Understanding how family structure and context influence a family’s resilience, youth sport involvement, stress, and well-being

Youth sport is viewed by many parents as a developmental context in which they can provide their children with safe, controlled opportunities for socialization, physical and emotional skill development, and social mobility, and generation of individual resilience (e.g., White & Bennie, 2015). However, not all outcomes associated with involvement in youth sport for individuals or families are positive (Erdal, 2018). Involvement in youth sport has been shown to reduce the quality of marital (Lally & Kerr, 2008), parent-child (Coakley, 1992), and sibling relationships (Côté, 1999), and increased demands required for participation can reduce opportunities for family quality time (Bean et al., 2014) among other outcomes. Negative family outcomes are also believed to be more detrimental to families with limited access to resources and opportunities, especially for families with contextual limitations due to their SES and family structure (McMillan et al., 2016). The purpose of this quantitative study was to gain an understanding about the relationship between family youth sport involvement and family resilience, with a focus on understanding how this relationship differs for families with differing structures and contexts. To measure the relationship between youth sport participation and family resilience, a quantitative study was conducted measuring a family’s resilience, sport involvement, current stress and well-being, and perceptions about current, ongoing events that could disrupt the family. Results indicate the importance of the interaction between a family’s structure and context and their influence on a family’s desired elements of well-being and highlight the ways that a family’s resilience and sport involvement influence their perception of major environmental stressors. A final finding indicates that family sport involvement is significantly correlated with the dimensions of family resilience and the youth sport contexts where families participate. In sum the findings of this study underscore the importance of both the context and structure of a family on their daily family life and resilience and show how factors of resilience and sport involvement can be used to help family perceptions of stressful events occurring in their environments.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Recreation, Sport, and Tourism

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Farr, Jeffrey Robert

Contributors dc:contributor

• Green, B.C.
• Woolf, Julian R.
• Ebata, Aaron
• Liechty, Toni
• Welty Peachey, Jon

• Youth sport
• Family resilience
• Family structure
• Family context
• Sport involvement

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2021 Jeffrey Farr

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113791

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113791