Till Örebro universitet

Concepts like public health, health, and health promotion have been used in relation to sports in different ways in practice, research, and policy. That sport is important and closely associated with public health is quite clear. Many research papers claim that there are obvious connections between the value of physical activity and sport for the health of individuals, as well as for health in society. At the same time, promoting public health is one of the main reasons for large governmental funding for sports in many countries. But how can the relation, or rather the relations, between health promotion and sport be understood? This chapter will theorize the relation between health promotion and sports through five categories: (i) health promotion as an outcome of sports, (ii) health promotion through sports, (iii) health promotion in sports, (iv) health promotion and sports in collaboration, and (v) health-promoting sports. In these categories, the authors discuss and illustrate how research in different ways defines health promotion on one hand and sports on the other and, thus, what research takes for granted in relation to what sports can do. The chapter concludes that understanding the relation between health promotion and sports cannot be achieved by focusing exclusively on only one of the identified relations. Instead of maintaining barriers between different disciplines and relations, researchers and practitioners should work with health promotion and sports as the plaster that stabilizes the whole picture in a changing society. This approach can better utilize the potential of sports in promoting health.

Based on sexual revictimization theory, this study investigates the role of individual characteristics (e.g., depression and subjective well-being) and contextual factors (school and organized activities) in the development of sexual harassment revictimization among Swedish Grade 7 (46% girls; Mage = 14.09) adolescents who were followed over 3 consecutive years. The analytic sample comprises adolescents in the school context (T1 N = 678, T2 N = 563, and T3 N = 471) and in organized free-time activity contexts (T1 n = 443, T2 n = 400, and T3 n = 356). Our findings suggest that adolescents with experiences of sexual harassment victimization in Grade 7 were at an increased risk of being sexually revictimized the following 2 years across the two distinct developmental contexts. Further, our results reveal that adolescents are more sexually harassed by their peers in organized activity contexts both concurrently and over time if they were victims of sexual harassment in the school context and the other way around. The findings underscore the need for sexual harassment prevention interventions to consider different developmental contexts simultaneously and to focus on the history of adolescents' experiences of victimization.

As front-line players in sports clubs, coaches can create a positive context influencing athletes' health decisions and behaviours. However, coaches rarely engage in health promotion (HP) practices due to various obstacles. Coaching philosophy, encompassing beliefs, principles, and values, significantly influences coaches' practices. However, its impact on HP remains unexplored, are the main factor influencing coaches' practices, has not yet been studied in regard to HP. The aim of this study was to explore coaches' perceptions of what they define as health in relation to their coaching philosophies, actions and strategies they undertake in relation to HP, as well as alignment or discrepancies between these three elements. An exploratory mixed-method survey design (QUAL=>quan) was used in this study. A sample of 299 sports coaches in Europe completed an online survey, including closed ended questions on their influence on sports participants health behaviours, barriers for HP and open-ended questions on coaching philosophies and associated health benefits, keywords linked to health, and strategies for HP. Qualitative and quantitative data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis and multivariate statistics respectively. While coaches define health mainly through keywords related to physical health (e.g. 'hydration', 'recovery'), their perceived coaching philosophies were focused around nine themes, related to social and mental health, predominantly using participant management and communication as implementation strategies. Furthermore, they identified lack of time, knowledge and human resources as the main barriers to pay attention to HP. The present findings highlight a gap between how coaches define health, what they consider they can influence and how they promote health. Further work is needed to explore the paradox between coaches' definition of health and self-reported actions focusing mostly on social and mental health mostly.

The sports club setting is a key context for health promotion, but it can also be associated with risky behaviours. Sports coaches play a crucial role in supporting the physical, mental and social health of sport participants but often lack the resources and support to do so. This paper proposes a guide to help coaches become health promoters by aligning their actions with the Health Promoting Sports Club model, which represents the setting-based approach applied to sports clubs. An embedded mixed-method study with a QUAL (qual) design was used, where 15 experts took part in 5 meetings and 299 coaches provided input through an online survey. Four steps were carried out: (1) defining the health-promoting sports coach and key action principles, (2) co-constructing progression stages using the settings-based approach, (3) identifying key actions for promoting health in different moments of coaching (i.e., before, during, and after training and competition, and outside of coaching), and (4) developing long-term intervention components. A definition of the health-promoting sports coach was produced, and eight key action principles have been identified, divided into three dimensions: connection with the system, adoption of a coaching philosophy, and focus on participants. Five stages of progression for integrating health promotion into coaching have been established, ranging from risk prevention to a global approach involving the entire sports system. Specific actions for each moment of coaching (before, during, and after training and competition, and outside of coaching) have been identified, such as monitoring the physical, mental, and social health of participants or plan the coaching session to ensure safety, inclusion, and well-being for all sports participants, staying open for last-minute changes. Finally, long-term intervention components to support the implementation of these actions in practice have been developed, based on what coaches are already doing, the skills they possess and the five stages of progression. This paper enables the development of a guide to help sports coaches promote health by identifying concrete actions and short- and long-term interventions, whilst making links with the health promoting sports club model. It broadens the scope of coaching by incorporating health principles, while emphasising the need to adapt to the environment and context of the club. This work calls for future research to test the effectiveness and feasibility of these approaches in various sporting environments.

The application of the settings-based approach to sports clubs requires a context-specific framework to develop and operationalize health promotion interventions. Incorporating top-down and bottom-up perspectives into interventions increases their efficiency, success and sustainability. In 2020, the health promoting sports club (HPSC) model and intervention framework were created, including strategies and intervention components. A subsequent concept mapping study generated 35 statements from sports club stakeholders highlighting their needs when developing health promotion initiatives. This commentary integrates the concept mapping results into the HPSC model and intervention framework. The process added new sports club levels, updated existing and developed new intervention components, then classified them into the framework. The revised HPSC model has seven levels while the revised intervention framework includes 13 strategies and 69 intervention components. This revised HPSC framework provides sports club stakeholders, public health experts and researchers a means to develop and implement targeted health promotion interventions.

Background: Various forms and types of knowledge have enjoyed legitimacy in physical education (PE) since sports techniques became the orienting idea for PE in economically advanced countries in the mid-twentieth century. The forms and types of knowledge granted legitimacy at any one moment are dependent on a range of socio-discursive factors. In this paper, we consider ball games knowledge within the Swedish PE teacher education context in the 2020s.

Purpose: The specific aim of the paper is to generate insights into how ball games experts within PE teacher education define legitimate ball games knowledge. Our proposition is that by examining the ways these experts define ball games knowledge, physical education teacher educators may develop more nuanced understandings of how and why knowledge comes to be seen as legitimate.

Methods: In order to conceptualize experts' knowledge of ball games, Shulman's concepts of content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) were employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two teacher educators who specialized in ball games education from three different PETE institutions in Sweden (n = 6). The interviews focused on the PETE educators' understandings of ball games and how they prepared preservice teachers to teach ball games.

Findings: The PETE educators defined ball games CK as: (1) understanding of games as a cultural phenomenon, (2) tactical understanding of games, and (3) embodied understanding of how to play ball games. The PETE educators defined ball games PCK as: (1) using ball games to meet different curricular goals, (2) focusing on tactical understanding with a small number of concepts, (3) adapting teaching so that all pupils are included, and (4) managing competition.

Conclusions: Four issues related to the legitimacy of this knowledge are raised. The issues concern the ways in which: (1) a complementary sport discourse is permeated by educational discourse to achieve legitimacy; (2) CK and PCK are designed to achieve legitimacy with different stakeholders; (3) public health discourse is not used to develop legitimacy for ball games knowledge, and (4) historical factors continue to affect experts' understandings of ball games. The central conclusion drawn from the investigation is that ball games experts engage in a complex process of discursive negotiation when defining the knowledge with which they work.

Purpose: The concepts of public health, health and health promotion have been used for decades in relation to sport in policy, research and practice. That sport has some kind of significance for and connection to public health is clear. But how can we understand the relationships between sport and public health?

The aim of this presentation is to argue that what is regarded as knowledge about the relationship between sport and public health largely depends on how the concepts of public health, health, health promotion and sport are framed.

Methods: In this presentation, we theorize the relationship between sport and public health as different patterns and give examples of how sports clubs can thus act as a health-promoting setting for different target groups.

Results: A first attempt to categorize the patterns in the four categories (i) health promotion as an outcome of sport, (ii) health promotion through sport, (iii) health promotion in sport, and (iv) health promoting sport. In these four categories we reveal research, that because of how they define health promotion and sport, are quite different. The different categories also use the concept of sport differently, as something that will always be healthy because it contains physical activity, as a mean, as an arena where you reach people or in a more integrated way.

Conclusions: We argue that it is not enough to recognize that physical activity and sport are good for people's physical health. By using a more inclusive conceptualization of how health can be promoted in, through and as health-promoting sport, health promotion studies can feed into the conclusions of other studies, i.e. what can be done about the how-question. What we propose and provide empirical examples of in this presentation can be seen as a theoretical basis for discussing the relationship or relationships between sport and public health that can be used in policy, research and practice. It is therefore possible to broaden the issue, to make it more complex, to go beyond compartmentalized thinking and to contribute to sustainable change in sport. Because, sustainable sport can be a question of how!

Scholars have long questioned the impact of teacher education programmes. Persistent claims are that pre-service teachers have fixed ideas about pedagogy when they enter training and that they become enculturated once in the profession. Within physical education (PE), similar concerns have been raised with respect to ball games. Research suggests that pre-service PE teachers typically have substantial experience of ball sports and find it difficult to implement non-traditional ball games pedagogies when they enter schools. Against this background, the aim of the study is to explore how pre-service teachers recontextualise ball games as pedagogic discourse in their transitions from university to school placement. Bernstein's pedagogic device and pedagogic discourse are employed as the theoretical framework. The investigation focuses on a Swedish PETE programme and the participants are six pre-service teachers. The empirical material consists of written assessments, observations of the pre-service teachers' lessons during school placements, and individual interviews. Findings suggest that the pedagogic discourse of ball games at the university was aligned with course learning outcomes and included the need to communicate goals, adapt and modify teaching, and combine different approaches. The pedagogic discourse at school placement involved traditional ball games, minimal curriculum references, progression in two or three lessons, and inclusive, enjoyable lessons. Factors that regulated the discourse were: familiarity with the pupils; the conceptualizing of inclusive teaching; norms regarding ball games in PE; expectations of the pre-service teachers; and the framing of ball games education in PETE. Recontextualising rules highlight challenges in transitions related to ball games.

Physical activity represents one of the most beneficial strategies for people of all ages to retain an overall health. Regardless of the numerous benefits of regular physical activity older adults represent one of the least active groups in society. Although there are groups of older adults that meet the PA recommendations, still there remains a great deal of room for improvement not the least within organised sports.

Current knowledge on sports for older adults often focus on matters of how to avoid physical inactivity and overcome barriers to participation and thus understanding what causes illness rather than what promotes health. Literature also exists on the reasons why older adults drop out of sports and organized physical activities, even though it is sparse. Hence, even if this research is important in terms of understanding inactivity and non-participation, less is known about why old people continue to be physically active. Against this backdrop, it is essential to investigate older adults who are physically active on a regular basis and what we can learn from them. A reason for targeting already physically active persons is that there is a lot to be learned from people who have the routines and habits needed to be active as an older adult.

The purpose of this project is to explore older adults' experiences of participation in organized sports. In the project we use a health-promoting perspective focusing on sports clubs as a setting. The research questions that this project address are: What is experienced as meaningful in older adults' sport participation? and What characterizes older adults' participation in organized sports?

In the study we will investigate sports for older adults from a health-promoting perspective using an extensive data material of 4 837 older adults over 60 years participating in Swedish sports clubs. The sample included more than 1000 sports clubs with a large variation.

Previous results where the same questionnaires were used concluded that there were differences between what men and women as well as different ages experienced as meaningful in relation to the physical initiatives.