Speakers
Description
Expenses rise in youth sports, and the socio-economic gap in youth sport participation widens. However, few empirical studies illuminate why the costs of sports participation rise. We aim to fill this research gap by studying how parents navigate and contribute to cost-driving processes in youth sports – a topic that has yet to be systematically studied. The concept of involved parenting (Forsberg, 2009; Stefansen et al., 2018) combined with a systems approach to youth sports (Dorch et al., 2020) is key to our analysis. Departing from the scholarship on class and parenthood in youth sports (Andersen & Bakken, 2019; Eriksen & Stefansen, 2021; Gottzén & Kremer-Sadlik, 2012) we treat parents investment practices in sport as reflecting and negotiating classed ‘moral rationalities’ in parenting (Duncan, 2005; Duncan & Irwin, 2004). Through 21 in-depth interviews with parents of youth cross country skiers in Norway, we explore two research questions: (1) What types of costs do youth cross-country skiing entail? And (2) how do parents legitimize/frame their extensive investments within a cultural context (youth cross country skiing) increasingly critiqued of spiraling financial costs in Norwegian youth sport? We found that the parents invested heavily in equipment and travels. They legitimized their spending through a moral imperative: state of the art equipment is a prerequisite for fun organized sport experiences, and investment in the sport is also a key investment in family life. In conclusion, we suggest an elite-sport logic combined with the findings above are central to rising costs in youth cross-country skiing.
