Social relations in organised youth sport: Networks, gender, status, friends and education

Abstract

Organised sport is an important social arena for Norwegian youth, but there is still a lot to learn about how sport operates as a venue for socialisation. The main goal of this dissertation is to gain a better understanding of organised youth sport as a social arena. The research focuses on the social relations between athletes – their antecedents, structural properties and consequences – and the findings are presented in four articles.

In summary, this dissertation highlights the complex and multifaceted nature of social relations in sport: what they structurally look like (as social networks; Article 1); where they come from (Article 2); their social significance (as social status; Article 3) and their consequences (in school; Article 4). I also shed light on how social relations in sport impact sport participation: recruitment, continuation and dropout from sport.