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Characteristic issues surrounding parents in youth sport include examples of negative verbal and non-verbal behaviour demonstrated during competition. Numerous studies have done well to highlight while parents possess a great potential for positively influencing the sport experience, they can also exert a considerable negative influence by engaging in a range of non-preferred and inappropriate behaviours. There is certainly a need to further understand the nature of the sport-parenting paradigm given that encouraging and supportive parental involvement is a critical factor in promoting enjoyment and intrinsic motivation among participants. This is particularly important given that children's preferred parental behaviours are temporally dependent. That is, different types of parental involvement are preferred before, during and after competitive sport. However, one aspect of parental involvement in youth sport which has been largely overlooked is the post-game setting. Drawing on qualitative data derived from focus groups and individual interviews with 86 parents and children involved in junior Australian football, this paper reveals an aspect of the sport-parenting role which can further enhance or undermine the youth sport experience. Specifically, it reveals an intriguing insight into the way that parents engage in "debriefing" children's performances--representing a challenge for parents who strive to engender a positive and supportive influence in youth sport. While the concept of sport-parenting receives much attention within the competitive setting, this paper argues that in order to enhance the quality of parental involvement in youth sport, much can be learnt from exploring "what happens after the game".

At an age identified as the period with the most intense focus on appearance, and where young girls are establishing their identity, it appears that social networking site (SNS) interactions are playing a pivotal role in determining what is, and what is not, socially endorsed. This paper draws on data obtained during five separate focus group interviews with a total of 28 middle school aged girls from three South Australian schools. Results indicated that feedback from other SNS users was central in the construction of identity and had an impact on self-esteem. It was found that immediate feedback was highly desired in response to images and comments posted on SNSs. It was also found that the immediacy of the feedback directly influenced the emotional state of the study participants. Understanding the impact of SNS communication, specifically pertaining to feedback, can be directly linked to the Australian Curriculum Health and Physical Education key ideas. Furthermore it is relevant to educative practices where schools are sites for technological advancements and positive reinforcement of identity and appearance.

Involvement in organized sport can be highly demanding for young athletes who encounter many difficult situations and stressors. This can be exacerbated among youth athletes who have been recruited into talent-identification youth sport programs. Given that there are a range of negative consequences that can result when talent-identified (TI) youth athletes are unable to cope with the stressors they encounter, additional support is therefore necessary. Parents are uniquely situated to assist in this regard, but they are not always equipped to provide optimal levels of support. Therefore, the aim of this study was to understand the experiences of being a TI youth athlete and present the findings as “lessons” for parents seeking to enhance their involvement in TI youth sport settings. This article reports on qualitative data collected from the 1st year of a 3-year longitudinal study involving TI youth athletes from South Australia. Fifty male athletes (M age = 14.6 years) participated in focus groups to hear their experiences of being a TI youth athlete and understand what difficulties they want their parents to know. From the thematic analysis, 3 major themes were identified from the focus groups with TI youth athletes: (a) difficulties with being talented, (b) negotiating the future, and (c) playing for improvement. From the findings, a number of lessons for parents and youth sport organizations are offered to assist the transmission of knowledge to an applied setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The junior Australian football landscape has been frequently linked to reports of undesirable parental behaviour, yet sufficient understanding around this potential socio-cultural issue remains limited. In light of this paucity, the study presented within this paper makes a unique contribution to the broad field of parent-sport literature by offering an insight into the self-perceived nature of parental involvement in junior Australian football. This research draws on in-depth qualitative data obtained during three separate focus group interviews from 15 parents of junior Australian football participants in South Australia. Participants provided rich, descriptive information which, through a thematic content analysis, led to the emergence of six principal themes. This paper considers two of those key themes which concern the diverse, yet equally significant relationships within the junior Australian football experience - (a) the parent-child relationship, and (b) the parent-parent relationships. This research not only provides the reader with an insight into the tensions around parent-oriented relationships in junior Australian football, but underlines the need for greater academic attention toward understanding this socio-cultural issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Men's bodies and men's body image have increasingly been gathering attention from both research academics and popular press journalists over the past 10 years. Arguably Western culture has tended to identify these body image issues in men as heterosexual notions. Research on gay men's body image has been increasing and there is now evidence to suggest that gay males have been identified as presenting a greater risk of body image disturbance than heterosexual males as a consequence of an aesthetically driven gay culture. Recent debate has focussed more on younger gay males as it has been argued that such a demographic are more likely to be impacted by the 'look', which is centred around body physique, fashion and personal grooming. Older gay males have tended to be overlooked in this discussion. Therefore their perspectives on bodies have been included in this paper to highlight the issues that both young and ageing gay men identify as being significant within the context of their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A psycho-historical exploration of gay men's body image in the late 20th and early 21st centuries is a story of change. As demonstrated in academic narratives of idealised bodies in those periods, and demonstrated in the popular art of those times, the 'perfect' gay body of the 1960s to 1980s is strikingly different from the body many young gay men of the late 1990s and early 2000s find most attractive. Moreover, this shift has had implications across sexual orientations. While the gay ideal of the 1970s might be best described as a 'straight body' the ideal straight body of today may actually coincide with the new gay ideal. Stemming from Connell's (1995) application of Gramsci's concept of hegemony, and a sensibility toward the queerness inherent to discussions of bodies and sex, this article will examine the concept of body image and its historical shift across time and sexual orientations. Ultimately, we hope to demonstrate that a body type can become hegemonic in a given historical moment, as witnessed by that body type's prevalence in both actual persons and in art. We call this hegemony of body image the 'hegemonic aesthetic' of the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary research regarding men's body image has focused primarily on perceptions of muscularity and thinness, leaving aside other issues such as penis size. Despite pop cultural notions regarding the importance of penis size, and Western cultural notions more broadly regarding masculinity and the penis, little research has been done on men's perceptions of penis size, and no work has been done on gay men's perceptions of penis size. This article presents the results of three separate qualitative research projects conducted by the authors with openly gay men that considered body image and masculinity in the lives of gay men. Noteworthy is that all of the studies were conducted using the same methodology and data analysis procedures. This paper utilises rich descriptive text to highlight the issues surrounding gay men, penis size and constructions of masculinities. The primary aim of the paper is to provide a context within which future qualitative research can be conducted on issues relating to the penis among gay men, in addition to emphasising the importance of perceiving the penis as a legitimate body image issue which has rarely been discussed in qualitative research projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Men's bodies have been increasingly placed under scrutiny in contemporary Western culture. Gay males have been identified as presenting a greater risk of body image disturbance than heterosexual males as a consequence of the aesthetically driven gay culture. While there are few services available for gay men with body image concerns,there are even fewer available for gay men from non-English speaking cultures. This is a concern for young gay males coming from masculinised cultures in which living up to archetypal heterosexual masculine ideals is a cultural family imperative. This paper reports qualitative research with six Asian gay males living in Adelaide, Australia, aged 18-25. A life historical perspective provides reflections on the participants' bodies growing up gay in masculinised cultures. The paper also highlights the men's current plight as they struggle to come to terms with being Asian gay men living in a white, heterosexual, Anglo-Australian environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boys who are highly skilled in sports and physical activity generally have a positive body-identity. Conversely, boys perceived to be less skilled in these areas can feel disassociated from their bodies and consequently develop a poor body concept. This paper is based on in-depth interviews with boys whom physical education teachers identified as either being highly skilled or less skilled in sports and physical activities. The paper highlights the importance of physicality in boys' lives. The paper also identifies important issues that physical educators and other health professionals should appreciate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on a study that investigates the social construction of masculinity in sports. The study highlights the way in which sport, men, and relationships are uniquely interrelated. Specifically, men's relationships with women, fathers, peers and , finally, other men from different sports is explored and discussed in relation to elite level sport. Thereupon, it discusses further with respect to men in general and related to men throughout contemporary Western culture. This study uses sport to identify the problems associated with masculine identity, and provides a looking glass for the problems associated with the social construction of masculinity for men in contemporary Western society. Furthermore, the study identifies some changes that emerge throughout sportsmen's lives and hence discusses the effects of the changes on personal identity and subsequent relationships. The ideology of addressing the problems at the elite level is based on the notion that many young men use elite level sportsmen as role models.