Zander, Benjamin: Sport from the Perspective of Peer Groups

Peer groups gain particular significance during the transition from childhood to adolescence, as young people increasingly orient themselves towards their friends. Sport provides an exemplary field in which both the importance of peer groups and the possibilities for researching them become visible. This book explores how communitisation emerges within adolescent peer groups and how it influences their engagement in physical education, club- and informal sport. Guided by three central questions, it reconstructs: (1) the collective orientations that structure sporting practices; (2) the conjunctive spaces of experience in which these practices are embedded; and (3) the alignments between orientations and spaces of experience. Based on a longitudinal study using group discussions with diverse peer groups, the analysis reveals peer groups as social collectives characterised by shared stocks of knowledge. By focusing on the collective dimension of sport, the book addresses a significant research gap in sport pedagogy and provides a foundation for interdisciplinary research spanning sport pedagogy, sociology and psychology.