Abstract
Education and sport organisations have expressed faith and consequential investment in the role youth can play in sport for social good. From the International Olympic Committee to local schools, sporting contexts have been lauded as conducive vehicles for positive youth development (PYD), building life skills that underpin youth leadership and voice. Enthusiasm for the explicit delivery of PYD approaches within talent pathways seeks to maximise life skills transfer beyond sport and alternative pathways for youth who identify with sport but not reach elite participation. Nonetheless, critics of PYD question its overly positive narratives, emphasis on neoliberal subjectivities (Ronkainen et.al., 2023) and reliance on ‘caught not taught’ approaches to PYD. This study offers insight into the curriculum and theories informing The University of Queensland’s Youth Game Changers (YGC), an intensive, residential leadership program with youth aged 15 - 17. Devised and piloted in collaboration with Queensland secondary schools, YGC draws on self-determination theory and scholarship on youth agency and leader mindsets (Cannon et al., 2023) to address “you cannot be what you cannot see”. YGC participants engage with sport, community and research leaders through experiential activities that inform and challenge them to serve as 2032 legacy innovators and change agents, contributing to the aspirations of Legacy 2042, “we will live in an inclusive, sustainable and connected society, with more opportunities in life for everyone”. Beyond the pilot phase, YGC seeks to serve youth from across the Asia-Pacific. We discuss critical contributions to the evolution of this initiative.
Presenters
Doune MacdonaldEmeritus Professor, School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, UQ, Queensland, Australia
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—Global Sports Local Cultures
KEYWORDS
Olympic and Paralympic Legacy, Youth Leadership, Positive Youth Development
