School sport participation

School sport participation can be a conversation conundrum. I know many people don't have positive experiences with sport. I reckon that the research shows this is how the coach and others 'construct' and input into the sport environment rather than being inherent to sport itself. Some don't develop during ages 5-12 the confidence in their competence to continue to pursue being physically active through sport when they enter adolesence. However, frequent participation in sports during adolesence has been associated with the liklihood to be highly physically active as an adult (Tammelin et al., 2003). This is important to consider in a country like Australia where reports have suggested we have low youth and adult physical activity compared to previous generations. Research consistently shows a link between low physical activity in adulthood and low movement competence (World Health Organization, 2024).

School sport in Australia and elsewhere has historically played a contributing factor in the likelihood of an individual being physically active beyond their school years (Curtis et al., 1999; Westerbeek et al., 2019). However, it is my experience that in many systems, school sports requirements have waned since the 1990's. When I went to school, we stopped classes one afternoon a week for social sport opportunities. For some students, this provided an extra 'match practice' opportunity (one year, I took that opportunity leading into the squash season), or it was the opportunity to try something different (I took that opportunity one year to try windsurfing). In Year 12, a new principal decided to stop this program so more time could go ito 'academics'. While recreation sport in curriculum time didn't feature in any of the schools I worked in from the late-1980s, when I started my teaching career, in many jurisdictions school sport was still in curriculum time. The school I worked at in the late 1980s-early 1990s had competitive school sport one afternoon a week as part of the system of schools that it was in. The school also entered teams in after-school and during school time sport opportunities such as the state 'all-school' competitions. 

During the mid-1990s pressure came to provide more time for 'core subjects' and in many jurisdictions, enterprise bargaining resulted in many systems moving away from a requirement for teachers to be involved in sport, dance, drama etc 'co or extra-curricular' programs, increasing the cost for schools and therefore students of those programs as coaches had to be employed for the programs to run. 

The irony now is, in a country where sport retains strong cultural capital and representation in the social narrative, Australian adolescents may be amounst the least physicall active globally (Guthold et al., 2020) with the majority of adolescents not meeting the daily physical activity recommendations (Australian Government - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2014).

I propose that there should be a consideration of the place of 'school sport' (including dance) to be part of the school curriculum because of the important learning outcome associated with sport participation during adolesence - the habit of mind of the physically active person, or the dispposition to physical activity. In addition to sports role in providing the educative outcome of valuing movement and thus a more physically active youth and then adult population, consider that participation in sport has allied benefits - 

Studies have suggested that participation in school sport during secondary (high) school benefits academic attainment as well as the liklihood of continuing to be physically active in early adulthood. Wretman (2017) found participation in school sport had a significant standardised effect on academic achievement. Owen and collagues (2023) meta-analysis of research literature found similarly, and that while team and individual sport participation both benefit academic outcomes, they do so differently. Earlier research by Bradley and colleagues (2013) indicated participation in school sport throughout the secondary school years may be a beneficial to students’ senior secondary 'leaving' certificate results.

Importantly, Jewett and colleagues (2014) found that involvement in school sport during adolescence was a statistically significant predictor of lower depression symptoms, lower perceived stress, higher self-rated mental health in young adulthood.

Sports participation during school hours may be more beneficial for academic performance than sport participation outside school hours (Owen et al., 2022).

Recently, we have been suggesting school sport be seen as part of the school curriculum rather than extra or co-curriculum. Included in this framing, we suggest that school sport as curriculum has to be designed and 'taught' for the achievement of four educative endeavours:

-          Education in sport (for the development of competency that provides sufficient confidence to choose to continue being active beyond school)

-          Education through sport (for the development of valued personal and social skills for positive participation in sport and life more broadly)

-          Education about sport (for the development learning to learn so as to become an independent, self -regulated learner for lifelong physical activity involvement)

-          Education for sport (the outcome being continued participation in sport beyond school as informal-leisure, social, and-or competitive sport)

Achieving the explicit teaching of the skill, knowledge and understanding in school sport that leads to the four outcomes we suggest for students requires the sport coach have the 'skills' of a 'physical educator', and therefore sport coaches require 'training' to be able to teach the student-person and not be limited to  'delivering' sport. Here, we find connection to the humanistic approach to sport coaching suggested by Kidman (2010). Dickinson et al (2019) suggested a humanistic understansding of sport coaching leads the coach to want to understand the psychological,emotional and social reality of the individual in order to be able to use sport as a mechanism to further their opportunity to thrive. 

Thanks for stopping by and reading this post. If you would like to connect with me on a project to do with the ideas in this blog or any of the other ideas that I have blogged about, you can contact me by the email link available here

References

Bradley, J., Keane, F., & Crawford, S. (2013). School sport and academic achievement. Journal of school health, 83(1), 8-13.

Curtis, J., McTeer, W., & White, P. (1999). Exploring effects of school sport experiences on sport participation in later life. Sociology of Sport Journal, 16(4), 348-365.

Dickinson, R. K., Coulter, T. J., & Mallett, C. J. (2019). Humanistic theory in sport, performance, and sports coaching psychology. In Oxford research encyclopedia of psychology.

Guthold, R., Stevens, G. A., Riley, L. M., & Bull, F. C. (2020). Global trends in insufficient physical activity among adolescents: a pooled analysis of 298 population-based surveys with 1· 6 million participants. The lancet child & adolescent health, 4(1), 23-35.

Jewett, R., et al. (2014). School sport participation during adolescence and mental health in early adulthood. Journal of adolescent health, 55(5), 640-644.

Kidman, L. (2010). Athlete-centred coaching: Developing decision makers. IPC Print Resources.

 Owen, K. B., Foley, B. C., Wilhite, K., Booker, B., Lonsdale, C., & Reece, L. J. (2022). Sport participation and academic performance in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 54(2), 299-306.

Owen, K. B., et al. (2023). Sport participation for academic success: Evidence from the longitudinal study of Australian children. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 21(3), 238-246.

Tammelin, T., Näyhä, S., Hills, A. P., & Järvelin, M. R. (2003). Adolescent participation in sports and adult physical activity. American journal of preventive medicine, 24(1), 22-28.

Tammelin, T., Näyhä, S., Laitinen, J., Rintamäki, H., & Järvelin, M. R. (2003). Physical activity and social status in adolescence as predictors of physical inactivity in adulthood. Preventive medicine, 37(4), 375-381.

Westerbeek, H., et al. (2019). Sport participation and play: how to get more Australians moving, Policy Paper. Mitchell Institute, Victoria University. Melbourne, Victoria.

Wretman, C. J. (2017). School sports participation and academic achievement in middle and high school. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 8(3), 399-420.