Welcome to the Well-Rounded Person

This project investigates what impact participating in sport has on the physical, emotional and social development of young Australians.  It aims to identify barriers to participation in sport and offer solutions.  It also tests the validity of public concerns that some sporting cultures teach young people aggressive or antisocial values.  A key focus is to elaborate a new conceptual model for understanding the significance of the ideal of the well-rounded person in contemporary society and the role sport can potentially play in promoting such an ideal.

  This project investigates the very real impact playing sport has on young Australian’s physical, emotional and social development.  It is the first scholarly and longitudinal study which explores how young Australians experience and negotiate the positive and negative aspects of participation in sport.  Its contribution to the field includes analysing the role of participation or non-participation in sport has on the young persons physical wellbeing, sense of self and identity, their values and their relationships with others.  Significantly it links physical experience directly to understandings of self and social identity.