Bullying Trends Inside Sport: When Organized Sport Does Not Attract but Intimidates

Abstract

Bullying is acknowledged by scientists as a considerable and still unresolved problem in sport. By triggering stress-related emotions, they determine the behavior of those experiencing bullying and cause various negative effects on their physical and mental health. However, in the presence of the tenacious trend in sports “to put one’s own house in order,” athletes, coaches, teams, and sports organizations themselves often do not emphasize bullying or state that they do not encounter the problem at all, and adheres to the belief that athletes may use negative emotions instrumentally in order to perform tasks given to them more effectively. The aim of this research was to reveal the determinants of the internal environment of sports organizations, causing trends of bullying in organized sport. To achieve the research aim, a qualitative research paradigm was chosen. The empirical study involved eight coaches working in organized sport in Lithuania. The survey was conducted using the semi-structured interview method. Data were analyzed employing inductive content analysis. The presented research results encompass the transcriptions of interviews, which are conceptually divided into three main categories revealing coaches’ opinion on trends of bullying in organized sport, related to the sports organization’s internal environment. Categories identified during the study can be equated to interrelated levels of model of Organizational behavior. The micro level-interrelationships; the mezzo level-sports professionals’ (coaches’) behavior; and the macro level-management of interrelationships. These results revealed which determinants of the sports organization’s internal environment can be favorable for emergence of bullying and its dynamics in both interrelationships among athletes and interrelationships between athletes and coaches. And these trends of bullying, revealed on the basis of the responses of coaches involved in the study, allow us to see harmful principles of coaching, bullying-promoting traditions of team/group leadership, existing in sport, and to predict how this may effect both the athlete himself, his environment and attractiveness of the sporting activity itself.

“I Gave Up Football and I Had No Intention of Ever Going Back”: Retrospective Experiences of Victims of Bullying in Youth Sport

“…Families do not have clear indications of how to act when a case of bullying occurs, reason why it would be necessary to promote their training ( Flores et al, 2020 ). On the other hand, the coach becomes one of the key agents, since they can act as a role model or mentor and promote, maintain or inhibit bullying ( Nery et al, 2020 ; Vveinhardt and Fominiene, 2020 ). The victims perceived that the coach had little interest in personal experiences, giving little importance to the interpersonal relationships created in the athletes’ group and, at the same time, trivializing the situations of conflict that could arise, focusing their intervention in merely sporting elements.…”

“…A lack of teacher-student relationship can lead victims to stop reporting the event due to a perception of indifference from the teacher, or due to the feeling that they will not solve the problem positively ( Nery et al, 2020 ). Therefore, the actions taken by the coaches did not favor, in general, putting an end to bullying, probably due to a lack of education and knowledge about this phenomenon ( Kowalski, 2017 ; Flores et al, 2020 ) and due to their education being focused on athletic performance, with traditional training styles ( Vveinhardt and Fominiene, 2020 ), creating a high pressure environment for the victim ( Vveinhardt et al, 2017 ). Thus, it is advisable to increase the knowledge on the subject by the coaches and articulate pedagogic dynamics that are in line with the athletes’ youth sport training ( Collot and Dudink, 2010 ; Baar and Wubbels, 2013 ; Shannon, 2013 ; Nery et al, 2019 ; Flores et al, 2020 ).…”

Neformaliojo sportinio ugdymo iššūkiai COVID-19 pandemijos metu

“…Tyrimo tikslui, susijusiam su sportinės veiklos organizavimo ypatumais COVID-19 pandemijos metu, pasiekti empiriniame tyrime pasirinkta kokybinio tyrimo tradicija, kadangi ji siejasi su tikslu suprasti bei atskleisti asmenį supančią socialinę tikrovę per žmogaus patirtis (Vveinhardt, Fominiene, 2020).…”

Bullying in Adolescents Practising Sport: A Structural Model Approach

“…As is reflected by [ 5 ], bullying is one of the subsets of social aggression that started to be analysed more extensively 40 years ago and, in the last decade, attracted increasing interest from researchers in various countries, which is still ongoing to this day [ 6 ]. In this context, bullying is relevant as it is produced in the educational environment, where its consequences can have a significant impact [ 7 ].…”

“…Refs. [ 6 , 24 ] have linked an environment of physical education (PE) to bullying acts. In this sense, it has been suggested that victims of school bullying tend to avoid school contexts that make them feel vulnerable, among which the authors highlight those found in physical activities [ 25 ].…”