engleski

Youth, Sport and Society: Some Critical Remarks

Modern sociological research on youth often emphasises the problem of the low level of youth participation in society. Youth participation in sports is viewed as one form of an active relationship towards society. Aside from the general issue of participation and the relationship of young people towards dominant social values, the question arises as to the form in which they are involved in sports. Careful examination shows a great divide between highly selective and competitive forms of training, the aim of which is to turn young people into top athletes from an early age, and recreational, spontaneous, amateur forms of sport as a less binding and less demanding form of training in the everyday life of young people. Both forms are legitimate, but the differences between them in some particular social contexts may be drastically sharpened as the result of broad social campaigns, such as the “sport against drugs” campaign in Croatia. The Croatian context allows insight into a process in which a significant number of young people, having become part of a dominant organisational form that is highly competitive and selective, end up suffering from serious heroin addiction in part as a result of not being able to continue playing sports (i.e. failing to graduate from juniors into seniors). Aside from examples in which society superficially promotes ‘preventive’ programmes, there are also examples in which society neglects prevention while promoting repression, as is the case with young people who form their identity through their passionate support of football clubs. We can also learn about the consequences of this approach through both the Croatian context and through recent research that breaks existing stereotypes concerning relationships between youth, sport, and society.

youth sport, professional vs recreational, critical approach

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