The Role of Interschool Sports in the Secondary Schools of Ontario--Focus on SWOSSA and OFSAA.

This document focuses on a study conducted by the Windsor Sports Institute for Research/Change Agent Research (SIR/CAR) group into problems in educational sport. Major thesis of the investigation was that many of the problems plaguing educational sport originate not from the technical skills level but from (1) administrative decision making, and (2) ways in which educational management manifests to society the role, status, and goals of sport in education. It was hypothesized that effectiveness and efficiency are blocked when schools, leagues, and associations equate sport with the mission and method of amateur or semi-professional athletics. Emphasis on data collection and analysis of the South Western Ontario Secondary Schools Association (SWOSSA) (experimental group) and Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) (control group) focused on the identification of attitudes, beliefs, and behavior reflective of socializing sport or athletic excellence. Written opinionnaires and interviews resulted in a listing of eight behavioral patterns strongly identifying SWOSSA/OFSAA with a true, amateur sport model, with little conflict between avowed goals and actual behavior. Twelve recommendations are made for retention of this near-identity between goals and behaviors. Latent sources of conflict are identified as the "Sportplan" proposed by Sport Ontario, and the federal government's plan for the unification of Canadian sport, both of which stress athletic excellence in a government bureaucratic organization as opposed to socializing in a voluntary, mutual-benefit, or service organization. Explanations of the SIR model of systems analysis and the CAR methodology are presented as introductory material. (MJB)