Nothing about us without us: Youth Participation in Decision-Making Processes in Sport Organisations : Insights from Participatory Action Research

Representing the biggest segment of the sport sector in terms of participation, youth are key stakeholders for sport organisations. However, particularly within sport organisations governance structures remain outdated. These outdated structures contradict the suggestion that sporting bodies should be representative of the population demographic they serve in order to do justice to the interests and needs of youth. As age discrimination results in an “intergenerational cycle of disadvantage”, it can have long-term and far-reaching effects on youth. Such as in the sense that they are denied participation on decisions that affect their life. Incorporating ethnographic observations and participatory action research, nine youth participating in a sport related programme of the organisation called Safe-Hub located in Berlin, work on the topic of youth participation in decision-making processes. Thereby the youth contribute to uncover their perspectives on participation to gain valuable insights on their views and opinions on one hand, exploring the barriers and facilitators of youth participation on the other, all while living and experiencing participation and decision-making throughout the research process. The entire concept of this work follows an open approach in order to give the participating youth as much opportunity for action and co-determination as possible throughout. For this attempt the youth empowerment theory is a suitable support in analysing the reported experiences of youth through a theoretical lens to examine how dynamics between youth and adults can affect youth’s participation in respective sport organisations. The findings show that, alongside age-related powerlessness, the participating youth are accompanied from an early age by general forms of powerlessness that come with discriminatory practices, which they have internalised in such a way, that it inhibits their agency and engagement in decision-making processes. Therefore, these insights toge