Abstract
Despite the well-documented benefits of sport participation, adolescent dropout remains a pertinent issue, with the rate of dropout higher in girls than in boys. Recent scholarship has proposed that dropout from youth sport is not the crisis that it is often portrayed as and may instead be due to developmentally appropriate changes during adolescence. Nonetheless, youth sport dropout often leads to sustained disengagement from sport and other, less structured forms of physical activity. Therefore, easy avenues for re-engagement in sport must be present to ensure that those adolescents who drop out are not lost indefinitely. This study used a co-design process involving 23 adult stakeholders and primary qualitative data from 30 female adolescents to create an evidence-based sport re-engagement intervention. Key components of the intervention included: (1) targeted sport showcases to increase visibility of sporting opportunities for recently disengaged girls; (2) An app-based mentorship program connecting female adolescents with female athletes and leaders; and (3) The development of re-engagement guidelines for State Sporting Organisations to ensure equitable, high-quality competitive opportunities for female adolescents. Re-engagement is an under-prioritised area of sport participation research that could have a beneficial effect on overall participation rates. It is anticipated that this intervention will improve participation outcomes for female adolescents by ensuring that those who have previously dropped out of sport have easy ways to re-engage. This study may also serve as a blueprint for future targeted participation interventions and has potential to fundamentally improve how sport participation initiatives are designed and delivered.
Presenters
James KayPhD Candidate, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, South Australia, Australia
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Participation, Re-Engagement, Female, Adolescent, Co-Design
