by Maja Pilgaard
Vol. 3 2012, pages 71–95
Published May 9, 2012
Abstract
Teenagers’ Participation in Sports and Exercise in Modern Everyday Life
During adolescence, the tendency to withdraw from club organized sports is high. This has been an issue among researchers for many years but is still a cause for concern for the agents within the field of sports. The latest survey on sports participation among the Danish population shows that the adolescents have become even less involved in sports within the past ten years. This article focuses on what can explain the tendency to drop out. The analysis reveals a pattern of more individualized, self-organized and flexible sports participation among adolescents. Individual reasons for drop out from club organized sports are analyzed, and reasons are categorized into two groups, ‘voluntary drop out’ and ‘forced drop out’. The theoretical approach of individualization as a general tendency of modern everyday life contributes to an understanding of a need for more ‘light sport communities’ in order to allow adolescents to combine sport and social relations as an incorporated part of modern everyday life. .
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About the Author
MAJA PILGAARD is a PhD student at the Institute of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University of Southern Denmark, and is employed as an academic researcher at the Danish Institute for Sports Studies in Copenhagen. Maja investigates sport and exercise participation of the Danes, and from a perspective of the sociology of everyday life she examines the development and the character of participation and the variations between different parts of the population. She focuses on how people include sport and exercise in everyday life based on life stages, social background, work and family life, and how sports providers can understand and relate to the new, flexible and individual ways of organizing sports participation in modern everyday life.
