Håvard Bergesen Dalen

• Seippel, Ørnulf Nicolay & Dalen, Håvard Bergesen (2023). Social status and sport: A study of young Norwegians. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. ISSN 1012-6902. doi: 10.1177/10126902231202924. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this article, we study social status associated with sport. First, we examine the extent to which sport gives social status to Norwegian youths and athletes, how sport does so compared to other status markers and how sport and other various status markers vary by age, gender and cultural class. Second, we study how sport performances influence social status (popularity and likeability) among athletes. We hypothesise that (i) sport has a high status in general and especially among sport participants, (ii) sport loses attraction by age, but less so among sport participants than the general youth population, (iii) sport gives more status to boys than girls and (iv) sport performances influence athletes’ popularity and likability. We use data from the nationally representative Ungdata project of 2015 (N = 22,856, response rate 70%) and a study conducted by the authors on young athletes participating in organised sport (N = 387, response rate 74%). The results show that sport has a high status, especially among young sporting males. Cultural class seems less important for sport status. For status within the context of sports, the best-performing athletes are the most popular and best liked athletes. The findings are discussed with regard to recruitment, continuation and dropout from sports.

• Dalen, Håvard Bergesen & Seippel, Ørnulf (2021). Friends in sports: Social networks in leisure, school and social media. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH). ISSN 1661-7827. 18(12). doi: 10.3390/ijerph18126197. Show summary

  Young athletes value their social relations in sports, and these social relations can have consequences when it comes to joining, continuing, and quitting sports. Yet the important question of how social relations in sports develop has not yet been adequately answered. Hence, we investigated how athletes’ social relations in sports depend on social relations outside of sports: in leisure, school, and social media. A total of 387 athletes (aged 16–19) from 30 Norwegian sports groups completed a survey on electronic tablets. We asked how social relations in leisure, school, and social media—through the social mechanisms of contact, homophily, and contagion—influenced social relations in sports. We also controlled for the effect of exercise frequency and duration (years) of contact in sports. Exponential random graph modelling (ERGM) analyses showed that first and foremost, relations from social media and leisure, but also school networks and exercise frequency, influence sports networks. This study shows that social relations in sports are diverse and depend on social relations outside sports. We discuss how this has ‘counterintuitive’ consequences for sports participation, particularly the importance of supporting athletes’ social relations outside of sports for the strengthening of social relations within sports when addressing challenges concerning recruitment, continuation, and dropout from sports.

• Dalen, Håvard Bergesen & Seippel, Ørnulf (2019). Social networks and gender in organized youth sports. European Journal for Sport and Society (EJSS). ISSN 1613-8171. 16(4), p. 323–341. doi: 10.1080/16138171.2019.1693143. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Sports are social, and the sociability of sports (e.g. individual experiences, group cohesion or generalised social trust) and its consequences (e.g. enjoyment, inclusion, or social capital) depends on the social networks in sports teams. In this study we investigate various types of social networks in sports—strong and weak—for boys and girls. We look at the number of social relations in each team (average degree), how centralised and hierarchical teams are, and how each team clusters and consists of subgroups. We hypothesise that: (i) Boys’ and girls’ teams differ in number of social relations, (ii) Boys’ social networks are more hierarchical than girls’ networks, and (iii) Girls’ teams are more clustered than boys’ teams. Network data from 387 adolescent athletes on 30 sports teams in football, handball, cross-country skiing and biathlon were collected with an electronic survey-questionnaire. The results reveal large differences in network structures between teams. We find that the total number of social relations is higher in girls’ teams, that there are small gender differences with respect to networks' hierarchies, and that girls’ networks cluster more than boys’ networks.

• Seippel, Ørnulf; Dalen, Håvard Bergesen; Sandvik, Morten Renslo & Solstad, Gerd Marie (2018). From political sports to sports politics: on political mobilization of sports issues. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. ISSN 1940-6940. 10(4), p. 669–686. doi: 10.1080/19406940.2018.1501404. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  How and why do sports issues turn into politics? The aim of this paper is to explore how politicization of sports might happen, to show how social movement theory might contribute to such understandings and to contribute to a theoretical understanding of the political mobilization of sports issues. To achieve this aim, we outline a three-dimensional theoretical framework based on social movement theory. Thereafter we present six cases of more-or-less contested sports issues: gender, sexuality, doping, extreme wages, boxing/violence and failed talent development. Finally, we discuss the main features of our theoretical framework in light of these cases. How do political opportunity structures contribute to political mobilization of sports issues? How do cultural factors make a difference in political processes concerning sports? Which actors are involved when contested sports issues occur? The aim of this exploration is to discover how various societal factors addressed in our theoretical framework matter relative to how and why sports issues might turn into politics.

• Strandbu, Åse; Gulløy, Elisabeth; Andersen, Patrick Lie; Seippel, Ørnulf Nicolay & Dalen, Håvard Bergesen (2017). Ungdom, idrett og klasse: Fortid, samtid og framtid. Norsk sosiologisk tidsskrift. ISSN 2535-2512. 1(2), p. 132–151. doi: 10.18261/issn.2535-2512-2017-02-03. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I denne artikkelen undersøker vi den klassebaserte rekrutteringen til ungdomsidretten i Norge over en 60 års periode. Vi har analysert tilgjengelige publikasjoner om klasseforskjeller i ungdoms idrettsdeltakelse, og vi har satt denne analysen inn i en teoretisk og historisk sammenheng. Spørsmålene vi stiller er hvordan sammenhengen mellom idrettsdeltakelse og klassebakgrunn har vært forstått historisk og teoretisk, hvordan klasseforskjeller i idrettsdeltakelse er målt i landsrepresentative ungdomsundersøkelser, hvilke klasseforskjeller som er funnet, hvordan disse er forklart og hvordan vi kan tenke oss at klassebakgrunn kommer til å få betydning framover. Vår gjennomgang viser at mens det var store klasseforskjeller i idrettsaktivitet på begynnelsen av 1950-tallet, finner vi ikke slike tydelige klasseforskjeller i undersøkelser fra 1980- og 1990-tallet og heller ikke fra tidlig 2000-tall. Derimot har vi vist, med ulike målemetoder som en mulig feilkilde, at det er tegn til tydeligere forskjeller i senere studier. Vi foreslår også at tre prosesser – profesjonalisering av idretten, økende kostnader og krav om mer intensiv foreldreinvolvering – kan tenkes å bidra til en mer ekskluderende barne- og ungdomsidrett i framtida.

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