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In this essay, we build upon Messner and Musto’s recent call for sociologists of sport to take “kids” more seriously; we highlight that in addition to taking kids and kids’ sport more seriously, sport scholars might go further toward considering childhood not simply as a stage of life, but as a set of ideas that shape and are shaped by sporting and recreational practices and discourses. To illustrate the value of this approach, we explore a number of complexities and contradictions of contemporary risk discourses, and the ways in which these are connected to the (re)production of young people as vulnerable subjects.

Dans cet essai, nous nous appuyons sur Messner et Musto qui ont récemment encouragé les sociologues du sport à prendre les enfants plus au sérieux; nous soulignons qu’en plus de prendre les enfants et les activités sportives des enfants au sérieux, les chercheurs en sport peuvent aller plus loin et considérer l’enfance non seulement comme une étape de la vie, mais aussi comme un ensemble d’idées qui forment les pratiques et discours sportifs et récréatifs et sont formées par ceux-ci. Pour illustrer le bien-fondé de cette approche, nous explorons un certain nombre de complexités et contradictions qui existent dans les discours actuels sur le risque, et les façons dont ils sont connectés à la (re)production des jeunes comme sujets vulnérables.

This study examines the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and sport and physical activity involvement at different stages of childhood and adolescence in Canada. From the previous literature on SES and health-related behavior, there was reason to test competing hypotheses on the direction of the predicted relationship. The data employed in our analyses came from Cycle 3 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth—1998–1999. Results, after controls, showed that SES was a significant predictor of sport involvement among 6–9 year-olds, but not for 10–15 year-olds. In the younger group, the higher the family SES the more frequent was the involvement. The effects of SES were much stronger for organized sport involvement than for participation in an informal context. The discussion bears on the implications of these findings for later adult physical activity and sport involvement and their ramifications for sport and exercise promotion policy.

This paper explores how we might better engage with pedagogy as a feature of the growing field of Physical Cultural Studies (Andrews, 2006). It is promulgated that pedagogy and physical culture, as disciplines, may benefit from a much stronger dialogical engagement. In progressing these discussions, the paper draws on the case of the current interest in what is putatively described as a childhood obesity epidemic, to illustrate how physical cultural practices relating to “health” produce public pedagogy which speaks to a complex interplay of political, social and technological relationships.

In this paper, I illustrate how gender dispositions vary in women’s soccer and women’s boxing in France based on Connell’s (1987) concept of gender régime and Bourdieu’s theory of habitus. Data were obtained through ethnographic observations and biographical interviews with fifty female athletes. The main results showed that the gender dispositions of the interviewed athletes were formed between specific gender regimes and dispositional systems that differed depending on their sport. In addition, gender dispositions constructed during childhood could be reinforced and/or transformed by sport participation. Both in boxing and in football, the gendered behaviors were also dependent upon the forms of capital each athlete was able to mobilize.

A number of scholars have noted the increased social currency that a risk vocabulary has come to assume in late modernity. This vocabulary has been deployed in discourses o physical inactivity and obesity, wherein children have increasingly been identified as an at-risk population leading a sedentary lifestyle, which is culturally represented as a primary risk factor for obesity and ultimately ill health. This article explores the usefulness of Foucault’s governmental perspective in problematizing the function served and effects produced by a risk vocabulary within discourses and practices directed at intervening in the childhood inactivity and obesity epidemics with a specific focus on the Canadian context.

This study examines the associations among socioeconomic status (SES), aging, gender and sport and physical activity participation from late childhood into adolescence. Drawing from previous research, we test three hypotheses regarding the impact of aging on SES and sport participation using longitudinal data. The data come from a prospective cohort study of children, all of whom were enrolled in grade 4 (at baseline) in the public school system of a large region of southern Ontario, Canada. We examine two outcome measures: participation in organized sport and physical activity and active free play. Our results show different effects of neighborhood household income, aging and gender for each outcome. For organized sport participation, neighborhood household income effects are constant over time for both boys and girls. For active free play however, neighborhood household income differences widen (or diverge) over time for girls, but not for boys. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research and policy considerations.

Cette étude examine les associations entre statut socioéconomique, âge, genre et participation en sport et en activité physique de la fin de l’enfance à l’adolescence. Nous nous appuyons sur les recherches antérieures et des données longitudinales pour tester trois hypothèses à propos de l’impact de l’âge sur le statut socioéconomique et la participation en sport. Les données proviennent d’une étude de cohorte prospective d’enfants, tous étant inscrits en 4ème année (au début de l’étude) dans le système scolaire public d’une grande région du sud de l’Ontario au Canada. Nous mesurons deux types de résultats : la participation en sport organisé et activité physique et le jeu libre actif. Nos résultats montrent différents effets du revenu du ménage du quartier, de l’âge et du genre pour chaque résultat. Pour la participation en sport organisé, les effets du revenu du ménage du quartier sont constants avec le temps à la fois pour les garçons et les filles. Pour le jeu libre actif en revanche, les différences dans le revenu du ménage augmentent (ou divergent) avec le temps pour les filles, mais pas pour les garçons. Nous discutons les implications de ces résultats pour les études et politiques futures.