PESP 159: SPORT AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN

THE CROSS-CULTURAL CONTEXT

Observation Assignment 1

Organized Youth Sport: Boys’ Football

Organized youth sports are interesting events that involve a wide array of individuals, including teenage players, spectators, referees, coaches, and parents. Accordingly, every attendee plays crucial roles that encourage the overall success of the competitions. Precisely, this observation report elaborates on social aspects that could prevail in an organized youth sport by focusing on a previous football competition among male teenagers from nearby secondary schools. Findings from some in-depth interviews and participant observation suggest that organized youth sports attract lots of social benefits to virtually every engaged person, including parents, players, coaches, and spectators.

First, parents play vital roles in ensuring that young boys compete well by developing, maintaining, and sharing social capital benefits (Serageldin & Grootaert, 2017). Social relationships that exist between children and their parents are invaluable resources that attract lots of benefits during sporting events. For example, during the previous boys’ competition, some parents encouraged and motivated their sons by offering them a ride to and from the venue. Accordingly, the teenagers felt valued and supported by individuals (parents) who mean a lot to them. Additionally, parents contribute significantly to the success of competition among their children by providing other support services that entail the encouragement of their sons to participate in games. For instance, many parents successfully convinced their sons to continue competing even when they were much discouraged by poor performance. Thus, teenagers tend to believe and trust in their parents’ pieces of advice and guidelines, even under the most challenging and unpromising circumstances.

Secondly, parents spend significant amounts of their money, efforts, and time in supporting organized youth sports. Specifically, virtually every parent fund relevant activities that entail regular exercises and practices that teenagers conduct in preparation for the competition as well as fares to and from the sports. Moreover, parents contribute to securing payment for the game through varied strategies that include the use of sponsorship programs and personal (parent) contributions. Similarly, parents spend a substantial amount of their time organizing, coaching, supporting, and conducting related activities to ensure that the competitions become a success. Still, many parents could frequent games to provide moral support for their sons and encourage them to compete well. Therefore, many parents invest heavily in organized youth sports to facilitate the proper social development of their children (Stefansen, Smette & Strandbu, 2018). Hence, organized youth sports are invaluable events that parents use to create, develop, and share social capital with their children.

Thirdly, an organized youth sport attracts both male and female spectators. Although the game was a boys’ event, girls, women, and men attended. Accordingly, organized youth sports are important social events that promote interaction and development of social capital (Serageldin & Grootaert, 2017). Girls and boys exhibit substantial support and encouragement for their colleagues during sporting events. Accordingly, children develop healthy relationships by engaging in organized youth events. Also, teenagers recognize and appreciate the importance and value of socializing and supporting each other despite their gender. For example, girls encouraged and cheered boys during the competition. Likewise, the players were interested in advising and assisting one another and celebrating results together. Eventually, every youth and parent exhibited lots of satisfaction and victory despite the difference in their performance.  

Fourthly, teenage players tend to respond positively to advise and guidelines from adult persons. Specifically, players demonstrated lots of respect and acceptance to the choices of their referees, coaches, and parents. The players would act without questioning such decisions, probably because they perceive that adults are informed and responsible persons as opposed to younger people. Even so, the frequency of interactions and depth of talks varied significantly among the adults. For instance, communication between the teenagers and the referees were less frequent and shallower compared to the interactions with their parents and coaches. Such variance in conversation could be associated with existing relationships; referees are more formal, while parents and coaches could encourage less formal/official communications.  

Additionally, parents, coaches, and spectators demonstrated lots of support for the players. Accordingly, the sporting encouraged the creation of beneficial relationships between and among virtually all the persons in the venue. People who were strangers at the beginning of the competition ended as friends. Even so, interaction among the attendees, officials, parents, and players revolved on matters about football. That is, each person was trying to support the competition in varied ways, including advising and coaching the players and encouragement of fair refereeing. Fortunately, there was no grouping of spectators and parents based on such aspects as social class, gender, race, or ethnic alignment. Instead, parents and spectators formed groups basing on their favorite teams. Eventually, players, coaches, spectators, and parents were closely linked following their interactions on matters regarding football and their teams.

In conclusion, organized youth sports are crucial in encouraging the development of social capital by supporting the development of beneficial relationships between virtually every engaged person, including coaches, spectators, parents and players. Besides, groupings and interactions among all the involved persons tend to revolve around the type of competition (for this case, football) rather than ethnic, racial, or gender categorizations. Moreover, teenagers tend to respect and act according to the advice and guidelines of adults. Even so, youths tend to engage in more in-depth communications with their peers, parents, and coaches, possibly due to existing relationships that are less formal.   

References

Serageldin, I., & Grootaert, C. (2017). Defining social capital: an integrating view 1. In Evaluation and Development (pp. 201-217). Routledge.

Stefansen, K., Smette, I., & Strandbu, Å. (2018). Understanding the increase in parents’ involvement in organized youth sports. Sport, Education and Society, 23(2), 162-172.