Final Project (#3) Complete - Summary

The purpose of my study is to evaluate the overall effect of organized sport on crime rates involving youth in inner city areas. In this study, the initial independent, or manipulated variable, is the prevalence of organized sport programs within the limits of a large metropolitan area. The independent variable will impact the dependent variable which in this case, is the occurrence of crime, both violent and non violent in the corresponding area. Categorical variables also involved within this study include the general variance between male and females involved in the study as well as variance in age, although all participants considered for this study will be classified as teenagers.

When utilizing research tools to further look into this topic, I conducted the majority of my searches with ERIC and EBSCO Host. While not a formally used tool for education, I used ERIC because I found a large range of journals dealing with Sociological issues and delinquency issues. While using EBSCO Host, I was led to many journals and publications dealing with Sports and the Sports Management field. I also used the source of Sage Journals Online. This tool was essential when digging up articles on sport as well. I found many of my case studies (i.e. the Midnight Basketball cases, articles on racial issues in sport, etc.) while utilizing this tool.
While using these databases, the majority of my searches took place in journals and/or publications on sociology and/or sport or a combination thereof. I focused my topics in sociological journals due to the fact that many sports searches just brought up Kinesiology related journal articles. I found many useful references in research that other schools had done in the area. This I thought was primarily relevant due to the fact that the field of Sports Management and Sports Sociology are both fairly new fields of study, in comparison. Over the course of my search, I found that gave me the most beneficial information for my topic were journals that focused on the socialization of the young person, sport and its affect on young people and sources dealing with former precedents in the fields of organized sport and youth juvenile delinquency. Much research that deals with the topic of juvenile delinquency focuses on older definitions from the 1960’s, a pivotal time in Sociological research. Since so much study was done then and is still relatively appropriate, more recent research in the field has not be conducted. Despite this setback, my research consisted of general research on delinquency and youth involvement in organized sport combined with case studies of various sport involvement between members of various races and socio-economic statuses.

While beginning on this research topic, I generally used that databases I knew and databases that I knew that I had access to from the university’s library. Initially, my general searches included the words “sport”, “youth sport” and “organized youth sport”. To link this subject with my topic I then diversified my research to look at the subject of delinquency. To do this I looked at searches such as “juvenile delinquency”, “youth delinquency”, “youth crime”, “delinquent crime” and “delinquent behavior”. Finally to connect both of these topics some of the searches I gathered included “youth delinquency and organized sport”, “organized sport programs and youth crime”, “effects of organized sport” and effects of “organized sport on youth crime”. While using some of these search topics, it was easy to see which journals would be the most help (i.e. Sociological Journal of Sport, International Review for Sociology in Sport, etc.)

Overall I found that this assignment gave me alot of insight into my field as well as into some of the things I have learned about recently in my classes. Doing this research will no doubt help me in my field (as I am nearly done with classes!!!). Being able to do a project like this towards the end of my degree has allowed me to tie up some of the things I have learned in my program thus far and has been a great learning opportunity for further research projects.