networks, and (iii) Girls' teams are more clustered than boys' teams. Network data from 387 adolescent athletes on 30 sports teams in football, handball, crosscountry skiing and biathlon were collected with an electronic survey-questionnaire. The results reveal large differences in network structures between teams. We find that the total number of social relations is higher in girls' teams, that there are small gender differences with respect to networks' hierarchies, and that girls' networks cluster more than boys' networks.

Friends in Sports: Social Networks in Leisure, School and Social Media

“…Our study is among the first to explore how social relations in sports develop, and there are many crucial and interesting questions that need future research. Previous research has shown gender differences when it comes to social networks in general [32] and in sports [66]. A first challenge then is to adopt a gender perspective and go deeper into the question of how social relations develop within the context of sports for boys and girls.…”

Exploring Network Measures of Social Capital: Toward More Relational Measurement

“…Graph-level measures are based on the sociocentric approach, which conceptualizes social capital as a collective asset. Most studies within the category used graph-level measures to examine social capital in sports teams (Bergesen Dalen and Seippel 2019), regional innovation networks (Eklinder-Frick, Eriksson, and Hallén 2014; Muscio, Lopolito, and Nardone 2019), resource management (A. P. Fischer et al 2014; Rova and Sandström 2010), tourism (Birendra et al 2018), biodiversity conservation (Tuda and Machumu 2019), and agri-food (Ramirez et al 2018).…”

“…The second step is to show the roster to respondents and ask them to check the listed names to see if they have specified relations. For instance, Bergesen Dalen and Seippel (2019) created a roster for thirty teams of athletes through a snowball sampling technique, in which the data collection started with the main author’s network of coaches and then expanded to other coaches who provided lists of their team members.…”

The role of family and social media in athlete social interactions

“…It will be further discussed if the sport is also a medium for interaction between one human and another. Dalen and Seippel (2019) Good communication within an athlete's family will affect the athlete's performance in the field, besides this also affects how athletes communicate to other people such as coaches, sports friends, and even the community when the athlete is outside the training environment (Erdner & Wright, 2018). Li et al, (2017) revealed that a child who has a good relationship in the family can communicate well at school, and can interact well with other environments besides school.…”