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35 citations
14,888 views
15 citations

Despite rapid increases in research on talent identification and development in able-bodied sports, there remains limited knowledge regarding how talent is identified and developed in Paralympic contexts. The purpose of this study was to capture the perspectives of experts (coaches, high-performance managers, and pathway specialists) working in elite Paralympic sport to better understand how they conceptualize, measure, and develop talent. Eight coaches and three performance directors from six Paralympic sports, along with two pathway specialists from Paralympics Australia participated in semi-structured interviews. The results suggest impairment type and, therefore, classification are key indicators of identification and anticipated success, highlighting the importance of educating talent selectors in these areas. In addition, familial (e.g., overprotectiveness, sporting background) and biopsychosocial factors (e.g., resilience, work-ethic, sport-specific skills, other life commitments) were noted as being influential when selecting athletes. There were concerns regarding the disproportionately low number of female athletes in the system, suggesting a need for new initiatives to support early-entry points for female athletes (e.g., education on the benefits of sport participation, supportive environments). High-performance staff also lacked resources to better understand the nuances associated with different impairments and their implications (physiological response to training, associated psychological stresses from injury, identity change). Recruitment strategies included “talent search” days, collaborations with school programs and rehabilitation centers, and helping local clubs support “drop-in” athletes. However, limited funding impacted the sustainability of programs, resulting in a regular turnover of staff, loss of intellectual property, and a weakened pathway system. Results from this study generated several practical implications and future directions for research.

8,451 views
27 citations
Fieldwork settings for the participant-observation method of inquiry.
Original Research
11 March 2021

Worldwide, 1.3 billion people live in Poverty, a socio-economic status that has been identified as a key determinant of a lack of sports participation. Still, numerous athletes around the world have grown up in underprivileged socio-economic conditions. This is the case in Brazil, a country with around 13.5 million impoverished citizens, yet, over decades, many of its best professional footballers have emerged from its favelas. In this article, we explore the role of the socio-cultural-economic constraints in shaping the development of skill and expertise of Brazilian professional football players. The methodological and epistemological assumptions of the “Contextualized Skill Acquisition Research” (CSAR) approach are used as an underpinning framework for organizing and analyzing data. Results suggested that, at the exosystemic level of Brazilian society, Poverty emerges as an influential constraint that can potentially enrich football development experiences of Brazilian players. Poverty, however, is not the direct causation of outstanding football skill development. Rather, from the perspective of ecological dynamics, Poverty creates specific contexts that can lead to the emergence of physical as well as socio-cultural environment constraints (e.g., Pelada, Malandragem) that can shape affordances (opportunities) for skill acquisition. These ideas suggest the need to ensure that environmental constraints can support people to amuse themselves cheaply, gain access to employment opportunities and maintain health and well-being through (unstructured and more structured) sport and physical activities in dense urban environments such as favelas, inner city areas, and banlieues. For this purpose, design of open play areas and even parkour installations can provide affordances landscapes for physical activity and sports participation in urban settings.

25,749 views
15 citations
The mean of the sum session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) value per player per week, with 95% confidence intervals, showing the change in the sRPE values across the season from week 37 in 2018 to week 17 in 2019. A total of 14,704 activity responses from 176 handball players were included.
6,884 views
20 citations
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