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Developing citizenship through sport: the impact of a sport-based volunteer programme on young sport leaders

  • David Kirk
    ,
  • Diann Eley
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Abstract

The Millennium Volunteers (MV) is a nation-wide government initiative designed to encourage citizenship in young people by providing opportunities to volunteer their time in the community for the benefit of themselves and others. This paper examines an MV programme focused solely on sport that sets out to provide training and support for young sport leaders to do volunteer work in their schools and the community. The rationale behind this study is to describe the psycho-social characteristics of young sport leaders (males = 138; females = 168; mean age = 16.6 years) from across England who were involved in the programme. Assessments were made on their motives and attitudes to volunteer work and their perceptions of leadership skills over a nine-month period. Overall results showed that leadership skills and volunteer motivations increased while the importance of and attraction to volunteering also changed over time. Providing a profile of young sport leaders and a measure of the impact of their volunteer activity may be of benefit to sporting organisations, educators and community administrators who wish to increase interest and opportunities in volunteer work by young people. This study demonstrates the advantage of using sport and volunteering as a means for encouraging pro-social behaviour and citizenship among young people and the positive impact this combination can have personally on the volunteer.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 151-166

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Sport, Education and Society (Volume 7, Issue 2)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 01/09/2002

Publication status

Published - 01/09/2002

ISSN

1357-3322

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/233654
  • Scopus: 0347934774

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