Cooperation between schools and elite sports. How are schools affected from engaging in athletic talent development?

ABSTRACT

In this article, we show how collaboration between Danish municipal primary and lower secondary schools (folkeskoler) and elite sports clubs to establish SportsClasses enables schools to set parameters that align student-athletes’ attitudes and behavior towards school and academic performance. Using neo-institutional theory, we show how two separate institutional domains – education and sport – come to agree on common purposes and practices for an endeavor that takes place on the ‘home field’ of education. We apply the theoretical concepts of ‘contractualisation’ and ‘accountability’ to understand what these learning agreements or implicit social contracts involve, how they are made, and how they are enforced. These concepts capture the empirical governance mechanisms that produce the integration of athletes into school norms and practices as well as how these norms and practises are re-configured as an effect of the cooperation. The article is based on an ethnographic study of the admissions process for SportsClasses. We discuss the benefits and risks for the publicly funded school system in entering into such social learning contracts.

KEYWORDS:

• Talent development
• lower secondary school
• elite sports
• neo-institutional theory
• accountability
• contractualisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Access to Team Danmark-supported talent development (for elite talent) was now accessible at age 12, whereas prior to 2005 it was age 15.

2. The combination of what the schools and clubs do for elite athletes in Denmark is akin to what private training academies do in the United States. Elite athletes get training in their sports and get a high school education as well.

3. The question of loose and tight coupling is discussed extensively in the neo-institutional theory literature (see, e.g. Bidwell, 2001).

4. It is important to distinguish this kind of accountability from the kind introduced in 2002 in US schools under the No Child Left Behind Act. Accountability under that law was focused on school performance and sanctioned schools for lack of progress.

5. At one of the four case schools, we did not gain access to the admissions interviews. However, based on the conversations we had with representatives from this school, the interviews were conducted in more or less the same way at this school as at the three other schools.

6. We also draw on our observations of the sports screenings in all four case schools and of the SportsClasses themselves. We also rely on interviews we conducted with the coaches and teachers associated with the SportsClasses’ talent programme.

7. This is a slight overrepresentation of male students compared to the general gender imbalance in the sport classes (Nielsen & Olesen, 2014).

8. As noted above, this was the subject of national political debate.

9. This is in line with the Danish model of athletic talent development, where the ties between elite sport and education are explicitly articulated. As the student athletes develop, there is an expectation that even as more athletic training may occur, so will more education. The state expects that education will not be ignored even for the best athletes.

10. This is backed up by the Danish elite sports law, which makes elite sports organizations at all levels responsible for ensuring that elite sports take place in a socially and societally responsible manner. It is specifically mentioned that they must ensure the sound development of elite athletes physically, personally and socially and provide training opportunities for elite athletes (The Danish Ministry of Culture, 2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jens Christian Nielsen

Jens Christian Nielsen, Ph.D., is associate professor in youth studies, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University in Denmark. Jens Christian has published on talent, transitions, belonging and exclusion among young people. Nielsen is co-editor of the book “Talent development in Danish Public Schools” (published in Danish). His new research project focus on students wellbeing in a sociomaterial perspectives. E-mail: [email protected]

Lotte Stausgaard Skrubbeltrang

Lotte Stausgaard Skrubbeltrang, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in Sports Sociology, Sport and Social Issues research group at the Department of Health Science, Aalborg University, Denmark. Skrubbeltrang has explored and published several articles on how social reproduction and issues related to gender influence student-athletes involved in dual career initiatives. E-mail: [email protected]

Jesper Stilling Olesen

Jesper Stilling Olesen, Ph.D., is associate professor at the Department of Educational Anthropology, the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University in Denmark. Olesen is co-editor of the book “Talent development in Danish Public Schools” (published in Danish) and the author of several articles about talent development in a new materialist perspective. E-mail: [email protected]

David Karen

David Karen, Ph. D., is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA.  Karen is co-author of Sociological Perspectives on Sport: The Games Outside the Games and author of several articles on barriers to access in higher education in the US.  E-mail: [email protected]