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Positive youth development is a holistic approach that considers both internal (e.g., life skills and positive psychosocial characteristics) and external (e.g., coach and parent) developmental assets. The positive youth development framework has largely been used to examine multi-sport and recreational/high-school level programmes as a means to understand how participation within these environments can contribute to positive psychosocial development. The aim of the present thesis, comprised of four distinct studies, was to understand how a positive youth development approach might be applied to and integrated within the performance environment of British swimming. Study 1 comprised a two-stage investigation focused on identification and consensus related to a specific set of psychosocial assets appropriate for swimming. Following a content analysis of existing literature, a dialectical methodology was utilised to interview a panel of 10 experts from professional (coach and practitioner) and academic fields within swimming and youth sport. Five higher order categories containing 17 internal assets emerged; namely, self-perceptions, behavioural skills, social skills, approach characteristics and emotional competence. In Study 2, coaches (n=181) attitudes towards and perceptions of the 17 psychosocial assets were examined via a bespoke quantitative survey. The five-factor higher order model that emerged from the first study was quantitatively tested and supported. Coach characteristics were also examined regarding coaches overall value of the assets. Results indicated that assets within self-perceptions, behavioural skills and approach characteristic groups were more valued than those within social and emotional categories. Full-time, paid coaches provided higher value ratings for all asset groups compared to part-time, volunteer coaches. Study 3 replicated and extended Study 2 by examining attitudes of British swimming parents (n=249) towards the psychosocial assets, in conjunction with perceptions of their parenting style and levels of social support provided to their children within a swimming environment. Structural equation modelling was used to test hypothesised relationships between parental perceptions of parenting style, social support availability and value placed on the five internal groups of assets. Results indicated that parents asset value profiles were very similar to those of swimming coaches, with swimming specific assets of self-perceptions, behavioural skills and approach characteristics valued more than the less specific assets within social and emotional subgroups. Further, parents who reported high levels of esteem support also placed greater value on all assets apart from self-perceptions, and parents who reported a warm style were more likely to provide this esteem support. vi Finally, Study 4 examined perceptions of autonomy supportive coach and parenting styles and social support availability in addition to motivational goal orientation, perceived sport competence and self-esteem in a sample of 246 swimmers. Hypothesised relationships between coach and parenting style, perceived social support availability and the asset related outcomes were tested using structural equation modelling. Results revealed that autonomy supportive coach and parenting styles both positively predict respective perceptions of social support availability. Athletes also reported that coach social support positively predicted both task and ego orientation, while parental emotional support positively predicted task orientation only. Both task and ego orientation positively predicted perceived sport competence which, in turn, positively predicted self-esteem. Overall, the findings of this thesis revealed a comprehensive list of internal assets that were highly valued by both coaches and parents, although the assets contained within the social and emotional groups were valued to a lesser degree, prompting calls for greater awareness on the relevance and applicability of these assets within British swimming. Furthermore, the styles that coaches and parents operate within positively predict the types of perceived social support availability which, in turn, predict internal asset value and level. Specifically, an autonomy supportive coaching style and a parenting style characterised by a high degree of warmth are both thought important elements to promote, with parental esteem and emotional support found to be most related to internal asset value and level, respectively. Links between social support, motivational goal orientation, perceived sport competence and self-esteem were also tested and supported. Overall, therefore, this thesis provides a unique contribution to the sport psychology and positive youth development literature by illustrating key areas of development (i.e., the internal assets) and by demonstrating one mechanism through which a degree of this development occurs (i.e., social support).

The purpose of this research was to explore the phenomenon of parenting in English elite youth football and provide a rich, detailed description and nuanced interpretation of parenting in this highly challenging and competitive culture. The research positioned parenting in youth sport as a dynamic, culturally-situated process, constituted through interaction with significant others. This allowed for an in-depth understanding of how parenting was experienced in elite youth football that included children s accounts of their interaction with parents. Using a phenomenological methodology, research was undertaken in three English professional football clubs to explore how parenting in elite youth football was experienced as lived. Parents of players registered to an elite youth football academy, players aged between 8 and 17 years and academy coaches participated in interviews. Participant observation was used to complement interview data. Embracing multi-perspectivalism (Kellner, 1995), multiple qualitative analytical techniques were used to explore data from different epistemological perspectives, providing sensitivity to the variation and subtlety of participants experiences. The findings from four empirical, qualitative research studies are presented. Firstly, an exploration of the experience of being a parent of an elite youth footballer described how parents were socialised into the academy culture, and experienced a change in identity and a heightened sense of responsibility to facilitate their child s football development. Secondly, an examination of elite youth footballers experience of interaction with their parents demonstrated how players experienced their body as an object to be scrutinised and assessed when watched by parents, experienced conflict with parents from within a power relation, and ascribed meaning to their interaction with parents in relation to their goal of becoming a successful academy footballer. Thirdly, an idiographic analysis of parents and players individual and dyadic experiences of parent-player interactions highlighted how relationships were constituted by; relations with other family members; an embodied sense of closeness; the temporal significance of football transitions; and gender and power relations. Finally, an analysis of coaches accounts of the parent-coach relationship in elite youth football demonstrated how parent-coach interactions occurred within an imbalanced power relation, which centred on establishing the rights to be responsible for player development. Together, these findings present a complex picture of parenting in elite youth football, as an embodied, temporal and culturally-situated experience, constituted through interaction and power relations between parents, players, coaches and academies. This research highlights the importance of conceptualising parenting in youth sport as a social, culturally-embedded process and supports the need to include children in research about issues that affect them. Extending this further, adopting a theoretical perspective that allows for the contextual power relations to be examined can further enhance understanding of parenting in youth sport. Finally, this research recommends that listening to and valuing the experiences of participants in the elite youth football culture, alongside open discussion and critical reflection upon academy practices, may have the greatest potential for enhancing the experiences of parents, players and coaches.

The purpose of this study was to explore coach-athlete interactive behaviours. More specifically, it investigated why coaches choose to interact with their athletes, and why coaches interact with their athletes in a particular manner. Head male coaches, of nine female competitive club soccer teams participated in the current study. Each coach was videotaped and audiotaped during two practices. Each video was uploaded to a computer and reviewed. Coaches then participated in a stimulated recall interview. During the interview, coaches were shown a total of 15 video clips that included footage of themselves interacting with an individual athlete, group of athletes, and the entire team. Coaches were asked to expand on the dynamics of these interactions. The results of the study indicate that when coaches interact with athletes, their reasoning is two-fold: first they decide to interact, and second, they decide the way in which they should interact with their athlete(s) based on several factors. Coaches interacted for one of four reasons: (1) connection to a larger picture, (2) teachable moments, (3) standards of behaviour, and (4) organization. The manner in which coaches interacted with their athletes was influenced by four factors: (1) knowledge of the athlete, (2) degree of athlete input, (3) degree of tolerance, and (4) team unit involved. Together, these results helped to construct a model that illustrates how coaches make decisions with regards to coach-athlete interactive behaviour in context. Preliminary findings indicate that coaching philosophy permeates this entire process. / Thesis (Master, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-27 21:33:32.095

Many athletes experience homophobia in sport environments and lgbtq is a rather invisibletopic in organized sport. The purpose with the study was to investigate coaches’ perspective ondiscrimination and heteronormativity in youth sport. Another purpose was to examine howcoaches perceived their own awareness about lgbtq. The result is based on seven semistructuredinterviews with coaches from four different sports and five different sport clubs. Firstof all, results showed that the role as a coach involved two main tasks. These were, education inthe specific sport and social education. The result also showed that discrimination based onsexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression was said to be unusual from thecoaches’ perspective. One coach experienced that discrimination had occurred to one of theplayers in his team. The coach from the opposing team argued that the player in the girls’ teamwas actually a boy, because of the person’s appearance and skills in floorball. Coachesexperienced that their own awareness about lgbtq could improve and those with sometheoretical knowledge about heteronormativity hadn’t implemented that in the role as a coach.Regarding lgbtq, the result from the interviews also showed that coaches’ awareness wasinadequate in some aspects, which affected how situations were handled. For example ifnegative language about lgbtq occurred it was many times seen as harmless and didn’t result inconsequences from coaches. Negative languages about lgbtq were more or less normalized in allof the boy’s teams. At the same time lgbtq was not a subject that had been brought up in thetraining groups, between coaches, in the sport clubs or in coaches’ education. One possibleconclusion to the ”invisibility” of lgbtq in the sport environments may be highly connected to alack of awareness. For instance, problems in this context were principally connected to anindividual who was discriminated against or treated badly.

Social agents in the youth sport domain (coaches, parents, and peers) play a crucial role in developing the motivational approaches of youth sport athletes. One theory which has been useful in explaining the important role of such social agents has been Achievement Goal Theory (Nicholls, 1989). Specifically, Achievement Goal Theory was used to delineate various peer behaviors as being task-involving (Ntoumanis & Vazou, 2005) and was used to predict subsequent relationships relationship between the task-involving motivational-climate created by teammates and athletes’ mastery goal orientations and self-esteem, sport competence, enjoyment, and intention to continue playing sport. Participants were 405 boys aged 12-15 years. Using structural equation modeling, an exploratory analysis and confirmatory analysis revealed that higher levels of task-involving behaviors from peers predicted mastery goal orientation. Participants with higher mastery goal orientation reported greater sport competence, self-esteem, and more enjoyment; enjoyment was the strongest predictor of intention to continue. These findings both emphasize the importance of peer relationships within sport on a variety of motivationally and psychologically salient outcomes and provide direction for the development of training programs targeted to create positive and healthy sport experiences.

The purpose of this research is to explore the context of youth recreational soccer, and to examine how coaches volunteering in this context learn to coach soccer. Framed within Jarvis’ (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) theory of lifelong learning and employing a mixed-methods approach, this dissertation research had two distinct phases. Phase One involved the collection of data via an on-line survey from 433 recreational youth soccer coaches from Eastern Ontario. The survey served to collect demographic information, as well as general information about their team, their role as a recreational coach, and their approach to learning. The data analysis for the on-line surveys was comprised of an analysis of descriptive statistics. Phase Two involved semi-structured interviews. Recruited through their participation in Phase One, 30 coaches were purposefully targeted and interviewed based on their varied biographies, experiences, and social contexts. Additionally, seven soccer administrators were interviewed. Interview data was analyzed according to the principles of thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006). Findings examine the biographies of youth recreational coaches, their coaching context, how recreational coaches learn to coach, issues of shared responsibilities related to learning, as well as practical implications. It is suggested that recreational coaches differ from one-another on many factors, and that the context of recreational youth soccer is similarly diverse and presents unique challenges to coaches. Recreational youth coaches learn to coach through a variety of sources; mostly through informal learning situations. Responsibilities surrounding coach development fall on the shoulders of individual coaches and clubs, as well as regional, provincial, and national associations; and suggestions for increased engagement in this regard are provided.

The context of this thesis is a four-year sports initiative called the Handshake which was launched and funded by the Swedish government and specifically targets girls. The Special Sports Federations were assigned the task of distributing the money to the local sports clubs. The clubs could apply for funding in order to carry out local projects. In the study, project applications from eight different sports were collected; both female- and male-dominated, and gender equal sports. This thesis focuses on the dominant ways of talking about girls and girls’ sport as well as the processes that shape them. Inspired by feminist post-structural theory and Foucault, the aim of this study is to examine how a special initiative for girls’ sport frames girls and their sport. The aim is also to analyze possible conditions of discourse for constructions of gender in texts specifically focusing on girls’ sports participation. The central questions are: How are girls and girls’ sport represented? In what ways and with which form of power, technologies, and techniques are girls constructed and positioned? The analysis shows how the regulatory and disciplinary processes operate in the government initiative. The identification of a specific group of girls in the Handshake initiative is an important component in the exercise of power, not least because it will inevitably convey and produce “truths” about the girls’ group. The initiative produces a number of ideas about girls and their sport, which girls are in need of special projects (and which are not) and in what way. The constructions of girls are not neutral, but normative. The position the sports movement gives itself, namely, a good and significant social force, implies that the problem lies elsewhere. Girls, and not the sport, become bearers of problem characteristics, they are obliged to change and improve. The norms, structures, and processes that cause normalization remain unchanged.

The purpose of this research is to explore the context of youth recreational soccer, and to examine how coaches volunteering in this context learn to coach soccer. Framed within Jarvis’ (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) theory of lifelong learning and employing a mixed-methods approach, this dissertation research had two distinct phases. Phase One involved the collection of data via an on-line survey from 433 recreational youth soccer coaches from Eastern Ontario. The survey served to collect demographic information, as well as general information about their team, their role as a recreational coach, and their approach to learning. The data analysis for the on-line surveys was comprised of an analysis of descriptive statistics. Phase Two involved semi-structured interviews. Recruited through their participation in Phase One, 30 coaches were purposefully targeted and interviewed based on their varied biographies, experiences, and social contexts. Additionally, seven soccer administrators were interviewed. Interview data was analyzed according to the principles of thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006). Findings examine the biographies of youth recreational coaches, their coaching context, how recreational coaches learn to coach, issues of shared responsibilities related to learning, as well as practical implications. It is suggested that recreational coaches differ from one-another on many factors, and that the context of recreational youth soccer is similarly diverse and presents unique challenges to coaches. Recreational youth coaches learn to coach through a variety of sources; mostly through informal learning situations. Responsibilities surrounding coach development fall on the shoulders of individual coaches and clubs, as well as regional, provincial, and national associations; and suggestions for increased engagement in this regard are provided.

This thesis examines the impacts and legacy of the Champion Coaching Scheme of the National Coaching Foundation, focusing on three case studies of implementation from 1996-1999, on Merseyside and North Wales. As one of the most significant and longrunning programmes of the 1990s, Champion Coaching represented a national blueprint for the development of youth sport and coaching. The evaluation uses a 'realist' approach, drawing upon the scientific realism of Pawson and Tilley (1997). Outcomes are derived from the programme theory developed for Champion Coaching in a multi-method approach. Central to this analysis is the need to examine the context, mechanisms and outcomes from programmes. It draws together evidence from a range of primary and secondary sources; participants, parents, coaches, sport Development practioners, teachers; young people; Census and deprivation statistics. Using a range of techniques, including face to face and telephone interviews, survey and geographical analysis, context- mechanism-outcome configurations of each case study were produced, in order to draw out how the programme 'worked', and contribute to building the evidence base for sport development interventions. The results demonstrate that the blueprint was flexibly interpreted and delivered resulting in particular patterns of outcomes in the different cases. Champion Coaching represented a successful approach to the development of 'perfon-nance pathways', as the level of club membership in participants was higher than suggested by national surveys. In contributing to coaching development, the Scheme had some clear impacts on the human capital involved in sport. However, results were not uniform and show how the sporting infrastructure and attitudes of schools or Governing Bodies to such programmes, can influence whether gains in such capital can be sustained. At the meso-level of analysis of policy for youth sport and coaching, the research shows how Champion Coaching contributed to the policy development in this increasingly salient policy area and points to its legacy in school-aged sport. The conclusions point to some of the lessons learned for future policies and the implications for outcome-oriented evaluations, including the need to plan such evaluation at the stage of programme design.