Re-Imagining Sport Pedagogy through Youth Engagement: An Exploration of the Youth Engagement Continuum.

Sport represents an important leisure context for promoting youth development. In particular, sport-based youth development (SBYD) initiatives have emerged to offer programming informed by theory rather than assumptions regarding the "power of sport". While the importance of theory is well established in SBYD research, critical perspectives remain relatively underutilized. The purpose of this study was to analyze the sport pedagogy of six urban SBYD initiatives that work with youth from underserved communities in Belgium. Through a multiple case study approach, data were generated from focus groups, interviews, and observations. The Youth Engagement Continuum (YEC) framework was utilized to analyze data through a deductive thematic analysis. Findings indicate that the SBYD initiatives focused primarily on youth development categories of the YEC, with less engagement with more politicized and actionable elements of youth engagement. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed to inform SBYD initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]