The Effect of Single Sport Specialization in Youth Sports: A Prospective Cohort Study

Objectives: Large numbers of youth participate in both team and individual sports. In recent years, sports specialization has become increasingly popularized in younger athletes. There is concern that early sports specialization increases the risk of overuse injuries in youth athletes. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the prevalence of sport specialization in youth athletes, and prospectively examine whether specialization correlates with an increased incidence of athletic injury. Methods: 895 high school freshman athletes were enrolled starting in 2016, with the intent of following them through the completion of their high school careers. They were recruited from 3 high schools within the same school district. Sports specialization was defined as participating in a single sport in excess of 6 months of the year at the exclusion of other sports. Athletes’ demographic information, sport commitment and injury history were collected through a sports specialization and injury survey. The same athletes were queried again at the conclusion of each season to collect injury information. Athletic training records were used to corroborate, in order to ensure capture of all injuries reported to health care personnel. Results: Of the 895 athletes, 216 (24.1%) reported sport specialization at some point during their high school sports careers. Specialized athletes were exposed to significantly more sports activity (8.41 hours/week vs 7.10 hours/week, p<0.00001 ). They were also much more likely (70.6% vs 25.1%, p< .00001) to compete on a club or travel team for their sport. Male athletes were more likely to specialize than females (27.0% vs 19.3%, p<0.0072). Baseball (12.1% of specialized athletes vs 4.9% of all athletes, p<0.000032) main sport athletes were the only athletes significantly more likely to report specialization. Specialized athletes were significantly more likely than their nonspecialized counterparts to report an injury (39.8% vs 33.2%, p< 0.0271). These athletes suffered from higher severity injuries, requiring more time to recover than their peers. (p<0.0483). Despite the higher propensity for injury in specialized athletes and greater tendency for specialization in males, female athletes were more likely to report injures (p<0.0053). The most common reported injuries were of the knee, ankle, and head (18.6%, 18.2%, 16.6% of all injuries respectively). Season ending injuries were also most commonly knee, ankle, and head injuries (48.5%, 15.2%, 12.1% respectively), with 30.3% of all reported season ending injuries being ACL tears. Conclusions: Specialized student athletes tend to have significantly more injuries than non-specialized athletes, as well as more severe injuries than non-specialized athletes. This is one of the largest and most comprehensive studies to date, evaluating the effect of sports specialization on the incidence of athletic injury in high school athletes.

From “Robot” to “Rejuvenating Warrior”: An EFL Learner’s Conceptual Metaphors During School Transition

Drawing on conceptual metaphor theory, I investigated the school transition experience of an English as a foreign language (EFL) learner. In this narrative case study, the participant’s emotion labor was followed throughout his first semester at a high school in Turkey. Exploring narrative journals, conceptual metaphors, and interviews, I examined his dynamic emotional states. The findings revealed that school transition may entail inhibiting emotion labor for high school freshman EFL learners. Moreover, it was also shown that these emotions may force adolescent learners to reconceptualize foreign language learning with a negative perspective and develop surviving learner’s strategies that may support them in terms of getting satisfactory grades in a summative assessment culture but may jeopardize language learning in the long run.

Unloved, Unwanted, and Unsure: The Counternarratives of Incarcerated Youth

Background Black youth are five times more likely, Latinx twice as likely, and Native American youth three times as likely to be incarcerated as their White peers. One of the dire consequences of the prison-industrial complex is that countless youth of color have been disenfranchised and cast out of society. Purpose The purpose of this study is to document the features of a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project conducted by Leaders Organizing 2 Unite & Decriminalize (LOUD) youth members, which is made up of allies, formerly incarcerated youth, and youth on probation, to provide a model that could be adaptable in similar other contexts. Setting This study takes place in the American Southwest in a state where marijuana is only medically legalized. Participants I worked primarily with five Latina women and three Latino men, one African American man, and one Diné woman. The ages of the LOUD members ranged from 15 to 20 years old and from a high school freshman to a first-year college student. Research Design As a co-facilitator for LOUD, I investigated how this YPAR project provided youth with the opportunity to shape and challenge current juvenile justice policies that detrimentally impacted youth for three years. YPAR endorses a collective process between the researcher and youth, allowing both parties to contribute meaningfully to all areas of research. Data Collection and Analysis Data were analyzed from three sets of semistructured interviews and 40 field notes taken over three years. I used a conventional content analysis approach to analyze both individual interview and weekly meeting transcriptions. Line-by-line coding was conducted through the use of Dedoose qualitative software. Results Through their YPAR investigation of the juvenile justice system, LOUD members were able to identify several key issues that affected system-involved youth such as being dehumanized, the mental, emotional, and spiritual toll, access to their lawyers, and unfair burdens placed on their families. LOUD members found their voice, became empowered to recommend changes in juvenile justice policies, and became social justice advocates for incarcerated youth through this process. Conclusions This project demonstrates how vulnerable marginalized youth became empowered by conducting and analyzing research, developing important recommendations, and being able to share their stories to change the juvenile justice system. We could choose to be a nation that extends care, compassion, and concern to those who are locked up and locked out or headed for prison before they are old enough to vote. We could seek for them the same opportunities we seek for our own children; we could treat them like one of “us.” We could do that. Or we can choose to be a nation that shames and blames its most vulnerable, affixes badges of dishonor upon them at young ages, and then relegates them to a permanent second-class status for life. That is the path we have chosen, and it leads to a familiar place. (Alexander, 2010, p. 206)

Mobility, Games, and Education

This chapter proposes that the convergence of mobile devices and digital game-based learning may have profound implications for educational transformation. Key issues to be addressed in the chapter are: (1) the pervasiveness of mobile and shared technologies, (2) contemporary accounts of learning theory in terms of mobility, (3) unique qualities of mobile learning and technologies, (4) successful applications for mobile learning, and (5) implications for future research and practice. Commuters play Sudoku on smart phones on the subway. High school freshman swap downloaded music across digital media devices in the parking lot. Elementary students debate strategies and “cheats” for handheld consoles on the bus ride home. For educational researchers, practitioners, and administrators, it is critical to examine these identified trends in mobile technology and digital game adoption and use to develop creative strategies and applications, and effective policies that lead to innovative instructional and learning environments.

PAUL LIONEL PURYEAR, SR.

The Right Reverend Dr. Paul Lionel Puryear, Sr., Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia, passed away on Thursday, April 22, 2010, in Charlottesville, Virginia, at the age of 80. Born in Belleville, New Jersey, as the second son of the Reverend Thomas Langston Puryear, Sr., and the Reverend Pauline Sims Puryear, he attended public schools in Newark, New Jersey. He transferred as a high school freshman to the renowned Palmer Memorial Residential School in Sedalia, North Carolina. He became an ordained A.M.E. minister at the age of 18.