CHAPTER II

Review of Related Literature

The role of sport has shown to be strongly related to building social cohesion and social

capital among young people and adults in communities. Positive peer relationships between
young people are encouraged through physical activity and coaching is considered a key aspect
of how physical activity can contribute to social inclusion among young people. Social inclusion
also relates to offering equal opportunities to sport and education programs regardless of gender,
ethnicity or ability. Thus, sport has been used as a practical tool to participate young people in
their communities, resulting in higher levels of leadership and community engagement among
young people (SportandDev, n.d.).
Apart from this, development from sports goes beyond learning new physical skills since
sports helps children develop healthier ways to manage with the highs and lows of life. When
children are playing sport, they learn to lose-and being a good loser takes maturity and practice.
Losing teaches children to bounce back from disappointment, cope with unpleasant experiences
and is an important part of becoming resilient (Vengoechea, 2012). Also, playing sport helps
children learn to control their emotions and channel negative feelings in a positive way. It also
helps children to develop patience and understand that it can take a lot of practice to improve
both their physical skills and what they do in school (HealthDirect, 2017).

Significantly, many important skills are learned by young people through sports, one of
them is competition. Nowadays we face competition in every day in every domain and as people
face competition when looking for a job, or trying to be better at their jobs, children are facing
competition in school for good grades. Competition can give children the chance to find a
healthy way to live and an opportunity to find new friends at an early age. Children that are
involved in sports activities have more chances to face better the competition in other domains of
their life (Yan & McCullagh, 2004).
In any society, socialization is responsible for the role of sport. It is obvious that this role
can be developed if the society has the economic resources necessary for investments in sport
(for coaching, sport fields, clubs, players etc.) and the willingness to invest in it. High life
standards create variety into the family life style, sport practicing at any age being an indicator of
the quality of life. Our investment in children`s formal, informal and non-formal education has
an obvious importance. We have to stress here not only on the formal-institutional approach but
also on the values induced by family, and other scholar activities. Among the values directly and
indirectly cultivated through sport activities we can consider the following ones: fair-play, the
capacity to organize and coordinate activities, knowledge of and following the rules (Baciu,
2006).

As Coakley (2011) underlined, it is widely spread idea that sport contribute to young
people’s development due to the fact that it induces a general well-being state and other positive
outputs for those who are practicing sport. Moreover, Coakley (2011) highlighted the following
outputs that sport participation can deliver: creates motors specific skills convertible into
physical capital, improves general physical health, enhance self-esteem and self-confidence
inducing a positive body image, forms well shaped characters by encouraging discipline and
team work.

There are many benefits of sport practicing, in what concerns adolescents and young
people, sport promoters consider three major categories of positive outputs as following:
personal development, positive influence upon at-risk populations (for instance juvenile
delinquents, children at risk of social exclusion) and fostering social capital that leads to
successful civic engagement (Coalter, 2007). Sports promotors consider that sport inevitably
leads to multiple forms of development including facilitating socialization and resocialization,
community recovery through human bonding enhancement and commitment in relationship with
others. Coming from this perspective of sports is seen, as a problem-solving activity meant to
improve the quality of life for individuals and communities (Giulianotti, 2004).

Additionally, to stress the importance of sport for a complex development of children and
teens, one of the measures took by the Romanian Ministry of Education was to propose form
2013 a future framework plan that includes minimum of 2-3 hours of Sport and another 1-2
hours of Music and movement as compulsory disciplines for primary schools and an
enhancement of the number of Sport classes from 2 hours/week at 4 hours/week on gymnasium
and high-school. In other words, sport should be an integral component of school engagement
because school engagement is best realized when the educational setting attends to the social and
emotional development of children as well as their cognitive development. The challenge here is
to give children the opportunity to feel competent in a school setting, because the experience of
success forms positive associations with school attendance. Also, sports allow for peer
interactions that contribute both to school engagement and social-emotional learning (Milteer &
Gilsburg, 2012).

At a closer look, the reality of sports` influences among teens are more complex, the
positive effects of sports being influenced by a whole range on factors that can act individual or
combined. Among these factors we can include the type of sport practiced (Crissey & Honea,
2006; Cote & Fraser-Thomas, 2007), norms and values associated with a particular type of sport,
(Hartmann & Massoglia, 2007), socially significant characteristics associated to sport players,
(Coakley, 2002), the cultural and material context under the sport activity occur (Hoffman, 2006)
and other more. Sports help forge connections between children, and it allows them to learn how
to share, to negotiate and solve conflicts, and to learn self-advocacy skills when necessary. It also
teaches them leadership as well as group skills that may be useful in adult life (Milteer &
Gilsburg, 2012).

If we take into consideration that socialization can be defined as a complex process

through which individuals, in their interactions with others, accumulate skills, knowledge,
values, norms, attitudes and desirable behaviors for their existence into the society frame, we can
understand the socialization role of sport (Baciu, 2015).Sport and physical activity contribute to
the socialization of men and especially young people because it promotes respect for moral
values in both the Olympic spirit and the core values of life in the community, favoring the
integration of the group and communication skills (Turcu & Todor, 2010).

Therefore, socialization through sport, more precisely the social roles of sport are to
support and consolidate human interactions, to create friendly, non-discriminative relations, and
to enhance the general well-being of any person (Baciu, 2015).
Review of Related Studies

Empirical studies carried out to examine social skills through sportive activities also
support the findings that those who have the opportunity to participate in a community or to
establish individual relationships through social skills training programs in sportive contexts
have been able to generalize their skills to the other areas of their social lives and have adopted a
more positive attitude in their interpersonal relationships. In addition, there has been an increase
in self-efficacy and self-esteem levels of individuals depending on the sport and the feedback
they received from the people around (Ferguson, 2005; Hupp & Reitman, 1999; Smith, 2003).
As well as the increase in self-confidence levels of individuals, regular sports participation
enables people to become more active and more successful in their social environments such as
school and workplace (Boekel, 2016).

Along with that, Milteer and Gilsburg (2012) underlined the fact that play enhances
physical health by building active, healthy bodies. Also, physical activity beginning in early
childhood prevents obesity and may be included as an important strategy in addressing the
obesity epidemic. Play contributes to healthy brain development, as the authors stated, because
through physical activity children engage and interact with the world around them from a very
early age. In the academic environment, play foster school engagement, and enhances children’s
learning readiness, learning behaviours, and problem-solving skills. Also, is essential to
developing social and emotional ties.

Additionally, the study of Nopembri, Rithaudin, Saryono, and Sugiyama (2017) on

developing children’s communication and social awareness skills in volcano disaster areas
through physical education and sports programs examined the effects of physical education (PE)
and sports programs on children’s communication and social awareness skills. Fourth through
sixth grade students (n = 810) from fifteen elementary schools in disaster-prone areas, were
randomly assigned to groups receiving standard and experimental PE and sports programs over
28 weeks in the academic year 2014-2015. Data were collected before and after the program
using communication (10 items) and social awareness (10 items) skills scales. There was
significant interaction on communication and social awareness skills scores between the tests and
groups, with gains on mean communication and social awareness scores from pretest to post-test
and in the intervention group, compared to control groups. The intervention, a psychosocial-
based PE and sports program, was an effective way to improve children’s communication and
social awareness skills.

Likewise, improving social skills through the use of cooperative learning was studied by
Dollman (2007) where they found improved social skills created a positive learning environment
that benefit all students. The action research project involved approximately 95 students, 95
parents, and 200 teachers. Meanwhile, in a study conducted in Australia, aiming swimming clubs
for teens, the coaches and parents both agreed that sports contribute to quality of life by
developing personal discipline, setting goals, and striving to reach them and sacrifice for delayed
benefits (Light, 2010).

Sabin (2017) further studied about the extracurricular sport activities and their
importance in children socialization and integration process where extracurricular sport activities
have a positive impact on improving socialization, developing cohesion and integrate the
marginalized children in the social group. The study focuses on revealing the importance of
extracurricular sports activities in the process of children's socialization and integration. The
findings of Sabin and Marcel (2014) about socialization through sport, effects of team sports on
students at primary level-highlights the results of the experimental sample in which they acted to
develop socialization, communication, group cohesion through sports, team sports, contests,
relay races, competitive activity, students developing team spirit, mutual aid, cooperation, social
integration.

In particular, a research about social development of students participating in physical

activity and computer games finds that physical activity has a higher social development than
partaking computer games among students. The population of this research was made up entirely
of male students from secondary schools in the city of Marivan (Sami, 2014).

Furthermore, a research about improving social skills through physical education in

elementary 4th year found to have increased social skills implemented through the help of
physical education. The sample consisted of 24 students (12 boys and 12 girls) aged between 9
and 10 years in a center of the province of Albacete in Spain. It is a quasi-experimental pre-post
with no control group (Madrona, 2014). However, Martin and Jacobson (2014), on behalf of
American Academy of Pediatrics, stated that playing sports isn’t always fun for today’s youths
who increasingly face injuries and pressure to perform. Therefore, specialists have to help them
they stay safe and collect all the physical, emotional and social benefits that sports can provide.

In addition, another interesting finding for Romania, Baciu (2006) refers to the sports that
teens appreciate most: there were mentioned volleyball, football, handball, gymnastics,
basketball and tennis on the first 6 places out of 19 sports indicated by teens. In the findings,
those sports are most participated in social development of teens.