"Idrotten har alltid varit en stor del av mitt liv"

: en intervjustudie med fotbollsspelande flickor 14-20 år.

Abstract

Organized sport involving many children and adolescents. However, there is a tendency among young people to stop participating in sport with increasing age. Many studies have been conducted to investigate the causes of dropout in the organized sport. In contrast, this study was based from a health promotion perspective. The aim of this study was to examine the different reasons why girls aged 14 to 20 continuing participate in organized sport. A qualitative approach was used and ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with girls from two football clubs in southern Sweden. The result of the study showed that the girls experiences could be grouped under six categories: Enjoyment, Health and Well-being, Social Environment, Socialization / habitus, Competence and Motivational climate. The conclusion of the study showed that the sports movement in Sweden can be seen as an arena that reaches out to a large number of children and adolescents. Sport was perceived to have great importance for the interviewed girls. It is therefore important that the knowledge and resources are available to develop the sport by the practitioners' needs.