The purpose of this study was two-fold: First, to qualitatively explore mainstreamed hard of hearing adolescent athletes' psychosocial development, centering on their perspectives of cultural identity, self-concept, and self-esteem and the interaction of these psychological constructs with sport participation. Second, to follow-up with a quantitative measure objectively assessing the impact of sport participation on these psychological domains. Participants were hard of hearing adolescent athletes in the Northeast Atlantic Region, all of whom were currently engaging in some level of sport participation at the time of the study. Five mainstreamed hard of hearing athletes, three male and two female, participated in a semi-structured interview format. Interviews were performed at a time and place convenient for the participant. The purpose of the interview was to elicit detailed, authentic, rich content related to their experiences as hard of hearing athletes both in school and on the field and how these experiences have impacted their self-concept, cultural identification, and social lives. Utilizing grounded theory and adapting the consensual qualitative methods described by Hill, Knox, Thompson, Williams, and Hess (2005), seven conceptual categories and additional sub-categories were derived from the coding process. These conceptual categories and subthemes were found: (a) hearing loss, consisting of severity, age of diagnosis, assistive devices, and familial hearing status, (b) sporting background, sporting initiation, and current team standing, (c) parental roles, consisting of parental support of hearing and parental support of sport, (d) team experience, consisting of teammates, coaches, and opponents, (e) adaptations to being hard of hearing, consisting of working with coaches, on the field and in the classroom, (f) self-esteem/self-concept, consisting of biculturalism, self identity, and on the field mentality, and (g) benefits of sports, consisting of confidence, friends, and other. Participants also completed the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, which provides a total self-concept score and scores across six subscales: physical appearance and attributes, intellectual and school status, happiness and satisfaction, freedom from anxiety, behavioral adjustment, and popularity. All participants scored "average" or "above average" on total self-concept and the six subscales. The population did not consist of enough participants for a quantitative analysis. / Kinesiology

Participation in sport activities brings various benefits to the individuals involved as well as to the society as a whole. One of these benefits is a higher labour productivity following from a lower disease-induced absence rate and from the improved personal work characteristics. This thesis investigates the influence of public money spent in support of sport on labour productivity. The study is based on the data about these expenditures on the level of the Czech municipalities, whereas the expenditures on sport are aggregated over the municipalities belonging to each of the fourteen regions composing the Czech Republic. The performed regression analysis traces the influence of these expenditures on the disease-induced work incapacity rate in the respective region, which constitutes a proxy for labour productivity. The results of the analysis show that municipal expenditures on sport significantly decrease the disease-induced work incapacity: if municipalities in a region spend extra one hundred CZK per person on sport, the disease-induced work incapacity in the following year lowers by 0.064 to 0.083%.