Browsing by Subject "Sport development"
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Item Context matters : the role of settings in sport development(2011-08) Bowers, Matthew Thomas; Green, B. Christine; Chalip, Laurence; Harrison, Tracie; Hunt, Thomas M.; Todd, JaniceSport participation in the United States is often characterized as a unitary experience that naturally instills a standardized set of values. In this work, however, I challenge the mythology of a unitary conceptualization of sport participation and examine how the experiences and outcomes of playing sports change depending on the setting in which the participation occurs. Specifically, I undertake an investigation into the differences between playing sports in an organized setting and playing them in an informal, unstructured setting. Drawing from the findings of three distinct studies, I first demonstrate through a mixed-method historical study how the field of sport management has narrowed its focus over time to exclude the more playful forms of sport and physical activity. In the second and third studies, I show the experiential and developmental outcomes that are potentially overlooked by maintaining a narrow definition of sport that excludes sport played in unstructured settings. In the second study, a phenomenological examination of pre-teen youth sport participants reveals that the meaning of the experience of playing youth sports derives not from playing in one setting alone, but emerges through the synthesis of experiences accrued in both organized and unstructured settings. In the third study, the relative influences of time spent participating in organized sports and informal sports during childhood are assessed with respect to the development of participant creativity. Like the phenomenological study, the results of this quantitative analysis again point to the importance of balancing participation in both organized and unstructured settings. The most creative individuals are those who split their sport participation time across both settings, as opposed to individuals with below-average creativity, who spent the majority of their sport participation time in organized settings. Combined, the results of these three studies demonstrate the historical shift (in both research and practice) away from unstructured sport settings, and highlight the potentially transformative sport development implications of reincorporating unstructured sport settings on the overall experiences and outcomes of sport participation.Item The role of immigrant parents in children's sport development(2014-05) Chung, Kyu-soo; Green, B. ChristineParents take a powerful role to a child's sport socializing. Such roles of parents for children's sport are neither static nor constantly applied, depending on parents' cultural beliefs and values. An understanding of these dynamics is crucial for sport managers if they are to design and implement sport programs that can attract a culturally diverse group. A cross-cultural study investigated how Korean immigrant parents were different from American and Korean parents in terms of parents' influences on their children's sport participation. It was found that a parent's cultural model was a significant criterion that explained different degrees of practicing role mechanisms---parents as a provider and interpreter. Parents' acculturation accounted for the outcomes of Korean immigrants in the U.S. The in-depth interviews then explored how Korean immigrant parents supported children's sport according to their contexts and environments. It was found that they interacted with contextual factors such as family, neighborhood, school, sport organizations, work, policy and system, and cultures. These interactions were affected not only by surrounding contextual factors but also by their traditional customs and values. Being released from education fever, the Korean immigrant parents interacted more actively with the values and customs of American society. Thus, they generally implemented an American sport-friendly environment to make their children's sport happen and continue. This dissertation's combined studies demonstrate the crucial role of parents in children's sport and the effect of culture on shaping those roles. Finally, this dissertation helps build up an integrative paradigm of sport development toward expanding the field of sport participants. Culture is invisible but powerfully affects parenting. Sport parenting is a cultural product. Cultural differences are not easily bridged, though the key is in how we understand such differences.Item "Sport as a resource caravan" : examining the role and efficacy of sport as a resource provider for adults in transition(2014-08) Walsh, David William; Green, B. Christine; Holahan, Carole K.Sport development is an emerging discipline in sport management due in part to the popular, normative associations between sport and its beneficial outcomes. However, concerns on how sport is used and designed as well as the miscomprehension of the word development cloud sport's utilitarian prospectus. Although research has started to address these concerns in youth and adolescent forums, research on adults using sport for developmental purposes is widely ignored. With life expectancy growing, the pressure to sustain living quality in late adulthood has become almost unmanageable. Maintaining quality of life in late adulthood is difficult. Drawing from human development and aging literature, quality of life is still possible in light of the challenges presented by multiple developmental forces. Developmental trajectories are the products of net gains and losses over the life course and are influenced by transitional events and the ability in people to adapt to them. In addition, development is both cumulative and innovative, which affirms that people in later stages of life can still develop. In order to do this, gerontological and psychological research argue that resources are key in the achievement of positive outcomes. However, research understanding mechanisms that affect resources that produce positive gains is still in its infancy. Hence, I constructed a dissertation with two studies using a multi-method approach to ascertain the role and efficacy of sport participation on the transitional process that undergirds the developmental trajectory. The impetus for this approach was to examine the utility of sport as a developmental force adults could consider in improving their overall quality of life. Study 1 used a life-history, qualitative method that reveals sports' role as an influential resource provider during life event transitions across a person's life. Data show that sport was believed to aid in the adaptation process that provided distinct benefits that other activities or support structures could not match or replicate easily. Study 2 used structural equation modeling to specify the magnitude of sport's role on resources during a specific transitional event that most adults will experience: retirement from the workforce. Quantitative evidence from this study yields support that sport participation can positively impact resources and retirement well-being directly. Both studies supply substantiation for the argument that sport participation can act as a positive developmental force for adults by assisting with the recruitment of resources and acting as a resource provider which affords adaptation assistance in transitions. The combined results demonstrate how sport may be viewed as a developmental tool which has practical implications for sport development and managers wishing to design sport for this purpose. In addition, the common assumption that sport development programming should be geared exclusively toward youth and adolescents is dismissed. This dissertation provides theoretical and empirical justification for creating positive adult developmental programming in sport.