This article examines how low-socioeconomic status (SES) youth who play soccer in professional clubs experience and define themselves, the place of soccer, and being professional youth players in their self-concept from the perspective of Bourdieu’s class theory. This examination may help in understanding the processes of socialization associated with sports among different classes and the acquisition of class habitus through sports (Bourdieu, 1978). The research literature linking class, education, and sports explores how specific sports are related to class (Bourdieu, 1978); the decision-making process of parents from different classes in enrolling their children in different sports as a leisure activity (Eriksen and Stefansen, 2021); and the acquisition of sporting habitus through specific sports (Schmitt et al., 2020).

However, little attention has been given to the youths’ perspectives in the literature. This lacuna should concern us because the study of youths’ perspectives can provide insights into sport socialization in class contexts (Stuij, 2005), the habitus and cultural capital (educational credentials and the possession of legitimate knowledge, traits, skills, and tastes) of sports-related activities (Lenartowich, 2016), and the transmission of cultural capital by sports coaches as socializing agents (Stuij, 2015) in the field of informal education. To explore these issues, this article reports on a study involving 22 in-depth interviews with low-SES youth who play in professional soccer clubs located in Israel’s geographical and social periphery. These youth players participate in professional soccer during after-school hours, i.e., in what is known as informal education or extracurricular activities (Friedman, 2013).

Against this background, this article poses five key research questions: How do low-SES youth describe their self-concept? What are the educational experiences of these youth in school? How do the youth describe their experiences of participating in professional soccer? What is the future orientation of these youth? Are the descriptions of the youth related to the processes of construction and maintenance of social inequality, and if so, how?

These questions are important in light of that recent decades, along with an increase in the number of children taking part in organized sports programs, amateur sports have been becoming more organized and professional (Mubarik et al., 2016). In the United States, for example, recent estimates are that approximately 45 million children and youth take part in organized sports. Seventy-five percent of families in the United States with school-age children have at least one child who participates in organized sports (Merkel, 2013). In Israel, it is estimated that half a million youth, male and female, engage in organized sports in schools, community clubs, and sports clubs, investing about 12–15 hours a week in practices and games (Noza, 2018). This allows little time for these youth to engage in other leisure activities, making the sports arena the largest informal “youth movement” in Israel, with more participants than all the other youth movements combined. The number of participants in all youth movements in Israel (such as the Scouts) is 350,000 (Zarhovich, 2018).

A total of 22 youth from low SES localities were interviewed. All youth selected for the study play soccer in competitive teams in a league run by the Soccer Association; they train at least three times a week and participate in official competitive games with other teams on the weekends. Participants were selected using purposeful sampling (Patton, 2002). The main criteria were: Jewish youth [boys], aged 12–16, playing in competitive soccer clubs and living in the geographical-social periphery of Israel in low SES localities (clusters 3–5). Clusters 3–5 are the lowest SES clusters for Jews in Israel. All youth played in soccer clubs belonging to the lowest ranked (district) organized leagues. None of the youths’ parents, according to their reports, had an academic degree. Some parents have a vocational certificate (such as medical secretary or locksmith). Most of the youth reported that their mothers are housewives and do not work in the labor market. The interviewees were located by contacting officials (mainly coaches and managers) in various sports clubs. The research tool in this study is a semi-structured, in-depth interview. The interviews, which lasted about an hour, included several sections: background information (e.g., place of residence, family structure, agenda); self-definition; leisure activities; school experiences; identity as a soccer player; values related to being a professional soccer player; relationship with the coach; and future orientation. All interviews were analyzed using the methodological processes proposed by thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006). First, open readings were made of the transcripts to identify various themes mentioned by the youth freely and unrelated to the research questions. Next, targeted readings were conducted according to the research questions: self-definitions, culture and leisure, school experiences, the identity of a professional soccer player, the key values they develop through practice and play, relationships with the coach, and their future orientation. In the last stage, the transcripts were read to examine whether the youth addressed additional themes and issues that we had not identified in the previous readings. The interviews were recorded using a mobile recorder with the consent of the interviewees and then transcribed. The names of the players were changed to maintain their anonymity. The youth and their parents signed a consent form to be interviewed for this study. The interviews took place after receiving approval from the ethics committee of the faculty at the university to which we belong.

The findings reveal that youths define themselves in positive ways, their daily lives revolve around soccer, and the role of professional soccer occupies a central place in their self-concept. At the same time, they expressed how their teachers and coaches perceive them in negative ways and in terms of their deficits (Atkins, 2010). The findings further show that youth do not perceive school as an important life space and have no academic aspirations. Moreover, the youths in our study described how the teachers and coaches focused extensively on discipline, obedience, and turning the youth into decent citizens (“just be a human being”). In other words, this engagement expresses a practice of fitting in, in contrast to the practice of standing out (encouraging the uniqueness and excellence of the child compared to others) as commonly found among high-SES parents (Gillies, 2005). In line with Eriksen and Stefansen (2021), we argue that the qualities and skills acquired through striving to fit in (e.g., conformity, obedience) are not cultural capital that, in Bourdieuian terms (1984), will help working-class children gain benefits and privileges or symbolic and future capital. Alongside their descriptions of soccer as central to their self-concept, the youths do not see themselves as good at any other occupation and do not consider alternative career paths. Most also expressed great confidence in their chances of becoming professional soccer players in adulthood and making a living from this occupation in a way that includes financial well-being. This perception, however, is challenged by studies in various countries that have found only a very small percentage of children and adolescents who engage in sports become professional athletes in adulthood (Farmer, 2019). We propose consider future orientation as a marker of social position or cultural capital (Appadurai, 2004).

Appadurai, A. (2004). The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition. In V. Rao, & M. Walton (Eds.), Culture and public action (pp. 59–84). Stanford University Press. Atkins L. (2010). Opportunity and aspiration, or the great deception?” The case of 14-19 vocational education. Power and Education, 2 (3), 253–265. https://doi.org/10.2304/power.2010.2.3.2 Bourdieu, P. (1978) Sport and social class. Social Science Information, 17(6), 819-840 https://doi.org/10.1177/053901847801700603 Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction. Harvard University Press. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa Eriksen, I. M., & Stefansen, K. (2022). What are youth sports for? Youth sports parenting in working-class communities. Sport, Education, and Society, 27(5), 592-603. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2021.1894114 Farmer, A. S. (2019) Student-athlete to professional athlete: Confronting the brutal facts. Athens Journal of Sports, 6(3), 121-138. https://doi.org/10.30958/ajspo.6-3-1 Friedman, H. L. (2013) Playing to win. University of California Press.‏ Gillies, V. (2005) Raising the ‘meritocracy’ parenting and the individualization of social class. Sociology, 39(5), 835-853.‏‏ https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038505058368 Lenartowicz, M. (2016). Family leisure consumption and youth sport socialization in post-communist Poland: A perspective based on Bourdieu’s class theory. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 51(2), 219–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690213516619 Merkel, D. (2013). Youth sport: positive and negative impact on young athletes. Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine, 151. https://doi.org/10.2147/oajsm.s33556 Mubarik, M.S., Govindaraju, C., & Devadason, E.S. (2016). Human capital development for SMEs in Pakistan: is the “one-size-fits-all” policy adequate? International journal of social economics, 43, 8, 804–822. Noza, I. (2018) Athletes in Israel share - This is how they turn sports into a career. Reali: A realistic magazine for businesses and consumers [Hebrew]. https://www.reali.co.il/?p=20231 Patton, M. Q. (2002) Two decades of developments in qualitative inquiry: A personal, experiential perspective. Qualitative Social Work, 1(3), 261-283.‏ https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325002001003636 Schmitt, A., Atencio, M., & Sempé, G. (2020). “You’re sitting on a hot soccer field drinking Gatorade… I’m sitting in a yacht club just enjoying the view, enjoying the drinks”: Parental reproduction of social class through school sport sailing. European Physical Education Review, 26(4), 987-1005. https://doi.org/10.1177/1356336X20911386 Stuij, M. (2015). Habitus and social class: A case study on socialization into sports and exercise. Sport, Education and Society, 20(6), 780-798.‏ https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2013.827568 Zarchovich, O. (2018, August 29). This is how the youth movements fill the empty space left by the education system. Globs. [Hebrew] https://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1001251664