Childhood and Sport by Niamh Kitching

Childhood and Sport by Niamh Kitching

Childhood and Sport presents a critical account of children's engagement with sport, illustrating the social significance of sport for children themselves, their families, communities and wider society. Addressing a gap in sociological research, this book foregrounds children’s own voices, challenges adult-dominated narratives and repositions children as active agents in their sporting lives.

Drawing on qualitative data from focus group interviews with 147 children aged ten to twelve, the book adopts a critical childhood studies perspective to centre children’s experiences in sport. Across five studies, the book navigates children’s views on parental involvement, the intensification of sport, children’s sporting role models and the construction of girls’ and boys’ gendered identities through sport. Informed by sociological theorists such as Bourdieu, Lareau and Butler, the analysis outlines how classed processes, parental cultivation practices and gender performances shape children’s participation in sport. Placing children’s rich descriptive experiences to the fore, the book reveals the social and cultural stratification and the adult-oriented nature of children’s sport, thereby promoting a nuanced understanding of children’s sporting identities.

One of few academic texts that combines sport and critical childhood perspectives, this book will appeal to students, academics, and researchers in the fields of childhood studies, sport sociology, education, and leisure studies. It is also a valuable resource for practitioners, coaches, teachers, and policymakers seeking to better understand, support and enhance children’s engagement with sport.

Niamh Kitching is a lecturer in physical education at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland where she teaches physical education to prospective primary school teachers. Her research interests include the sociology of sport and PE, child and youth sport, sports pedagogy and coaching, and sports media. Her published research focuses on sociological perspectives in sport, with a particular emphasis on the experiences of children in sport, along with explorations of the presence and participation of women athletes, coaches, and fans in sport and sports media. She has published in a number of sociology of sport journals and collections.