Sport, physical activity and play are key constituents of social life, impacting such diverse fields as healthcare, education and criminal justice. Over the past decade, governments around the world have begun to place physical activity at the heart of social policy, providing increased opportunities for participation for young people. This groundbreaking text explores the various ways in which young people experience sport, physical activity and play as part of their everyday lives, and the interventions and outcomes that shape and define those experiences. The book covers a range of different sporting and physical activities across an array of social contexts, providing insight into the way in which sport, physical activity and play are interpreted by young people and how these interpretations relate to broader policy objectives set by governments, sporting organisations and other NGOs. In the process, it attempts to answer a series of key questions including: How has sport policy developed over the last decade? How do such policy developments reflect changes at the broader political level? How have young people experienced these changes in and through their sporting lives? By firmly locating sport, physical activity and play within the context of recent policy developments, and exploring the moral and ethical dimensions of sports participation, the book fills a significant gap in the sport studies literature. It is an important reference for students and scholars from a wide-range of sub-disciplines, including sports pedagogy, sports development, sport and leisure management, sports coaching, physical education, play and playwork, and health studies.

Physical inactivity is a key determinant of health across the lifespan. A lack of activity increases the risk of heart disease, colon and breast cancer, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, osteoporosis, anxiety and depression and others diseases. Emerging literature has suggested that in terms of mortality, the global population health burden of physical inactivity approaches that of cigarette smoking. The prevalence and substantial disease risk associated with physical inactivity has been described as a pandemic. The prevalence, health impact, and evidence of changeability all have resulted in calls for action to increase physical activity across the lifespan. In response to the need to find ways to make physical activity a health priority for youth, the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Physical Activity and Physical Education in the School Environment was formed. Its purpose was to review the current status of physical activity and physical education in the school environment, including before, during, and after school, and examine the influences of physical activity and physical education on the short and long term physical, cognitive and brain, and psychosocial health and development of children and adolescents. Educating the Student Body makes recommendations about approaches for strengthening and improving programs and policies for physical activity and physical education in the school environment. This report lays out a set of guiding principles to guide its work on these tasks. These included: recognizing the benefits of instilling life-long physical activity habits in children; the value of using systems thinking in improving physical activity and physical education in the school environment; the recognition of current disparities in opportunities and the need to achieve equity in physical activity and physical education; the importance of considering all types of school environments; the need to take into consideration the diversity of students as recommendations are developed. This report will be of interest to local and national policymakers, school officials, teachers, and the education community, researchers, professional organizations, and parents interested in physical activity, physical education, and health for school-aged children and adolescents.

Although the physical and psychological benefits of youth participating in sport are evident, the increasing professionalization and specialization of youth sport, primarily by coaches and parents, are changing the culture of youth sport and causing it to erode the ideal mantra: “It’s all about the kids.” In Best Practice for Youth Sport, readers will gain an appreciation of an array of issues regarding youth sport. This research-based text is presented in a practical manner, with examples from current events that foster readers’ interest and class discussion. The content is based on the principle of developmentally appropriate practice (DAP), which can be defined as engaging in decisions, behaviors, and policies that meet the physical, psychological, and social needs of children and youth based on their ages and maturational levels. This groundbreaking resource covers a breadth of topics, including bone development, burnout, gender and racial stereotypes, injuries, motor behavior, and parental pressures. Written by Robin S. Vealey and Melissa A. Chase, the 16 chapters of Best Practice for Youth Sport are divided into four parts. Part I, Youth Sport Basics, provides readers with the fundamental knowledge and background related to the history, evolution, and organization of youth sport. Part II, Maturation and Readiness for Youth Sport Participants, is the core of understanding how and why youth sport is different from adult sport. This part details why it is important to know when youth are ready to learn and compete. Part III, Intensity of Participation in Youth Sport, examines the appropriateness of physical and psychological intensity at various developmental stages and the potential ramifications of overtraining, overspecialization, overstress, and overuse. The text concludes with part IV, Social Considerations in Youth Sport, which examines how youth sport coaches and parents can help create a supportive social environment so that children can maximize the enjoyment and benefits from youth sport. In addition to 14 appendixes, activities, glossaries, study questions, and other resources that appear in Best Practice for Youth Sport, the textbook is enhanced with instructor ancillaries: a test package, image bank, and instructor guide that features a syllabus, additional study questions and learning activities, tips on teaching difficult concepts, and additional readings and resources. These specialized resources ensure that instructors will be ready for each class session with engaging materials. Ancillaries are free to course adopters and available at www.HumanKinetics.com/BestPracticeForYouthSport. Best Practice for Youth Sport provides readers with knowledge of sport science concerning youth sport and engages them through the use of anecdotes, activities, case studies, and practical strategies. Armed with the knowledge from this text, students, coaches, parents, administrators, and others will be able to become active agents of social change in structuring and enhancing youth sport programs to meet the unique developmental needs of children, making the programs athlete centered rather than adult centered so that they truly are all about the kids.

This book outlines an approach to teaching and learning in physical education that prioritises meaningful experiences for pupils, using case studies to illustrate how practitioners have implemented this approach across international contexts. Prioritising the idea of meaningfulness positions movement as a primary way to enrich the quality of young people’s lives, shifting the focus of physical education programs to better suit the needs of contemporary young learners and resist the utilitarian health-oriented views of physical education that currently predominate in many schools and policy documents. The book draws on the philosophy of physical education to articulate the main rationale for prioritising meaningful experiences, before identifying potential and desired outcomes for participants. It highlights the distinct characteristics of meaningful physical education and its content, and outlines teaching and learning principles and strategies, supported by pedagogical cases that show what meaningful physical education can look like in school-based teaching and in higher education-based teacher education. With an emphasis on good pedagogical practice, this is essential reading for all pre-service and in-service physical education teachers or coaches working in youth sport.

Sport, physical activity and play are key constituents of social life, impacting such diverse fields as healthcare, education and criminal justice. Over the past decade, governments around the world have begun to place physical activity at the heart of social policy, providing increased opportunities for participation for young people. This groundbreaking text explores the various ways in which young people experience sport, physical activity and play as part of their everyday lives, and the interventions and outcomes that shape and define those experiences. The book covers a range of different sporting and physical activities across an array of social contexts, providing insight into the way in which sport, physical activity and play are interpreted by young people and how these interpretations relate to broader policy objectives set by governments, sporting organisations and other NGOs. In the process, it attempts to answer a series of key questions including: How has sport policy developed over the last decade? How do such policy developments reflect changes at the broader political level? How have young people experienced these changes in and through their sporting lives? By firmly locating sport, physical activity and play within the context of recent policy developments, and exploring the moral and ethical dimensions of sports participation, the book fills a significant gap in the sport studies literature. It is an important reference for students and scholars from a wide-range of sub-disciplines, including sports pedagogy, sports development, sport and leisure management, sports coaching, physical education, play and playwork, and health studies.

As sport has become more intense, professional and commercialized so have the debates grown about what constitutes acceptable behaviour and fair play, and how to encourage and develop ‘good’ sporting behaviour, particularly in children and young people. This book explores the nature and function of values in youth sport and establishes a framework through which coaches, teachers and researchers can develop an understanding of the decision-making processes of young athletes and how they choose between playing fairly or cheating to win. The traditional view of sport participation is that it has a beneficial effect on the social and moral development of children and young people and that it intrinsically promotes cultural values. This book argues that the research evidence is more subtle and nuanced. It examines the concept of values as central organizing constructs of human behaviour that determine our priorities, guide our choices, and transfer across situations, and considers the value priorities and conflicts that are so useful in helping us to understand behaviour in sport. The book argues that teachers and professionals working with children in sport are centrally important agents for value transmission and change and therefore need to develop a deeper understanding of how sport can be used to encourage pro-social values, and offers suggestions for developing a curriculum for teaching values through sport in differing social contexts. Spanning some of the fundamental areas of sport practice and research, including sport psychology, sport pedagogy, practice ethics, and positive youth development through sport, and including useful values and attitudes questionnaires and guidance on their use and interpretation, this book is important reading for any student, researcher, coach or teacher with an interest in youth sport or physical education.

Is sport good for kids? When answering this question, both critics and advocates of youth sports tend to fixate on matters of health, whether condemning contact sports for their concussion risk or prescribing athletics as a cure for the childhood obesity epidemic. Child’s Play presents a more nuanced examination of the issue, considering not only the physical impacts of youth athletics, but its psychological and social ramifications as well. The eleven original scholarly essays in this collection provide a probing look into how sports—in community athletic leagues, in schools, and even on television—play a major role in how young people view themselves, shape their identities, and imagine their place in society. Rather than focusing exclusively on self-proclaimed jocks, the book considers how the culture of sports affects a wide variety of children and young people, including those who opt out of athletics. Not only does Child’s Play examine disparities across lines of race, class, and gender, it also offers detailed examinations of how various minority populations, from transgender youth to Muslim immigrant girls, have participated in youth sports. Taken together, these essays offer a wide range of approaches to understanding the sociology of youth sports, including data-driven analyses that examine national trends, as well as ethnographic research that gives a voice to individual kids. Child’s Play thus presents a comprehensive and compelling analysis of how, for better and for worse, the culture of sports is integral to the development of young people—and with them, the future of our society.

In the decade or more since publication of the first edition of Understanding Sport, both sport and wider global society have undergone profound change. In this fully updated, revised and expanded edition of their classic textbook, John Horne, Alan Tomlinson, Garry Whannel and Kath Woodward offer a critical and reflective introduction to the relationship between sport and contemporary society and explain how sport remains an important agent and symptom of socio-cultural change. Fully integrating historical, sociological, political and cultural analysis, the book covers every key topic in the study of sport and society, including: debate, interpretation and theory sport and the media sport and the body sport and politics commercialization globalization. Retaining the accessibility and scholarly rigour for which Understanding Sport has always been renowned, this new edition includes entirely new chapters on global transformations, sports mega-events and sites, sporting bodies and governance, as well as a succinct guide to researching sport. With review and seminar questions included in every chapter, plus concise, helpful guides to further reading, Understanding Sport remains an essential textbook for all courses on sport and society, the sociology of sport, sport and social theory, or social issues in sport.

Evidence suggests that the first 10 or so years of life create the foundation for subsequent participation in recreational and health-related physical activity. This book brings together researchers and practitioners with expertise in issues related to physical activity, physical education, and sport during the primary/elementary phase of schooling, to explore these important issues. Combining inter-disciplinary perspectives, the book addresses the inherent complexity of researching with young children. It looks at the evidence on development during the first 10 years and how that evidence relates to physical activity and to sport, in pre-school, school and out of school. Finally, the book offers a series of national case studies, from Asia, Europe and Africa, demonstrating the importance of age-appropriate sport and physical activity. This is important reading for any student, researcher, educator or policy maker with an interest in physical activity and health, education in the early years or at primary/elementary level, paediatric exercise science, or youth sport.

The modern day youth sports environment has taken the enjoyment out of athletics for our children. Currently, 70% of kids drop out of organized sports by the age of 13, which has given rise to a generation of overweight, unhealthy young adults. There is a solution. John O’Sullivan shares the secrets of the coaches and parents who have not only raised elite athletes, but have done so by creating an environment that promotes positive core values and teaches life lessons instead of focusing on wins and losses, scholarships, and professional aspirations. Changing the Game gives adults a new paradigm and a game plan for raising happy, high performing children, and provides a national call to action to return youth sports to our kids.