Project Summary
This research examines participation and engagement with sport among Canadian urban youth and the resulting impact on athlete development, sport organizations, businesses, sponsors and Canadian society. Particular emphasis is put on the city of Toronto and pool and rink sports. There are four research questions:
- In what ways and how deeply are young urban Canadians engaged in sport?
- What is the engagement process?
- What capacity exists to facilitate, support and enhance engagement?
- What roles, responsibilities and benefits accrue to business, government and non-profit organizations?
Research Methods
This project involved an extensive array of secondary research efforts and primary data collection protocols. Secondary research included a literature review and cohort analysis of Canadian Youth 1992 to 2005 using the Statistics Canada General Social Surveys (1992, 1998 and 2005). Approxim
ately 10,000 respondents completed the sport and physical activity module of the GSS.
Primary Research included two netnographies (written accounts of online cyberculture, informed by the methods of cultural anthropology) of a number of online forums to better understand and identify the important factors driving or inhibiting youth sport participation.
Water sports facilities and arenas in Toronto, Montreal and Sudbury were observed to determine the daily and regular user habits of young people. The researchers concentrated on participant ethnicity, socioeconomic level, mode of transportation to the site, family involvement, types of activities and activity level. Interviews focused on youth athletes, non-athletes and youth in schools.
Experimental intervention included three surveys and one intervention with 123 students from Grades 4 to 8 attending three public primary schools in Sudbury, as well as their parents. Students were divided into three groups: active household, moderately active household and inactive household based on a first survey. A second survey focused on youth attitudes and behaviour in relation to physical activity. Following the second survey, the youth were randomly divided up into two groups: one group received an information kit on physical activity and the other, an information kit on diet. A third survey, identical to the second, was distributed after the intervention to determine if there had been a change in the level of engagement and attitude toward physical activity and/or in the level of family support.
The questionnaire for a large sample survey (“National Survey of Urban Canadian Youth” (n=3003)) of youth in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal was built from all previous studies and literature.
A still ongoing spatial analysis of sport facility infrastructure in the city of Toronto will layer the location of facilities, clubs and other important infrastructure in relation to various demographic factors, as well as the results of the other methods, to provide a geospatial assessment of Greater Toronto.
Research Results
The literature review and cohort analysis revealed that urban youth sport participation was determined by six underlying factors: household context, parental education, community context, social/gender, self-perceptions, and competing behaviours. All these drivers discriminate between adolescents who do and adolescents who do not participate in sport. Notably, the cohort analysis also found that the younger generations are decreasing their participation rates at higher levels than other cohorts.
The interviews, netnography and experimental intervention allowed for deeper understanding of these factors at many levels. For example, youth interviews highlighted eight drivers of sport participation: (i) parental/siblings influence, (ii) coaches, (iii) socio-economic status of the family, (iv) technical skills, (v) geographical context, (vi) personal attributes (identity aspect) and skills (perception of strengths vs. weaknesses), (vii) friends, and (viii) school as an initiator into sport (but also an obstacle to great engagement). Notably, gender and ethnicity did not appear to be as important as previous thought (literature). The interviews further made three important comments vis-à-vis the process and strength of engagement: First, the processes of youth sport participation depend on the interaction with youth’s social surroundings. Second, the strength of youth engagement in sport is influenced by the level of competition and degree of family involvement. Third, parental involvement may be the most important of all drivers. Importantly, the interviews revealed that youth participate in sport via one of three processes: social (family, friends), institutional (school, club), identity (self-perceptions, ego, etc.). There is a difference between these processes for youth who are doing sport for recreation and those who are high-performance athletes
The netnography highlighted that youth lacking a supportive environment are most in need of policy support vs. those in middle-class, two parent families. In addition, analysis using GSS data related to ‘household context’ reinforced this driver as a critical – if not the most important – element in adolescent sport participation. Households of intact families, with higher than average incomes, in which several household members participate in sport, define an ideal that is not available to all adolescents.
Early analysis of the large sample survey suggests that those in need of support in sport participation are those who do not match the drivers of sport participation noted earlier. Indeed, the profile of the current sport participant suggests that effort should be expanded to target and encourage adolescent females, over the age of 17, from Central Canada, living with less-educated parents, in a lower income, non-in-tact family, with a father born in Canada and without other household members who participate, coach and attend amateur sporting events.
Policy Implications
This research brings forward a number of important recommendations to governments at the level of policy and the level of programs. The most important policy recommendation, clearly, is the need to develop policies that target the portion of the Canadian population who requires support. The middle-income family, with two parents living at home, and a decent income does not need help. Their kids are largely active. It is in fact the single mother or the widower, living in a condo, with limited income that really needs the support. Their kids are largely not active. This is emphasized by the cohort analysis which found that youth sport participation declined at a significantly higher rate for households with incomes of less than $40,000 per year versus those households in the $100,000 per year category. The income divide clearly indicates the need for fiscal (government) support of lower- and middle-class income earners’ children’s participation. Government-sponsored spaces at different recreational and competitive levels in organized sport for these families’ youth may have a greater impact.
Next Steps
Two important steps remain in the analysis of all this data: geospatial analysis of facilities and further data analysis of the large sample survey.
Key Stakeholders and Benefits
There is a need for policy makers and investors in grassroots sport to target resources at participants not in ‘supportive’ environments and/or ‘ideal’ households. These organizations include governments, foundations, sponsors, COC, and NSOs.
Organizations interested in increasing participation rates should act to overcome structural challenges to capitalizing on the large potential pools of participants.
Health promoters should take note that younger generation sport participation rates are decreasing rapidly. Policy should focus on developing active lifestyles among young adults by targeting key messages at schools, teachers and school boards. There is also a need to link sport development objectives to healthy living messages targeting girls.
Finally, there is a need to consider youth culture/subcultures (i.e. social networking and competing screen interests) in program planning for adolescents.