Understanding the increase in parents’ involvement in organized youth sports

Abstract

As part of an ethnographic study on young people and learning (the knowledge in motion across contexts of learning project, set in Norway), we interviewed a diverse sample of parents of young teenagers, many of whom were active in organized sports. The parents described their level of involvement in sport in a way that contrasted sharply to our own experiences participating in youth sports in the 1970s and 1980s. Back then most parents were absent from the sports fields. This new role of sports in the practice of parenthood is what we investigate in this study. The purpose is to further the understanding of the cultural processes that drive what we see as a marked generational change in the relationship between organized sports and the practice of parenthood. In contrast to previous studies, we also focus on the relationship between generational change and classed patterns in parenting. Our data suggest that across social classes, parents see involvement in sports as normal, and as a way to connect to the child emotionally and to further the child's development. We interpret the significance of sports in the parent-child relationship as related both to the normalization of youth sports that the parents experienced when they grew up, and to the new cultural ideas of parenthood that they encounter as adults. We find that there are tensions embedded in this new form of parenthood that are particularly evident in what we call 'deep involvement', an intensified form of parental engagement with youth sports that is practiced primarily by fathers in the economic fraction of the middle class. We conclude that the new role of sport in the practice of parenthood is a classed as well as a generational phenomenon. ARTICLE HISTORY

Young people’s experiences of parental involvement in youth sport

“…In recent decades, parental involvement in organised youth sports has intensified substantially (Stefansen, Smette, & Strandbu, 2016;Wheeler & Green, 2014). The current situation, where parents are described as highly supportive of and involved in their children's sports activities, represents a stark contrast to the situation portrayed in Coleman's classic Adolescent Society (1963).…”

“…It could be hypothesised that youth sport has lost its relevance as a venue for developing autonomy and that it functions as a phase of prolonged socialisation. Our focus group interviews with young teenagers point to a different conclusion: While youth sport has indeed become an extension of family life and part of parental cultivational projects (Lareau, 2003;Stefansen et al, 2016;Vincent & Ball, 2007), it remains a domain for adolescents to develop autonomy from parents and family. This paper will explore how this somewhat paradoxical situation is understood from the perspective of the adolescent participants.…”

“…Furthermore, parental involvement in a child's sport is interpreted as a form of investment to make sure children develop skills and competencies that may be valuable in the future (Vincent & Ball, 2007). Studies have also highlighted the sphere of sport as a place where parents can develop and sustain emotionally close bonds with their children (Kremer-Sadlik, Izquierdo, & Fatigante, 2010), even into the teenage years often associated with growing independence (Stefansen et al, 2016). Writing about fathers, Coakley stresses the relational aspects of involvement in a sport: 'For many fathers, organized sports […] provide a setting in which they feel comfortable and competent as a parent.…”

“…As part of the project, we conducted interviews with parents of close to half of the youths that participated in the focus group. A previous paper analysed parents' narratives of their own involvement in their children's sport (Stefansen et al, 2016). The analysis found a standard form of involvement among the parents that greatly exceeded their own parents' level of involvement when they participated in sport while growing up.…”

“…For the second step of the analysis, we conducted a more detailed form of coding based on sub-themes related only to parental interest and involvement in sports. As part of this second step, we utilised an 'analyst driven' thematic coding (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 84) guided by our knowledge of parental roles in sport from the parents' perspective (Stefansen et al, 2016).…”