Towards recognition of peer violence in youth sports -the case of Vojvodina (original) (raw)

TOWARDS RECOGNITION AND PREVENTION OF PEER VIOLENCE IN GRAS-ROOTS SPORTS CLUBS – VOJVODINA CASE

Youth Sport 2018 Book of Abstracts, 2018

The paper presents the results of a field research conducted using a focus group interview technique among coaches of grass-roots sports clubs in Serbian province Vojvodina. The research is a part of a three year long project Sport against violence and exclusion – SAVE funded by the Erasmus + Sport 2017 Program of the European Union, which seeks to prevent peer violence and social exclusion through physical activity. The participants of the focus-group discussion were the coaches, who spoke about the manifested forms of peer violence in their sport clubs, the frequency of violence, terms and places where violence takes place, mental and physical characteristics of a “typical” victim and “typical” bully and “typical” forms of violence faced by boys and girls. The participants in the discussion have stressed that violence in their clubs is an exception, but everybody described the examples of violence in details. The participants agreed that parents interfered “too much” in the work of the coach, which is explained by paying the fee (this is why parents believe they are in a “partnership” relation with the coaches). They also stress that parents of children/bullies deny that their child is violent and refuse any discussions and cooperation with the coach on this topic. Finally, the participants of the discussion believe that there should be some official programmes for addressing peer violence and the social exclusion in the society, which would guide the children from their early age towards tolerance and non-violence.

Aggression and Peer Violence Manifestation in Youth Sport – The Case Study

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2020

This study was designed to detect aggression and peer violence manifestation forms in youth sports in Subotica. The sample consisted of athletes (N=255), aged between 11 and 18 years. Besides presenting descriptive statistics, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to assess the differences in variables (gender, school age, training years, sport type) among the forms of violence that can occur and among the ones that do occur. The results indicate the presence of aggression and violence. The most frequent place is in the dressing room, and the more common period is after or during training and while traveling to competitions, sports camps, etc. The study indicates significant differences in sexual violence between primary and secondary school-age children. Moreover, physical and psychological violence is significantly dominant in collective sports compared to the individual ones. Recognizing the presence of these phenomena is the first step toward reducing their potential negative outcomes.

Certain Indicators of Violence in Children and Youth Sports

Physical Education and Sport Through the Centuries, 2019

Summary The various manifesting forms of violence fall into the group of acute problems of contemporary Serbian society. There are multiple reasons for this, which are the consequence of a multi-decade post-socialist transformation, complicated by the pauperization of society, as well as by intense globalization processes. Peer violence is one of the negative features of everyday life and lifestyle of children and youth. Having this in mind, the authors have identified some manifesting forms of peer violence in children and youth sports on the territory of the city of Novi Sad. It concerns the results of the analysis of secondary material (more specifically - legal acts and strategies) which deal with the issue of peer violence in sports. Furthermore, the authors have identified the manifesting forms and intensity of peer violence in children and youth sports through conducting focus-group interviews with coaches and parents of children aged 6 to 16. In addition to peer violence, th...

Youth Athletes’ Perception of Existence and Prevalence of Aggression and Interpersonal Violence and Their Forms in Serbia

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Aggression and interpersonal violence (IV) against children and youth are issues in contemporary society. The current study reports on the youth athletes’ perception of the aggression and IV prevalence and its manifestation forms in a Serbian context. The sample included athletes (N = 2091) between the age of 11 and 18 years. Data were collected through an ad-hoc questionnaire created by the authors. Respondents’ answers to introductory questions about the frequency of IV indicated its absence (78.1%). However, the answers to the questions about specific forms of violent peer behavior indicated forms as well as the time and place where IV most often occurs. They underlined that IV takes place mainly after training or competition and during sports camps; and that the dressing room is the most favorable place for these behaviors. They also confirmed that the most prevalent subtypes of IV are psychological (roughly 40%) and physical (approximately 30%). The respondents’ opinions and ex...

The Relation Between Youth Sport and the Reduction of Peer Violence

Facta Universitatis, Series: Physical Education and Sport, 2020

This research was a part of a field study, within the SAVE project funded under the Erasmus+ European programme. The study aimed at providing answers about the benefits of practicing sports in the prevention and reduction of peer violence. Generally, the frequency of aggressive behaviour was low, and equal in both tested groups. The results revealed a significant relationship between physical activity and prosocial behaviour, group cohesion and satisfaction of participants with the group. Furthermore, the athletes had a lower level of aggression compared to the students. Although this difference is small, it is in line with some previous studies and it is an indicator of sport benefits in the suppression of peer aggression. This finding is very important for policy makers, because some research showed that regardless of SES, sport is seen as a favourite extracurricular activity among parents. The results of this research should contribute to the overall aim of the SAVE project, i.e....

Interpersonal Violence in Sport

In this study, how they experience the phenomenon of violence in the relations between the actors in the field of sports, their tendency to violence and the culture they created in the field were examined. Athletes declared that they were frequently exposed to physical, psychological, economic and sexual violence by people who were superior to them in terms of age and status. Among the athletes, on the other hand, we encountered examples of peer bullying, which is fed by displays of power based on the desire to create hierarchy and hegemony. The quantitative findings of the study showed that the violence tendency of the athletes who were exposed to violence was high. The quantitative and qualitative findings of the study showed that the athletes who were exposed to violence avoided complaining about this situation, did not believe that anything could be done, and did not know the complaint procedures. It was understood that the athletes experienced sadness, depression, fear, motivation disorder and strong concerns about losing their sports life after being exposed to violence. In addition, the findings; It has been revealed that athletes experience important problems such as incorrect training periods specific to their branches, lack of knowledge about competition and camp programs, injury, loss of performance, psychological disorders, weight problems, not being able to participate in international competitions, and not being able to make career planning due to arbitrary practices made by managers.

Prosocial and Aggressive Behavior Occurrence in Young Athletes: Field Research Results in Six European Countries

Sustainability

Aggression and violence among youth are researched as social phenomena in sport. This paper was designed to determine the occurrence of these behaviors as well as prosocial behaviors among young athletes. The current paper is a research report aiming to detect the frequency of aggressive behavior, social exclusion, prosocial behavior and cohesion in the youth environment, the frequency of personal experience of peer violence or social exclusion, and to evaluate cross-national differences in terms of occurrence of these phenomena.The field research was conducted in six European countries (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Italy, Lithuania, and Serbia) on a sample of 482 children aged 6 to 16. The conducted questionnaire consisted of pre-existing scales and measures for specific behaviors and social aspects that formed the Youth Environment Assessment and Youth Characteristics Questionnaire. Previous personal experience of violence and social exclusion determined groups in the...

Papaioannou, A., Karastogiannidou, C., & Theodorakis, Y. (2004). Sport involvement, sport violence and health-related behaviours in adolescence. European Journal of Public Health, 14, 168-172.

Background: Within the context of problem-behaviour theory, this study investigated the intra-relationship between attitudes and behaviours towards exercise, sport involvement, violence in sport-related events, eating fruits, smoking and hashish or ecstasy use in a sample of Greek adolescents. Age and gender patterns are considered. Methods: Participants were 5991 Greek school pupils who responded to questionnaires assessing behaviour and attitudes towards health-related behaviours. Results: Positive associations were found between pupils' reports of violence in sport-related events, smoking and hashish or ecstasy use on the one hand, and eating fruits and participation in sport and exercise on the other. In contrast, small positive association was observed between sport involvement and violence in sport-related events. Attitudes towards health risk behaviours were inversely related to attitudes towards health-promoting behaviours, and attitudes were positively related to corresponding behaviours. Sport involvement and regular exercise decreased but smoking and use of hashish or ecstasy increased with age. More males than females participated in organized sport and violent acts in sport-related events. Males' involvement in sport violence increased with age. Conclusion: Sport is a suitable context for the promotion of several health-related behaviours apart from exercise. Nevertheless, the present sport structure excludes most young people and is positively linked with sport violence. A less demanding sport context should be provided for the majority of young people, particularly for females. Sport programmes designed to promote health behaviours should be encouraged. More concentrated actions to combat sport violence are required.

Social representation of violence in sport

The social representation decodes the environment, can decrease the intensity of conflicts through knowledge, it educates the social actors towards coherence by simplifying the object in the public discourse by making it simple and comprehensible. The present study aims at analyzing the content, identifying the structure and the organization of the elements of the social representation of violence in sports in a population of students who were spectators of sports events: the subjects are familiar with sporting events (they are students at the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport PES) and subjects who are not familiar with sporting events (they are students in the Faculty of IT -Automation and Computers AC). The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire consisting of a set of 30 statements offered for evaluation through a Likert type scale in four steps (ranging from 1 -agreement to 4 disagreements). Depending on the cumulated / aggregated values, saturation and variance, factor analysis has helped to establish the elements / dimensions of the social representation of violence in sports. The results could lead to solutions for a decrease in violence in the sports arenas, to a change in the behavior of those spectators who misinterpret sports values when collective exaggerated behavior become ritualistic, specific rather of a social movement or a subculture and thus alter the organizational structure of sport.

“You have 60 minutes to do what you can’t do in real life. You can be violent”: young athletes’ perceptions of violence in sport

European Journal for Sport and Society, 2020

Various forms of violence against youth are documented in sport. To date, young athletes' perceptions of violence in sport remain relatively unstudied. The objective of this study was to examine how violence and its various manifestations in sport have been understood by young athletes. In total, 60 athletes from a variety of sports and ages (12-17 years old) participated in nine semistructured focus groups. The interview data were submitted to a thematic analysis using NVivo. Results obtained showed that various motivations for participating in sport influenced the ways in which young athletes addressed violence in this context. Additionally, the findings showed that violence in sport is a concept that young athletes partially understand. Even if most of them described various forms of violence in sport, some forms were misunderstood or have not been addressed at all. Finally, young athletes provided their own explanations of this issue in sport. From their perspective, violence in sport can be seen as part of the sport, a strategy to achieve competitive success on the field, a protective mechanism or a result of the valorisation of violence in sport by peers, parents, coaches and sport organisations. Considering that some young athletes normalised violence in sport, it seems crucial to make prevention efforts targeting social norms in sport.