- Morten Krogh
4. semester, Sports Science, Master (Master Programme)
Denmark have a long tradition for organizing sports in unions. The Danish sport unions dates all the way back to 1861 and is to this day highly valued in the Danish society (Jensen, 2006). The Danish sport unions is ascribed a lot of credit for the democratic society in Denmark and is also ascribed to be educating in community, voluntary work and democracy (Gundelach & Torpe, 2004; Østerlund, 2013). Because of these ascribed values, the Danish sport unions have been given funding by the state and have been the primary way of doing sports in Denmark(Østerlund, 2009; Pilgaard & Rask, 2016). This has now changed. The Danish sport unions is no longer the primary way of doing sports in Denmark (Pilgaard & Rask, 2016). The self-organized way of doing sports have taken the lead as the primary way of doing sports and this might be caused by the rapidly changing world of modernity (Giddens, 1991; Østerlund, 2009). This have forced the sport unions to look after alternative ways to evolve and adapt to this modernity. One of the places sport unions is looking for inspiration is street sports. Street sports has its place in the modernity, because of its flexible structure and its adaptability to the individual person (DGI Underground, 2015; Larsen & Jensen, 2017). There is though one big question that comes into play. Can union sport and street sport be unified without street sport losing its values and essence?
This study seeks to answer this question through a multiple-case study. A phenomenological approach is used to gather data on values in four different street sports. The data is collected through semi-structured interviews. One in Skateboard, one in street basket, one in parkour and one in freestyle football. The collected data is analyzed with an Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and is organized in codes. The codes from street sport values are then compared to hermeneutic collected data on Danish sport unions.
Based on the results found in the interviews, it is Concluded that the street sport values; social community, creativity, lack of obligation and structure, a do-it-yourself mentality, identity and lastly openness cannot be unified with the Danish sport unions values; community, voluntary work and democracy. Both sport unions and street sport possess the value about community, but there is a big difference in how this community is created. The community in street sports are created through a lack of obligation and a lack of structure and due to the lack of rules, street sport calls for a lot of creativity. Here everybody is active together regardless of gender, skill level and age. The community in sport unions are created through an obligation to each other and structured training sessions, with a trainer and other players with the same skill level. Street sports also value the community more than competitions whereas sport union does not. One place street sport and sport unions are close to match is the voluntary work. There is a difference though in who does the voluntary work. In street sport it is the players themselves that do the work and in sport unions it is often parents or a much older generation that does the work. There is also a difference in the organization structure in the two. Street sport is led by people with seniority whereas sport unions is built on a democratic platform. Despite the lack of unification, it is also concluded that the street sport values are first obtained when a person reaches a certain skill level. Because of this it is possible to create sport unions with trainers and a fixed time, for beginners. It is also concluded that these unions already exist in street sport. This is due to the need of being indoor in the winter and the need of financial support to evolve street sport. The people doing street sports does however still feel like they have control over the sports regardless of the unions taking their place in street sport.
This study contributes with scientific research to a field in sport science characterized by a lack of scientific research. The study also opens up for a discussion about whether sport unions has its place in self-organized sports and last the study encourages to further research within the field of possibilities and limitations in working with street sports.
Keywords: Street sport, lifestyle sport, sport union, values, self-organized, without obligation, unstructured.
Language | Danish |
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Publication date | 6 Jun 2019 |
Number of pages | 85 |