ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the links that exist between families, the growth of extra-curricular activity as a formal and informal pedagogic practice, and young people's sport participation. Family life, relationships between parents and their offspring, and the social process of parenting have long been of concern to government, policy-makers and academics. In the context of physical education (PE) and school sport (PESS), the growth of extra-curricular options and activity has been facilitated by the increased outsourcing of activity in schools, in the UK and elsewhere including Australia and New Zealand. An Ipsos MORI survey of 309 parents of 5- to 16-year-olds also revealed that three-quarters of respondents reported that their child had regularly participated in extra-curricular activity in the last 12 months. Engagement in extra-curricular activities is not an exclusively middle-class phenomenon, although middle-class families often make more and different kinds of use of them.
