Youth sport in the United States has become increasingly professionalized, heightening pressure on parents and caregivers to invest substantial time and financial resources in their child's sport participation. Despite widespread concern that pressures to specialize and optimistic beliefs about a child's athletic potential drive such investments, few empirical studies have examined these relationships. Guided by Eccles's expectancy-value model, this exploratory study examined whether perceived pressures to specialize and parental beliefs about a child's sport potential predict parental commitments to youth sport. Parents and caregivers (N = 1229) completed an online survey assessing perceived pressures to specialize (from children, parents, club coaches, school coaches, and society), beliefs about their child's sport potential and sport commitments (financial spending, days per week, and months per year). Three multiple regression models were fit to examine the independent contributions of pressures and perceived potential to each investment outcome. Findings suggest that perceived pressure from club coaches significantly predicted greater financial spending, while perceived pressure from school coaches predicted more days per week spent in sport. Contrary to theoretical expectations, parental belief in child potential did not predict greater financial investment. These results suggest that families' youth sport investments may be more structurally determined by sport system demands than shaped by parental beliefs alone. Scholars should consider contextual factors in future models of family decision-making. Additionally, coaches and youth sport organizations should offer education to help parents navigate decisions without undue pressure.

Côté and colleagues' Developmental Model of Sport Participation (DMSP) is a comprehensive framework that informs parents,' coaches,' and community stakeholders' understanding of athlete development in sport from early childhood to elite levels. Originally conceptualized in 1999, the DMSP offers a common set of principles through which young athletes' sport involvement can be understood. What remains unknown is the extent to which the model applies to a full range of contemporary youth sport participants. As such, the aim of the present study was to reexamine three core postulates of the DMSP that are challenged by present critiques of the model. Data were collected from a nationally representative sample of parents (nmale=4655; nfemale=3512; nnon-binary=22) with youth sport participants ages 6 to 18 in the United States. Group comparisons were conducted across levels of individual and family characteristics to determine whether there were significant differences in athletes' sport involvement, contexts of participation, time engaged, and family spending. Although athletes were more likely to engage in practice over play, unstructured play decreased with age whereas structured practice increased with age. The most highly invested athletes were engaged in more sports and contexts than less invested athletes. Multiple individual, family, and community factors seemed to shape athletes' patterns of sport participation. Moving forward, engaging the broadest range of athletes, families, organizations, and communities in research has the potential to create a more positive and sustainable sports culture for athletes of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities.

Siblings are overlooked, yet potentially meaningful social agents in youth sport. To better understand the role of siblings in youth sport, we examined the association between sibling sport-referenced comparisons, relationship qualities, and perceived sport competence. The tendency to make sibling comparisons was expected to be positively related to sport competence perceptions and this association was further expected to be moderated by markers of sibling relationship quality. Participants were 47 sport-involved sibling dyads that included older siblings (25 female, 22 male, Mage = 10.94 ± 1.49 yrs) who were predominately first-born children (83%) and their younger siblings (23 female, 24 male participants, Mage = 8.45 ± 1.01 yrs) who were mostly second-born children (79%). Participants completed established assessments of comparison tendency, sibling relationship qualities, and sport competence perceptions. Analyses revealed a three-way interaction between birth position (younger or older sibling), tendency to compare, and sibling warmth predicting sport competence (p < .05). Younger siblings with a greater tendency to make sibling comparisons and higher warmth perceptions reported higher sport competence perceptions. The findings suggest that sibling-based comparisons and relational warmth may be salient for younger siblings in gauging their competence, whereas older siblings utilize alternative sources of competence information.

The majority of research participants in the social sciences are recruited from populations that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. This has the potential to threaten the external validity and limit the generalizability of research findings. It also highlights the need to provide a historical accounting of participant characteristics and reporting practices across coherent disciplines of research. This paper reports the participant characteristics from studies published in 12 leading journals in the sport and exercise psychology literature. In total, 15,650 peer-reviewed articles were published across these outlets from 1930 to 2021, involving 4,487,437 human participants. A descriptive overview of participant characteristics and reporting practices suggests that empirical understanding of human experiences and outcomes in sport and exercise settings is built from an incomplete and unrepresentative sample of participants. Findings illuminate potential knowledge gaps that may have resulted from the lack of diverse samples and offer potential paths forward for contemporary sport and exercise psychology scholars who wish to address these gaps.

Pursuing community-engaged scholarship compels faculty to identify, foster, and adapt partnerships to benefit local communities through collaboration while meeting academic demands. Project KINEs was created as a partnership between [University A], [University B], and [State] community stakeholders. The goal of the project was the facilitation and integration of Kinesiology concepts, including sport sciences and health lessons, into Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) education curricula in local middle school classrooms. In its first conception, educators were provided in-depth training, curriculum development seminars, and specialized equipment to implement novel strategies to connect human movement to STEAM lessons. Over the course of two years, Project KINEs evolved into a community-engaged scholarship endeavor where university faculty worked to connect specialized training from within and across institutions to pursue public issues tied to STEAM education. Through engaged forms of teaching and research, the project directors learned that applying academic expertise is only one component of a complex and rewarding system. Focusing on public needs while navigating the expectations of project stakeholders requires a collaborative team that acknowledges the unique contribution of each member. Project KINEs evolved from a local project aiming to impact young students’ STEAM experiences and grew to create opportunities for researchers across campuses, provide undergraduates practical lesson planning experiences, facilitate teacher education programs, and partner with ongoing large-scale grant ventures. Perspectives and examples are shared to aid fellow faculty and outreach-oriented stakeholders interested in pursuing community-engaged scholarship.

Developmentally appropriate sport contexts have the potential to positively influence young people's physiological, psychological, and social outcomes. However, little is known about how families returned to sport in the wake of COVID-19-related restrictions or how socioeconomic and demographic factors influenced parents' perceptions of barriers to returning. A nationally representative sample (N = 6183) of American youth sport parents completed a questionnaire in which they provided demographic information and answered questions related to the barriers they perceived in returning to sport, such as the risk of their child getting sick. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships among a range of socioeconomic and demographic factors and these barriers to returning. Results suggest that parents from racially minoritized and urban neighborhoods held higher levels of concern over health-related and practical barriers to returning to sport. Findings highlight the importance of designing available, equitable, and appropriate youth sport contexts.

The aim of the present article is to outline a heuristic model that facilitates movement toward an integrated understanding of the youth sport system. We define the youth sport system as the set of interdependent persons and contexts that influence and are influenced by an athlete in youth sport. Our model builds directly from a systems perspective, and its tenets of holism, feedback loops, and roles. Specifically, we argue that the persons and contexts that surround an athlete in youth sport should be examined collectively, self-correct over time, and take on certain functions that are negotiated over time. The model extends past contributions toward integration by outlining how proximal and distal processes within youth sport can be studied in a more unified way. Looking forward, research designed to capture the nuanced ways persons and contexts influence and are influenced by one another in youth sport will be best positioned to impact theory and practice in meaningful ways.