Aim and background

The aim is to contribute knowledge about the educational practice of competitive games in youth sport.Using a referee perspective within the context of grassroots youth soccer the research question is: What is the parent, coach and referee educational function in youth competitive games?

Referees, parents and coaches are vital in co-creating the educational practice of competitive games in youth sport, influencing young players’ behavior, learning and socialisation within the game. In youth sport coaches have been shown to influence the team’s ethical and social agenda, players’ moral judgement, fair play attitudes, fostering of psychological needs, emotions and well-being, team cohesion and empowerment. (cf. Vella et al. 2013; Appleton and Duda 2016; Fenton et al. 2017; Smith et al. 2017). Parents influence their children’s experiences and enjoyment, their self-perception, perceived competence, self-confidence, self-esteem, competitive anxiety, fear of failure, moral and social norms of sporting behaviour, and the quality of sportspersonship (cf. Sánchez-Miguel et al. 2013; Holt & Knight, 2014). During competitive games coaches and parents’ behaviour can be viewed as role-modelling actions that influence players’ observational learning, communicating what is regarded as important and valuable (cf. Hardman et al. 2010). Referees and refereeing is an underexplored field of research (Nutt 2007), especially the experiences of referees in youth sport and soccer (Cleland et al. 2018). Previous research has explored different influencing variables on refereeing such as aggressive teams, crowd noise, threat and aggression, rule use, or factors influencing referees to quit the game, policy implementation and social pressure (cf. Di Corrado et al. 2011; Cleland et al. 2018).

Theory

Competitive games of youth sport, such as soccer, are examples of play: an activity which is free, separated from ordinary life, distinct as locality and duration, is and demands order (Huzinga 1949/2016). Youth competitive games are ends in themselves which implies a certain play attitude in order to participate, in which the subject of play – play itself – is respected, letting play playing itself through the player.

An educational practice is the socially established, coherent and complex socialisation, learning and cooperative communication activity involving certain kind of relationships and goals of participation between the participants (cf. Hardman et al. 2010). Parents, coaches and referees can have at least two different types of educational functions, educative or mis-educative (Dewey, 1997/1927; 1997/1938). A function is educative when it extends and enables richer experiences in the future. It is mis-educative when it arrests, restricts and distorts the growth of further experiences, producing a lack of sensitivity and responsiveness. Using behaviours that have educative or mis-educative functions will have consequences for the type of educational practice created.

Authority have great significant for human interaction. According to Arendt (1954/2004) authority’s main characteristic is that neither force nor persuasion should be needed. Authority to be maintained demands respect for the person (the referee) and the position (refereeing) in order for the referee to safe-guard the game. Respect is ‘an attitude of positive evaluation, a recognition of something, some reality that merits understanding and attentiveness. To respect is to value it and treat it as worthy in its own right’ (Clifford & Feezell 2010, p.18). In respect of others the norm of civility applies. Respect for referees is then ‘analogous to respect for another’s belief or opinion’ (ibid., p. 65). However, respecting the referee as a person is not the same thing as accepting inability of a referee to manage the game. This actualizes the principle of referee game level competence, i.e. game participants should expect the competence of the referee to align with the level of the competitive game.

Method The empirical study is part of a research project called Educating for fair play? in which the behaviour of parents and coaches in three two-section grassroots soccer clubs in the west of Sweden were explored during the season of 2017. The data for this paper consist of 17 audio recorded interviews with in total 27 referees. 14 of the respondents were girls/women and 13 boys/men. The average age of the respondents were 22 years of age. 22 of the respondents refereed within their own club, most of them being active players, and five of the respondents were referees belonging to the regional soccer association. 12 of the respondents had long time experience of refereeing on youth and senior level. 15 respondents had limited experiences of refereeing, doing refereeing as part of their own education as players, getting a three hour long referee education course annually in their club. A qualitative content analysis have been used, following five steps: 1. Compilation of data and transcription. 2. Repeated in-depth reading. 3. Coding: reduction of data guided by analytical questions: a. Which types of educative and mis-educative parent behaviors are expressed? b. Which types of educative and mis-educative coach behaviors are expressed? c. What do the referees express as their educational task? 4. Thematisation I: creating subthemes within the parent, coach and referee role. 5. Thematisation II and verification: creating main themes, conclusions and summary of research questions. Step 1: the interviews were transcribed verbally in to text, getting more familiar with the characteristic and content of the data. Step 2: the transcript was thoroughly and systematically re-read in order to understand and get more familiar with the content and to inform the analytical questions. Step 3: analytical questions were designed in relation to the data, the aim of the study and the research question. The questions were used to identify and construct codes, thereby reducing the data into meaningful units in terms of key concepts and expressions empirically close to the data. Step 4: similar codes were synthesised and renamed, categorised and clustered to form subthemes within the parent, coach and referee role. Step 5: main themes were created through categorising the subthemes. Main themes and subthemes were then compared and corroborated against the empirical data, concluding and summarising the findings.

Results Three main dimensions of the educational practice of competitive games in grassroots youth soccer have been identified. I) Role respect and relations: concern parent, coach and referee relations, parents and coaches approach towards responsibilities of the referee, the referee as an authority, and factors influencing learning, development and the social situation of the referee. II) Game focus and player approach: concern parents and coaches’ game engagement and focus, their approach towards own players, and the referees’ educational function as game manager. III) Opponent relation and game attitude: concern parents and coaches’ opponent relation, their attitude towards the competitive game as play, and the referee as a communicator and instructor within the ongoing game. Based on the findings it could be concluded that parents and coaches should focus on their role and responsibility, in a civil manner show referees and refereeing respect, regulate their expectations on referee competence in relation to the game level and balance competitive seriousness with the spirit of play. Focusing the own role is vital for all participants to function together and interact in line with the competitive game as a play activity supporting process, learning and social security. As game managers, communicators and instructors this will make it easier for referees to co-create a joyful game atmosphere of learning and development with parents and coaches that should use a play attitude in which all game participants are treated as equals. Based on a referee perspective, a play attitude, holistic approach, the principle of game level competence, balancing competitive seriousness and the spirit of play are means to support players educative experiences and to down-play the adult perspective which easy could to take over in youth competitive games.

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