“Sport is niet echt mijn ding”

Abstract

This research focused on the meaning of sport for adolescent girls diagnosed with externalizing behavior problems who live in a residential youth care facility. Five girls and four practitioners have been interviewed in depth on the attitude of the target group, their experienced social influence, their perceived competence and their experienced barriers. These results have been analyzed qualitatively. The attitude of the girls and practitioners towards sport participation in a regular context (i.e. outside the institution) was positive. For these girls sport participation equaled recreation, doing something fun and meeting new people instead of maintaining their health, as was expected. Nevertheless, none of the girls practiced a sport at time of the interview. In future research parents should be interviewed as well and a possible connection between the institution and local sports clubs should be examined. A good cooperation between both parties seems to be essential for a smooth integration of these girls in a regular sports context.