Adolescent girls’ experiences of urban dance programmes: a qualitative analysis of Flemish initiatives targeting disadvantaged youth

Abstract

A study on urban dance initiatives for disadvantaged girls in Flanders (Belgium) was set up, as there is little insight into the underlying social mechanisms that allow developmental benefits to occur for this group. A fieldwork approach, including observations at three dance sites and interviews with 25 participants, resulted in four main findings. First, the access to the programmes is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to foster developmental outcomes. Second, the participants described benefits across four main areas including sport-related skills, positive identity, social competencies and positive values. Third, there are various social mechanisms through which significant others, including adult staff and peers, can have an impact on participating youth’s perceived benefits. Identified mechanisms include observational learning, participants’ perceptions of coaches’ autonomy supportive behaviours, a caring climate and a motivational climate. Fourth, inherent characteristics of urban dance provide a context for facilitating an autonomy supportive coaching climate. This study adds to existing literature in the way it connects sport-related characteristics with young people’s opportunities for positive youth development.

Keywords:

• Urban dance
• social mechanisms
• developmental benefits
• disadvantaged girls

Note

Notes on contributors

Hebe Schaillée, works as a post-doctoral researcher at the Physical Education and Physiotherapy and the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Hebe is a member of the ‘Sport and Society’ (SASO) Research Group. She has a special interest in the analysis of positive developmental outcomes that young people in general and disadvantaged youth in particular derive from their participation in organized sport. Her work focuses mainly on girls and women. She is currently a member of the research team of the CATCH (Community sports for AT-risk youth: innovative strategies for improving personal development, health and soCial coHesion) project.

Marc Theeboom, works as a full professor at the Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy and the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. He is chair of the research group ‘Sport and Society’. His research primarily focuses on educational and policy-related aspects of (youth) sport in general and specific target groups in particular (e.g. socially deprived youth, ethnic minorities, elderly). He has a special interest in the analysis and evaluation of ‘sport development’ programmes in which sport is regarded as a social instrument and a means of community development (‘sport-plus’).

Eivind Å. Skille, is professor of Sport Sociology at the Faculty of Public Health, Inland University of Applied Sciences, Norway. Skille has published in the fields of sport policy, sport organization and sport sociology, and is especially interested in national identity an Indigenous sport, in addition to adolescent sport including alternative sport provision in relation to the goal of ‘sport for all’.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Notes

1 The limited comprehension of Dutch was in all the cases a result from growing up with parents that had limited knowledge of this language. The participants’ themselves, however, possessed enough language skills to be interviewed in Dutch.