Movement Activities and Youth.
A need for a human development perspective?
Seminar at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences / Department of Physical Education and Pedagogy
January, 20th – 21st, 2011
Introduction
Movement is an important part of an adolescents’ life and their development. Thus, it seems crucial
that sports science is able to provide policy makers with relevant knowledge so they can understand
how society can support adolescents’ development through movement contexts. From a pedagogical
perspective, the quality of any activity program provided for adolescents must be measured in terms of
the relationship between the individual and the specific context of the activity. We know that there is a
great potential to increase this relational and interactive quality, and that this potential is to be found at
the interface between the individual’s life world on the one hand, and the actual opportunities which a
movement context might offer, on the other. To increase the number of happy moving adolescents the
interactive quality must be seen as paramount.
The aim of this seminar is to discuss the relevance of a human development perspective as a third way
to understand adolescents’ involvement in movement activity. Human development is viewed today as
a complex and life long process; where social reflection, processing of contradictory information, and
negotiation and compromise are paramount. Modern social-ecological perspectives on the
developmental process explain how, and why, young people of today think and act differently from
what they did only a couple of decades ago. However, to take advantage of the social ecological
perspective there is a great need for researchers, as well as for policy makers, to recognize the
adolescent as a part of, and as a contemporary result of, his or her own world wide interaction and not
reduce the social ecology to the local environment as something built and isolated from the
adolescent's total ecology. If we fail to do so the ecological approach will have less gain in the applied
field. Due to the fact that these recent perspectives are first of all based on changes in society, it is
reason to consider these perspectives as the foundation of any new advance regarding young people’s
involvement in movement activities.
Keynote speakers
Alexander von Eye
Alexander von Eye is professor of Psychology at Michigan State University, United States. He
received his Ph.D. in 1976 from the University of Trier, Germany. His training focused on
Psychology, Physiology, Computing, and Statistics. Major research interests include substantive and
methodological issues. In the substantive domain, his main interests are developmental, with foci on
family development and adolescent development. In the methodological domain, his interests are in
modeling, person-oriented research methods, and in computational statistics. Dr. von Eye has
published over 300 journal articles and book chapters on these topics, and he is currently working on
his 20st book. This book covers methods of log-linear modeling.
Belinda Wheaton
Dr Belinda Wheaton is a senior research fellow at the Chelsea School Research Centre at the
University of Brighton. Belinda teaches in the areas of sport journalism and the sociology of sport.
Her main area of academic interest is the politics of popular culture, and she has published widely on
lifestyle sport, gender, identity, and consumer culture in journals including: Sociology of Sport,
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Journal of Sport & Social Issues, Men &
Masculinities, Sociological Review, Leisure Studies, International Journal of Sport Policy. Her books
include Understanding Lifestyle sport: Consumption, identity and difference (Routledge, 2004) and
she is guest editor of Sport in Society (2010) Special Issue on the representation and consumption of
lifestyle sport. She is currently working on projects exploring sport policy and lifestyle sport centred
on parkour, and ageing, risk and surfing.
Program
Thursday, January 20th
Aud B
0930 – 1230

Ecological aspects of positive youth development. Alexander von Eye, Michigan State University.

Discussion
1230 – 1330: Lunch
1330 – 1530

Life Style Sport. Emergence and growth: Belinda Wheaton, University of Brighton.

Discussion
Friday, January 21st
Aud C
0900 – 1130

To win hearts and minds among negotiating adolescents. Reidar Säfvenbom, Norwegian School
of Sport Sciences

Context matters. Some statistics from the “Goodness of fit In Norwegian Youth Sports Study”
Tommy Haugen, University of Agder. Marte Bulie and Reidar Säfvenbom, Norwegian School of
Sport Sciences

Movement activities and youth. An overview of Norwegian research and Norwegian sport policy
Eivind Skille, Hedmark University College

Discussion
______________________________________
1230 - 1500 (Meeting)

Research on Movement Activities and Youth in the years to come.