Generalizing the effects of school sports: comparing the cultural contexts of school sports in the Netherlands and the USA

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that the cultural contexts of school sports largely determine the organization and social functioning of school sports. Many of the research outcomes of (American) school sports studies are also related to the culturally specific organization and social functioning of school sports in the USA. To investigate this hypothesis, the Dutch and American school sports systems are described and compared on five elements: the competitiveness, intensity, prestige, status and the use of eligibility criteria. Our findings suggest that American and Dutch school sports differ on these five characteristics and that these are strongly determined by the cultural contexts of school sports in both countries. It is therefore concluded that studies on school sports should be interpreted in the light of the cultural context in which the studies were conducted and generalizations of research outcomes should be made carefully, in particular if translated to sport policy.

Notes

¹Hartmann, High School Sports Participation.

² Many studies reported correlations between different types of school sport participation and a wide variety of outcome variables. For example, Barber, Eccles, and Stone, ‘Whatever Happened to the Jock’; Broh, ‘Linking Extracurricular Programming’; Curtis, McTeer, and White, ‘Exploring Effects of School Sport’; Davalos, Chavez, and Guardiola, ‘The Effects of Extracurricular Activity’; Fredricks and Eccles, ‘Is Extracurricular Participation Associated’; Goldberg and Chandler, ‘The Role of Athletics’; Hartmann and Massoglia, ‘Reassessing the Relationship’; Holland and Andre, ‘Participation in Extracurricular Activities’; Lipscomb, ‘Secondary School Extracurricular Involvement’; Mahoney and Cairns, ‘Do Extracurricular Activities Protect’; Marsh and Kleitman, ‘Extracurricular School Activities’; Marsh and Kleitman, ‘School Athletic Performance’; McNeal, ‘Extracurricular Activities and High-School Dropouts’; Melnick, Vanfossen, and Sabo, ‘Developmental Effects of Athletic Participation’; and Miller Farrell, and Sabo, ‘Untangling the Links’.

³Coakley, Sport in Society.

⁴ For example, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Sports, Beleidskader Sport, Bewegen en Onderwijs; Ministry of Sports, De kracht van sport; and NOC*NSF, Olympisch Plan 2028.

⁵Houlihan and Green, ‘The Changing Status’.

⁶Coalter, A Wider Role for Sports, 1. Coalter writes about this mythopoeic status of sports.

⁷Coakley, Sport in Society; Hartmann and Massoglia, ‘Reassessing the Relationship’; and Spaaij, ‘The Social Impact of Sport’.

⁸ For example, Crosnoe, ‘The Social World’; Curry and Weiss, ‘Sport Identity and Motivation’; Eitle and Eitle, ‘Race, Cultural Capital’; Erkut and Tracy, ‘Predicting Adolescent Self-Esteem’; Fauth, Roth, and Brooks-Gunn, ‘Does the Neighbourhood Context’; Guest and Schneider, ‘Adolescents’ Extracurricular Participation'; Hartmann, High School Sports Participation; Miller, ‘They Light the Christmas Tree’; Melnick, Sabo, and Vanfossen, ‘Educational Effects of Interscholastic Athletic Participation’; and Sokol-Katz et al., ‘Re-examining the Relationship’.

⁹Coakley, ‘Youth Sports’.

¹⁰Stokvis, ‘Social Functions of High School Athletics’.

¹¹Coakley, ‘Youth Sports’, 311. Coakley refers briefly to this relationship between the organization of school sport in the USA and the ‘effects’ of school sports.

¹² The argumentation in this paper is based on the dominant patterns of school sports in the Netherlands and the USA. It should be noted that these patterns are not absolute and other forms of youth sports exist in both the Netherlands and the USA.

¹³ For an elaborate analysis of the histories of school sports in the Netherlands and the USA, see Stokvis, ‘Social Functions of High School Athletics’.

¹⁴ For a detailed history of sport and education in the USA, see Mandell, Sport: A Cultural History; and Rees and Miracle, ‘Education and Sports’.

¹⁵Gems and Pfister, Understanding American Sports.

¹⁶Bottenburg, Rijnen, and Sterkenburg, Sport Participation in the European Union.

¹⁷Stokvis, ‘Social Functions of High School Athletics’.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹Hilvoorde, Vorstenbosch, and Devisch, ‘Philosophy of Sport in Belgium and the Netherlands’.

²⁰Stokvis, ‘Social Functions of High School Athletics’.

²¹ Several Dutch policy documents emphasize school sports. For example, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Sports, Beleidskader Sport, Bewegen en Onderwijs; Ministry of Sports, De kracht van sport; Ministry of Sports, Programma sport en bewegen in de buurt; Ministry of Sports, Zorg die werkt; NOC*NSF, Olympisch Plan 2028; and Stegeman, Effecten van sport en bewegen op school.

²²Sage, Power and Ideology.

²³KVLO, Mission Olympic.

²⁴ In some of the referenced literature, different extracurricular activities or intra- and extramural activities were investigated. From these references, we only used the claims concerning extracurricular and extramural sports.

²⁵Park, ‘Sport, Gender and Society’.

²⁶Kohls, ‘The Values Americans Live By’.

²⁷Miller, ‘They Light the Christmas Tree’.

²⁸Stokvis, ‘Social Functions of High School Athletics’, 1244.

²⁹Curry and Weiss, ‘Sport Identity and Motivation’. Austria and the Netherlands have a similar emphasis on club sports. This study illustrated the stronger emphasis on competition as a motive in American sport participants than in Austrian sport participants.

³⁰KVLO, Mission Olympic.

³¹Bottenburg, Rijnen, and Sterkenburg, Sport Participation in the European Union.

³²Fredricks and Eccles, ‘Is Extracurricular Participation Associated’; Hartmann and Massoglia, ‘Reassessing the Relationship’; and Marsh and Kleitman, ‘School Athletic Performance’.

³³Burke and Stets, Identity Theory.

³⁴Brettschneider and Brandl-Bredenbeck, ‘Youth and Sport in the USA and Germany’; Rees and Miracle, ‘Education and Sports’; and Stokvis, ‘Social Functions of High School Athletics’.

³⁵Coakley, Sport in Society.

³⁶Broh, ‘Linking Extracurricular Programming’, 72. Broh refers to the ‘leading crowd’ hypothesis, which suggests that ‘sports participation offers student-athletes higher peer status that facilitates membership in “the leading crowd”’.

³⁷Crosnoe, ‘The Social World’; and Miller, ‘They Light the Christmas Tree’.

³⁸ For example, Fredricks and Eccles, ‘Is Extracurricular Participation Associated’; Hintsanen et al., ‘Associations of Self-Esteem and Temperament Traits’; and Marsh and Kleitman, ‘School Athletic Performance’.

³⁹ For example, Barber, Eccles, and Stone, ‘Whatever Happened to the Jock’; Broh, ‘Linking Extracurricular Programming’; and Marsh and Kleitman, ‘School Athletic Performance’.

⁴⁰Brettschneider, ‘Effects of Sport Club Activities’; and ‘Mozart macht Slau und Sport’.

⁴¹Snyder and Spreitzer, ‘High School Athletic Participation’.

⁴² For example, Coleman, ‘Athletics in High School’; and Marsh and Kleitman, ‘School Athletic Performance’.

⁴³Stokvis, ‘Social Functions of High School Athletics’.

⁴⁴Kay, ‘Developing through Sport’.

⁴⁵Ministry of Education and Ministry of Sports, Beleidskader Sport, Bewegen en Onderwijs; Ministry of Sports, De kracht van sport; and Stegeman, Effecten van sport en bewegen op school.