Navigating the circles of social life: understanding pathways to sport drop-out among French teenagers

Abstract

Sports practice is a way to be physically active. Despite public health efforts to support it, teenagers' sport participation is declining in some European countries. One reason for the decline is drop-out from sports practice. Various analytical frameworks have been applied to this issue but little is known about how teenagers understand their own pathway in the social context, ending with a drop-out from sports practice. This study aimed to identify reasons given by teenagers about sports practice drop-out situated within the circles of their everyday lives, through 100 semi-structured interviews. The results made it possible to classify the reasons for dropping out into five themes: friendship, body, family, school, and sport. Two processes lead to drop-out: constraints which prevent access to the circle of sports practice and/or a decision-making that brings them out of it. The respondents could mention one or multiple reasons, accumulating (snowball effect) or following one another (cascade effect). Depending on the moment of drop-out, some circles of social life played a preponderant role. The family seemed to be central in the decision to drop out during primary school, whereas sport itself and school were influential in middle and high schools respectively. The results showed that the more recent the drop-out, the more the teenagers planned to resume sports practice. These data are relevant for health education policies to prevent physical inactivity through sport. It is important not only to remove the constraints that prevent access to the circle of sports practice, but also to promote the most pleasurable sports experiences.

Opting out of youth sports: how can we understand the social processes involved?

“…When youth are asked to rate the importance of various reasons to opt out of sports, they attach special importance to prioritizing other activities and a lack of fun ( Seippel, 2005;Rottensteiner et al, 2013). Among other activities, youth (especially girls) consistently rate schoolwork as an important reason to opt out of sports (Butcher et al, 2002) because of time scheduling-or time demand issues (Gatouillat et al, 2019) Often, youth rate a number of other reasons as being influential but less important. Some examples include injuries, parental discouragement, sports being too expensive, a dislike of their coach or peers, overly long distances to training facilities, or a lack of opportunity within the club to continue (Butcher et al, 2002;Molinero, Salguero, Álvarez, & Márques, 2006).…”

“…In this sense, our analysis aims for a holistic understanding of opting out processes. With a few exceptions (e.g., Gatouillat, Griffet, & Travert, 2019), most studies regarding organized sports to date have concentrated on social mechanisms within sports clubs (e.g., Quested et al, 2013) and/or have applied a methodology in which youth respond to reasons that researchers have predefined (e.g., Butcher, Lindner, & Johns, 2002;Rottensteiner, Laakso, Pihlaja, & Konttinen, 2013). In contrast to previous research, we analyze the reasons youth offer when asked to describe why they have left organized sports in their own words.…”

Lockdowns and Physical Activities: Sports in the Time of COVID

“…The relationship between the financial situation of families and the physical activities of children was also analyzed and described by Flintoff and Fitzgerald [ 71 ]. At the same time, a survey by Gatouillat et al [ 72 ] of French teenagers highlighted the fact that the role of the family in continuing to practice sports, or dropping out, is more often relevant only at a younger age for kids, and the role and importance of friends in maintaining commitment to the practice physical activities increases as they get older. However, it needs to be emphasized that the proportion of students focusing on their studies rather than on sports also grows as they get closer to their final exams at school, and their study workload increases.…”

Organisert idrett og skole som komplementære og konkurrerende arenaer: ulike mønstre for minoritets- og majoritetsungdom?

“…Også en sosioøkonomisk gradient gjør seg gjeldene for frafallsmønsteret fra ungdomsidretten (Bakken, 2017). Når det gjelder ungdoms motiver for å slutte i idrettslag, har studier fra blant annet Finland (Rottensteiner et al, 2013) og Frankrike (Gatouillat et al, 2019), i tillegg til Norge (Persson et al, 2019), vist at det å ikke forplikte seg til faste treningstidspunkter og/eller prioritere tiden annerledes er en hovedbegrunnelse for frafall, saerlig blant ungdom i videregående skole-alder (16-19 år) (Skauge & Rafoss, 2020).…”

“…Skoleambisiøse minoritetsungdommer kan se seg nødt til å slutte i idrettslag for å få mer tid til noe som vurderes som viktigere. Frafall fra idrettslag kan dermed bli uttrykk for formålsrasjonelle vurderinger av tidsbruk, noe tidligere forskning også har vist: Enkelte elever ser på frafall fra idrettslag som et middel til å forløse tid til å jobbe med skolearbeid (Gatouillat et al, 2019). Marsh (1992) argumenterer på sin side for at det dreier seg om konkurrerende engasjement fremfor tidsbruk, hvor ulike aktiviteter kjemper om ungdommens oppmerksomhet.…”