An International Comparative History of Youth Football in France and the United States (C.1920-C.2000): The Age Paradigm and the Demarcation of the Youth Game as a Separate Sector of the Sport
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis contends that the contemporary phenomenon of youth football is the fruit of a variety of historical developments over the twentieth century. The manner in which the junior game evolved as an independent subset of the sport in France and America was certainly exemplary of the idiosyncrasies of national sporting culture, football in particular, the general timeline of each country as well as the place of ‘youth’ in wider society. The present study aims to expand the understanding of the game of football, specifically the youth sector, through a transnational line of enquiry covering the period from circa 1920 to circa 2000. The thesis structure is broadly thematic and chronological. This comparative approach attempts to remain coherent across both countries with a goal of outlining the core issues and major shifts which occurred over the chosen period. Youth football underwent a process of demarcation from the adult or elite game but maintained and furthered specific mechanisms linking the two across sporting, educational, and professional bridges. With the decade of the 1970s serving as a turning point, the youth level achieved a sort of independence while being inextricably fused to the top level. The essence of the growing separation of the youth from the senior level rested on the fundamental notion of ‘age’ as opposed to ‘ability’. The organisation of football around this concept of ‘age’, and the resulting limitation of participation, provided a basis for ‘junior’ football as a distinct entity by the last quarter of the twentieth century. Subsequent divisions extended the differences between age categories and created a full competitive youth spectrum for younger and younger players. The game was, as a result, “juvenilized”. The registration of players and the competitions for which this registration was so important reflected the relevance of ‘age’. Throughout this process, though in different ways and at different speeds in the two countries studie…
abstract: This thesis contends that the contemporary phenomenon of youth football is the fruit of a variety of historical developments over the twentieth century. The manner in which the junior game evolved as an independent subset of the sport in France and America was certainly exemplary of the idiosyncrasies of national sporting culture, football in particular, the general timeline of each country as well as the place of ‘youth’ in wider society. The present study aims to expand the understanding of the game of football, specifically the youth sector, through a transnational line of enquiry covering the period from circa 1920 to circa 2000. The thesis structure is broadly thematic and chronological. This comparative approach attempts to remain coherent across both countries with a goal of outlining the core issues and major shifts which occurred over the chosen period. Youth football underwent a process of demarcation from the adult or elite game but maintained and furthered specific mechanisms linking the two across sporting, educational, and professional bridges. With the decade of the 1970s serving as a turning point, the youth level achieved a sort of independence while being inextricably fused to the top level. The essence of the growing separation of the youth from the senior level rested on the fundamental notion of ‘age’ as opposed to ‘ability’. The organisation of football around this concept of ‘age’, and the resulting limitation of participation, provided a basis for ‘junior’ football as a distinct entity by the last quarter of the twentieth century. Subsequent divisions extended the differences between age categories and created a full competitive youth spectrum for younger and younger players. The game was, as a result, “juvenilized”. The registration of players and the competitions for which this registration was so important reflected the relevance of ‘age’. Throughout this process, though in different ways and at different speeds in the two countries studie…
author: Tallec Marston, Kevin
keywords: History, Youth, Child, Childhood, football, Soccer, Junior(s), Schoolboy(s), Age, Ethnicity/Ethnic history
license: https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/d2b7105d-8c8f-4486-8eb5-218d71ad8e0c/download
date published: 2012-10
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:18:27Z
provider: De Montfort University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: De Montfort University