They always remain girls: The re/production of gender relations in women’s sports in Quebec, 1919-1961
Project Summary This doctoral thesis examines how multiple factors influenced women’s participation in sports in Quebec between 1919 and 1961. It shows that gender, class, age, religious and ethno-linguistic affiliation, as well as whether a facility was co-ed or not, must be taken into consideration for a better understanding of women’s participation in sports, an…
Adolescent leisure opportunities in a changing community
Project Summary The context of leisure is especially amenable to fostering the acquisition of developmental assets and the development of. However, the issue of access to developmentally significant opportunities becomes problematized as inner-city areas are transformed by the process of gentrification, which may disrupt existing usage patterns and which alters the dynamics of supply and…
Urban Youth Engagement in Sport: Process, Access and Participation
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: Research Methods This project involved an extensive array…
The Social Determinants of Athletes’ Health: Understanding the Relationship Between Health and High Performance Sport
Project Summary Researchers are beginning to pay greater attention to the connections and contradictions between sport, health and healthcare. Despite the conventional wisdom that greater participation in sport and physical activity enhances health and the quality of life, more and more evidence points to the ways in which sport participation is not always healthful or…
Understanding Parents’ Experiences in Facilitating Physically Active Leisure for their Children who are Overweight or Obese
Project Summary Parents are key influencers of their children’s leisure behaviours. They identify and create opportunities for their child’s continued participation in leisure activities including sport. There are a number of factors that affect a parent’s ability to support his/her child’s participation in leisure activities. Given increasing concerns about childhood obesity and the importance of…
The Effect of Coaching in Youth Sport in Canada
Project Summary This project was designed to examine the impact of coaching on athlete outcomes in youth sport. The research focused on both the perceptions and behaviors of the coach, and assessed sporting and non-sporting (i.e., positive youth development) outcomes of the athletes. To maximize the applicability of results to the Canadian sporting culture, efforts…
Examining Positive Youth Development in Elite Sport Contexts Using Photo Elicitation
Project Summary Previous research in the field of positive youth development has highlighted the importance of extracurricular activities, such as sport, in developing healthy youth (Larson, 2000, Petitpas et al., 2005). Further, the National Research Council Institute of Medicine (NRIM, 2002) have suggested eight setting features that are critical to the growth of positive young…
Understanding and coping among adolescent athletes
View the summary of this research here. Project summary Research Objectives: Participation in youth sport is associated with a variety of positive developmental outcomes among adolescents, however studies of recreational and competitive youth sport contexts have revealed stressors which include not having fun, an overemphasis on winning, conflicts with coaches or opponents, or parental pressures…
Factors in Adopting Long-term Athlete Development
Project Summary Purpose: Several studies have reported an age-related decline of physical activity (PA). We examined the impact of four transitional periods—adolescence, the beginning of post-secondary education, entry into the labour market, and parenthood—on the PA of participants in the Trois-Rivières quasi-experimental study. The objective of this project was to identify the contribution of each…
An Analysis of High School Sport
Project Summary Among the various opportunities young people have to practise sports, school sports are of particular interest because the ultimate goal of schools is to shape our future citizens. Although school sport has become increasingly popular in Canada, there are very few studies enabling us to assess whether it is achieving its stated mission…