David Kirk University of Berdfordshire

Education Legacy: Challenges and possibilities for physical education and

youth sport programs

Professor David Kirk Alexander Chair in Physical Education

and Sport

Overview

• The concept of legacy and forms of legacy • UK government legacy commitments to

London 2012 • Evidence for an Olympic/Paralympic legacy

and some assumptions • Planning for legacy 2002 and beyond • The voices of young people • Challenges and possibilities

The concept of legacy

• IOC Charter amended in 2007 to include a requirement that all Games produce ‘positive legacies’

• Despite its widespread use, confusion over the term ‘legacy’ – Something we leave behind? (‘heritage’) – Something we take forward? (‘lasting legacy’)

• The idea of planning for legacy of mega sports events (Hughes, 2013)

Forms of legacy

• Economic – Infrastructure, business development, inward

investment

• Social – Human capital (skills required to deliver an event) – Education (Olympic values) – Sport (elite performance, grassroots participation)

UK Government Legacy Commitments to London 2012

• “[…] grassroots participation would be boosted. An already sports-mad nation would get fitter and healthier.” (Bid promotion materials, in Coulter 2004)

• Hosting London 2012 would contribute to the Government’s social justice and health agendas – target of 70 percent of the population undertaking

5x30 minutes of moderate activity per week by 2020 (DCMS/Strategy Unit, 2002)

UK Government Legacy Commitments to London 2012

• “Inspire a generation of young people” (one of 5 ‘Legacy Promises’, DCMS 2007)

• “Harnessing the United Kingdom’s passion for sport to increase grass roots participation, particularly by young people – and to encourage the whole population to be more physically active” (one of 4 ‘Areas’ of focus for planning for legacy, DCMS 2010)

Evidence for an Olympic Legacy of sport participation?

• “Hosting of the Games has some potential to raise sporting activity across the country, by inspiring individuals. This effect is difficult to capture and also to maintain, based on the experience of previous sporting events, but there is no doubt that some kind of effect is possible” (Olympic Health Impact Assessment, 2004)

Evidence for an Olympic Legacy of sport participation?

• Sydney 2000 - The findings from three studies (Toohey and Veal, 2005; Toohey et al, 2006; Veal &Frawley, 2009) showed that despite a brief rise in sports participation, this was short-lived

• Neither was there evidence of a ‘trickle-down effect’ (Cashman, 2006) post-Games

• Bejing 2008 - Feng & Hong, 2013 found lack of long-term sports participation

Evidence for an Olympic Legacy of sport participation?

• According to Weed et al, 2012, there is little empirical evidence to suggest that staging major elite sporting events acts as a catalyst for increased participation at grass-roots level

• However, they say the key to generating a physical activity legacy among the least active adults is to de-emphasise the sporting element of the 2012 Games and promote the ‘festival’ element

Assumptions behind Legacy Ambitions?

“The model of behaviour change underpinning such claims is not clear. Is it implying a media-led growth in participation as a result of widespread coverage of the Olympic Bid? Is it presuming that elite sporting role models will encourage widespread participation? Is it assuming that the coverage of individual sports will increase their popularity (..)? Why is it assuming that persistently under-participating groups will be moved to participate and enable the nation to get fitter and healthier?” (Coalter, 2004)

Planning for Legacy 2002-2010

• Responsibility for the sports participation aspect of the legacy of London 2012 was largely in the hands of National Governing Bodies of Sport (Hughes, 2013)

• Despite massive investment in infrastructure and programme development in Physical Education and School Sport from the late 1990s to 2010, none of this was specifically focused on or around London 2012 (Jung, 2012)

2012 Initiatives for sports participation (DCMS 2010)

School Games: designed to build on ‘the magic of 2012’ to enable every school and child to participate in competitive sport, including meaningful opportunities for disabled youngsters (YST, 2013)

Change 4 life program: school sports clubs that ‘harness the inspiration’ of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and encourage the less-active primary and secondary school children (YST, 2013)

Places People Play: delivered by Sport England alongside the British Olympic Association, aims to bring the games into the ‘heart of the community and inspire more people’ to get involved in grass-roots sport (Sport England, 2013)

Young People’s Voices

• A study of 600 sports leaders aged 14-18 (MacPhail et al, 2003)

• What can be done to help young people participate in sport?

• Generated over 1000 statements grouped into five categories: – People (123); Conditions (370); Resources (189);

Climate (222); Attractors (184)

Young People’s Voices - Climate

• Social Aspects - friendly competition, making friends and meeting people

• Encouragement - teachers, family and coaches giving positive feedback and reinforcement

• Inclusivity (125 statements) – frustration at being left out; increase provision for disabled youth; overemphasis (by adults) on competition and winning; effort should be rewarded; ownership by youth

Young People’s Voices - Conditions

• Pathways - the experience of sport across school and club sites should be consistent and continuous

• Organised events – importance of festivity • Communication of information – about youth

sport, need for improvement • School and club provision (217 statements)

Young People’s Voices – School and club provision

• More time for physical education and sport in school – More curriculum time – More opportunities to play at lunch time and after school – Smaller classes

• Wider choice of activities – Too small a number of sports currently dominates – Better coaching – Access to clubs regardless of ability

Implications for increasing sport participation

• This study shows strong support for physical education and sport among these young people as a preferred leisure-time pursuit

• But their support is equivocal • Shows that young people are only likely to be

attracted to and remain in sport if the sites in which they can practise it cater for their individual abilities and interests

Young People’s Voices Post 2012

• Study of socioeconomic factors and significant others in relation to sports participation and awareness of the 2012 games (Hawes, 2013)

• Thirty-four primary and secondary school students receiving free-school meals

• Focus on role models, the Games as inspiration for sports participation

Young People’s Voices Post 2012

• Most students could name a role model (significant other) in relation to sports participation – Role models including parents, teachers, siblings – 4 students mentioned Olympic athletes as their

role model – 90% students named Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah,

Usain Bolt and/ or Tom Daley as Olympics athletes they remembered

Young People’s Voices Post 2012

• Did the 2012 Games inspire them to participate? – The most inspired were two girls who actually went to

Games events “I went to watch the basketball and they were really good… I do all of my PE lessons now” (Year 8 Girl); “the atmosphere was amazing, how happy everybody was, how great the individual sports were, the stadiums, the crowds, just everything was incredible” (Year 12 Girl), though no impact on PA levels

– Some young people mentioned elite sport has a negative effect on their motivation

Young People’s Voices Post 2012

• Most of the young people remembered a lot about the games as a media event (eg. Opening and closing ceremonies; 100m final – Bolt, 10,000m – Farah)

• Ennis, Farah, Bolt were highly visible as celebrities leading up to and during the games

• Daley was mentioned mostly by girls who thought he was attractive rather than as a diver

Sports participation or physical cultural engagement?

• This study reminds us that Olympic and Paralympic Games are media events

• Young people engage with these events in a whole range of ways, not solely in terms of sport participation – eg. As consumers or goods and services, celebrity culture

• Perhaps we need to think more broadly about legacy as engagements with physical culture

Challenges and possibilities for physical education and youth sport programs

• Given the many complex factors affecting sports participation, the idea that a single event will inspire increased participation is naïve

• There was no explicit program for 2012 legacy for school physical education and sport (notwithstanding achievements centred on the School Sport Partnerships, now dismantled)

Challenges and possibilities for physical education and youth sport programs

• There was no direct input to legacy planning by young people (as one of the main beneficiary groups)

• There was (and remains) an assumption that existing school physical education and sport programs are fit for purpose

• They are not IF the measure of success is lifelong physical activity

Challenges and possibilities for physical education and youth sport programs

• A legacy strategy aimed at ‘valuing the physically active life’ (Siedentop, 1996) requiring positive and critical engagement with the popular physical culture of society would be truly radical

• Given failures to improve participation through Olympic/ Paralympic legacy AND compulsory school physical education, we need a new approach to thinking about this radical aspiration that is centred on a concept of education as empowering and emancipatory

Acknowledgement

• Thanks for Claire Hawes and Philippa Crow for support for this presentation from their undergraduate and masters dissertation studies respectively