Keeping Women in Sport: Positive Experiences of Six Women’s Experiences Growing Up and Staying with Sport in Portugal

Abstract

In addition to playing an important role in combating lifestyle diseases \nsuch as obesity, participation in youth sport provides opportunities to develop \nskills and competencies in sport and in life-long social, moral, and personal \ndevelopment (Light, 2008; Georgakis & Russell, 2011). In countries that have \nwell-developed clubs, youth sports systems such as those in Australia, the UK, \nCanada, Germany, and Portugal attract children and young people to sports \nand keep them participating. It presents a challenge for government bodies with \nyouths (particularly females) beginning to drop out of sports at the age of 13. \nPatterns of sport participation are different between boys and girls with the rate of \nfemale participation significantly lower than their male peers. While attention has \nbeen paid to dropout and burnout (Fraser-Thomas, Côté, & Deakin, 2008), less \nattention has been paid to the reasons why girls continue involvement in sport. \nThis study redresses this oversight in the literature by evoking the trajectories of \nyoung female athletes in sport from their first steps in sport up to their present \nsituation as adult, competitive players. The study focuses on the experiences of six \nfemale athletes aged between 20 and 22 who participate in basketball, volleyball, \nand judo. \nKeywords:

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