Locating the stadium on the way to the school: The educative role of sport in an urban American high school

The role of sport in the lives of adolescents has come under renewed scrutiny. Many of the claims regarding the benefits of sport to youth have been built on myth (Miracle & Rees, 1994). A significant number of adolescent youth disengage from sport during their high school years. Withdrawal or non-participation from sport is compounded for urban youth (Poinsett, 1997). This study explored and described the sport experiences of urban youth from one American high school.;Ethnographic inquiry drew on the tenets of phenomenology to ascertain how sport relates to the life worlds of urban youth. A 195 item Sport Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) was administered to 300 students in grades 9 through 12. Non-participant observation was conducted at several relevant sites. In depth interviews (N = 20) were conducted with sport participants, non-participants, coaches, or administrator's. The practices, meanings, and possible educational outcomes they derived or believe could be derived from sport experiences were explored.;Analysis of data revealed that urban youth in this study base their meanings of sport heavily on their personal experiences. Such meanings are also strongly influenced by the contexts where sport is experienced thereby promoting narrow meanings many youth held toward sport. There was little understanding of or attention to sport as a form of leisure.;For the youth in this study the high school was the dominant venue where sport participation occurred. Player commitment required for interscholastic sport, transportation to and from venues, cultural preferences of youth for part time work and social activities have together contributed to the exclusion of sport from their lives. Opportunities to participate in free gym times are restricted by the dominance of skilled, male basketball players. Narrow sport interests of youth were also discovered.;While sport holds considerable potential as an educational vehicle for the development of youth, the collective constraints promoted by contextual, structural, and attitudinal factors have removed or restricted the place of sport in the lives of many urban youth.