Browsing by Author "Ilonen, Sonja"

The goal of this this literary review is to examine Finnish sports culture and organized sports as a social exclusion prevention point of view. Both sports and social exclusion are widely researched topics. It has been studied what predicts exclusion and what factors there are behind the phenomenon. About sports and movement there are for example studies about how does sports affect to health and how much children and young people spend time doing sports. In organized sports there is a lot of elements which supports children and young people growth. The material of this literary review based mainly Finnish research literature and Finnish researches. In addition sports clubs` websites was used in this bachelor thesis. As the result of this literary review, sports clubs` had still strong place in Finnish society. In 2014 over half (51%) of the 9–15 children living in Finland took actively a part in sports clubs` free time activities. Taking a part in sports clubs` was more popular among younger children and doing sports decreased with the age. The activities of sports clubs` seemed to be focused on serious doing. Social exclusion in turn seemed to be a complex phenomenon and hard to define. It was important to recognize the factors behind the disadvantageous development of a child. Sports clubs` had unofficial educational tasks and they also had possibilities to affect children well-being. Icehearts –model was a good practical example of sports clubs` possibilities to prevent exclusion.