The Youth Olympic Games as an arena for Olympic education: An evaluation of the school program, “Dream Day”

Abstract

The promotion of Olympic education through Olympic events has received increased attention among researchers. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) as an arena for Olympic education based on the perceptions of the pupils participating in the school programme "Dream Day" during the YOG 2016 in Lillehammer, a former Olympic city in Norway. Didactical principles for Olympic education (Naul, 2008) are adopted as an analytical framework. This is a qualitative case study using interviews, observations and personal essays of participating pupils as the main sources. Based on the findings in this paper, we argue that the YOG have significant potential as an arena for Olympic education. However, this potential is not yet utilized, and the following implications for future practices are presented. First, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) needs to put more effort into the implementation of Olympic education programmes. Second, the implementation of Olympic education programmes should be a collaboration between different groups and disciplines, including youth representatives. Third, corroborating Naul's (2008), the pupils' socio-cultural backgrounds have to be taken into account in order to meet the needs of the participating youth. Finally, the Olympic education programme should have a long-term perspective where the Games are used to increase the educational effect.

Exploring the Games’ Intangible Legacy on Individuals: A Longitudinal Study of Teacher’s Community

“…Second, the success of the OEP has implications in terms of daily physical education and new talent development in school settings. This program is an opportunity to increase awareness of the Olympic values and a pedagogy orientation to foster Olympic Education through Physical Education classes (Nordhagen and Fauske 2018). In this sense, it is crucial that schools' coordinators and teachers understand it as a continued endeavor beyond the Olympics-hosting time period.…”

“…Second, neither the scientific literature nor the International Olympic Committee offer a comprehensive and reliable scale to measure teachers' attitudes about Olympic education programs after the Games. Although recent studies have started analyzing this approach (e.g., Nordhagen and Fauske 2018;Sukys et al 2017), their attention has essentially been placed on the educational program's impact on children and young people, and, therefore, there is a lack of understanding of how intangible assets for teachers should be measured. While the targeted beneficiary group of the program is children and young people, teachers also play an important role as a change agent creating opportunities in teaching the sports ).…”

Leveraging sporting events to create sport participation: a case study of the 2016 Youth Olympic Games

“…Regarding the 2016 YOG, Strittmatter and Skille (2016) found that the NIF's strategy to implement youth sport development goals during the 2016 YOG was limited to a rather unsuccessful youngleader programme, while the recruitment of young athletes was largely neglected. According to Nordhagen and Fauske (2018), the main school programme during the 2016 YOG (Dream Day) did inspire some of the pupils who were already active to increase their participation in sport.…”

The Olympic Games’ impact on the development of teachers: the case of Rio 2016 Official Olympic Education Programme

“…Is it possible to state that the ROEP has had a positive effect on the teachers' knowledge about Olympism? Even though there have been attempts to analyse the educational programmes' effects after the event was staged (Schnitzer et al, 2018;Nordhagen & Fauske, 2018), previous studies pointed that educational projects often lack theoretical unity and subsequent evaluation (Kohe & Bowen-Jones, 2016;Grammatikopoulos et al, 2004).…”