Children’s rights discourses in sport: serving the rights of children and/or upholding the values of sport?

Abstract

The article aims to enhance our understanding of how children as rights bearers are constructed in sports policy. Following the ratification of the United Nations’ Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989 by many countries worldwide, national sports federations and sports clubs have been bound by its articles of provision, protection and participation, yet little research exists that illuminates how children’s right to be heard is practised. From a theoretical position that asserts that language in use and discourse sets limits upon what can be said and done (Ball, 1993. What is policy? Tests, trajectories and toolboxes. Discourse, 13(2), 10–17; Foucault, 1977a. The archaeology of knowledge. Tavistock), the paper asks ‘what conceptualisations of the child can be traced’, ‘how does sport policy construct the fine balance between recognising children’s special needs as dependent and potentially vulnerable, whilst striving to ensure their best interests and agency’, and ‘how is the notion of the child’s right to be heard in sport realised’? The policy sample comprises children’s rights and surrounding sport policy in Norway, which is a country internationally described as being a forerunner of children’s rights in sport with its political agenda dating back to the 1970s and a set of children’s rights being established in 1987. The analyses show that discourses associated with the regulation of competition and sports’ ‘technologies of dominance’ saturate the guidelines on children’s and youth rights in sport, as does an imaginary of the child as being partially or wholly dependent upon adults. These dominant discourses can be interpreted as serving the logic of sports associations to a greater degree than serving the needs and rights of children.