Rural youth face a significant decision at the end of their compulsory education – stay local and join the limited workforce or leave, even temporarily, for further education and qualifications. Often, students are conditioned through schools, parents, and community that leaving is required to be ‘successful’ (Corbett, 2007; Rönnlund et al., 2018), with policymakers ignoring the validity of aspiring to remain in their communities (Cuervo et al., 2019). There are ongoing tensions in rural communities around managing youth outmigration and concern for the future of those who stay (Alexander, 2023) set against a backdrop of uncertainty around the world concerning political, economic, and environmental instability. Alexander (2023) contends that relational connections in rural communities are important in youth’s decision-making regarding their lives post-school. This paper explores how, in Australia, the institution of the local sports club mediates these tensions, providing a point of stability and connection for their youth.

Australian sports clubs govern local teams (here, Australian Rules Football and netball) that participate in regional competitions and maintain facilities. At all ages, participating in sport as a player, official, volunteer, and/or spectator is a social norm in rural communities (Waitt & Clifton, 2015). By focusing on the role of the club, this paper offers new understandings of how these institutions support young people in post-school transitions.

International literature on rural youth transitions and aspirations has identified that community expectations and a sense of belonging are key influences on post-school decision-making (Alexander, 2023; Gore et al., 2022; Tieken, 2016). It is well-established that peers, family, and friends are critical influences on youth aspirations. Sports clubs in rural communities are a confluence of these factors, but its collective role in youth transitions has not been explored. As socio-economically diverse, inter-generational social institutions, these clubs are well-situated to share and build social capital that assists youth in their transition to early adulthood.

In many countries, there are concerns around rural youth having ‘low’ aspirations and their participation in tertiary education trails their urban counterparts (Ennerberg et al., 2022; Halsey, 2018) despite increasing school completion rates and policy interventions. A contributing factor is that rural youth may lack critical social capital to navigate transitioning to metropolitan living (Kilpatrick et al., 2021) where most universities and ‘successful’ careers are located. Existing literature explores school and employer partnerships, university-led outreaches, and normative discourses encouraging youth to leave (Cuervo, 2016; Kilpatrick et al., 2021). To counter the pressures to leave, Alexander (2022) developed a tri-dimensional model of belonging that included spatial, relational, and career considerations, which shape rural youth aspirations, to use in career guidance. This paper continues such push-back work against metro-normative discourses of ‘success’ by exploring how social capital necessary for participation in tertiary education and/or entering the workforce is circulated through involvement with the sports club.

Using Putnam’s (2000) social capital dimensions of bridging (ties between groups) and bonding (ties within groups), the question: how do rural sports clubs support post-school youth transitions, is addressed. The members of the club are a close group based on cooperation which builds bonding capital while the diversity of people coming through the club facilitates bridging capital accumulation. The findings of this paper offer further understanding of the complex phenomenon of the ‘stay or leave’ dilemma facing rural youth by focusing on the types of support (capitals) encouraged by a specific social institution, the sports club. While the paper reports on an Australian example, the role of a social institution in facilitating the building of social capital in local youth can be considered in other, international contexts with their own locally-relevant institutions (Herbison et al., 2019).

The paper is based on an ongoing ethnographic study involving two sports clubs in rural, western Victoria Australia. The study centres rural places as important with foundational beliefs that rural people matter and that a ‘successful’ transition out of compulsory schooling is highly individual and context-dependant. A qualitative research approach is used to better understand participants' lived experiences (Bryman, 2021) and the particularities of each community. The two clubs are located 400 and 450 kilometres from the city of Melbourne. The Nhill and District Sports Club is in a town of approximately 2,000 residents and Kaniva Leeor United is in a neighbouring town of around 850 people. The project’s chief investigator lived, and was a schoolteacher, in Nhill for 10 years; her personal and professional connections with the communities aided in selection and recruitment. Local gatekeepers at each club are facilitating access and guiding the project. Data collection began mid-2023 and will conclude late 2024. The types of data being collected are: observations and informal conversation around training sessions and game days, interviews with key stakeholders, focus groups, publicly available media pieces, and critically reflective narratives from the chief investigator. This paper will focus on the interviews and focus groups (conducted in June). The sample for interviews will target 20 members (ages 18 and older) at each club who are actively involved. The interview participants will include the following groups to explore how various aspects of the club and modes of participation support youth transitions: current players/volunteers (ages 18-25); club officials, coaches; volunteers and other key figures (current/past players ages 26+, family members/ carers who volunteer, sponsors, retired club figures). Small focus groups will be conducted with 15-17 year olds involved at each club. The interviews and focus group transcripts will be analysed thematically, using a framework approach and creating matrices of themes and sub-themes (Bryman, 2021) with a focus on elements of bridging and bonding capitals. A key ethical consideration for this research is the issue of anonymity. Reid (2021) has argued that fully masking rural places and people inflicts harm by presenting ‘the rural’ as a homogenous group. Through negotiation with participants, pseudonyms are used for individuals, but the town and clubs are named as a way to recognise and celebrate the work they do in their communities and for their young people.

The expected findings of this paper will develop much-needed knowledge on how vital social capital around post-school life is transmitted to, and acquired by, rural youth through participation in their local sports club. Through the lens of Putnam’s (2000) bridging and bonding social capital, new and timely evidence about the various social influences on rural youth aspirations, participation in tertiary education, and entering the workforce will be presented. With a better understanding of the support and guidance provided through the clubs to their youth, the positive elements can then be amplified and strengthened – for example, university students returning home to compete may share important information about metropolitan and university life to younger teammates – while any challenges or obstacles identified can then be addressed by stakeholders – for example, pressures from a team sponsor for a star player to enter the local workforce rather than attend university. In these uncertain times of ratcheting tensions politically, socially, economically, and environmentally, rural youth in particular face an increasingly tumultuous transition to adulthood (Cuervo et al., 2019). These issues are being experienced in communities world-wide – including within traditional, social institutions (such as a sports club). These community-based social institutions broadly share a goal with their local schools – to support their young people to become successful members of the community. Understanding how contextually-relevant social institutions contribute to youth aspiration building can assist schools to develop more complementary, place-based programs, strengthening school-community relationships. Despite the changing times, it still ‘takes a village’ to raise a child, and having a more in-depth, nuanced understanding of how social institutions contribute to this endeavour can only be beneficial to future generations.

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