Running with a time limit : experiences of former students with sports development

Abstract

The components of play and sports have been central to human existence. In today’s world, sports is a social phenomenon which encapsulates various concepts of development in the modern society. Schools are essential places for sporting opportunities, and therefore the students are an important stakeholder in sports development in society. This study locates the various factors at the local as well as global levels that impact the opportunities to participate in sports.

The research aims to understand former students’ experiences with sports and the factors that impact the involvement and continued participation in sports in Delhi NCR, India. This study adopts a qualitative framework with a constructivist/interpretivist paradigm to use sports as an umbrella term for play, physical activity and physical education. The participants for this research are 14 former students from the region of Delhi who graduated from school between 2010–2020. The data was collected through the method of retrospective semi-structured interviews.

Reflexive Thematic Analysis was employed to find themes that captured the perceptions of the former students. The three themes identified were: “to play or to study”, “who gets to play and stay”, and “changing but slowly”. This study finds that several factors impact sports development in the context of Delhi, such as academics, parental influence, the attitude of teachers, curricular provisions, and availability and utilisation of physical resources. The barriers to sports emerge from the narrow understanding of sports at the societal level. In conclusion, this study captures the experiences of the youth, the former students, to create a timeline for sports development in the urban- private school context. It also highlights the space for further research.