Girls' socialization processes into sport

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the intrapersonal, interpersonal and environmental factors that affect the registered active female athletes' socialization processes into sports during childhood and adolescence, and to retrospectively analyse the coping strategies from the perspective of women through gender lens underpinned by feminist paradigm. In this context, 29 registered active female athletes residing in the province of Ankara, aged between 18-29, registered athletes for at least 2 years, playing individual or team sports, participated in the research. The Socio-Ecological Model (SEM) was used to investigate the intrapersonal, interpersonal and environmental facilitators and barriers perceived by women in their socialization processes into sports during childhood and adolescence. The research group was determined by "Criteria Sampling, one of the Purposive Sampling Methods. "Personal Information Form" and "Semi-Structured Open-Ended Interview Form" were used as data collection tools. The data were obtained through face-to-face interviews, the internet-based Zoom Application and open-ended questions sent via e-mail. Content analysis was used to analyze the data and were evaluated in accordance with the individual, interpersonal and environmental sub-dimensions of SEM. According to the research findings, intrapersonal, interpersonal and environmental facilitators and barriers in the socialization processes of girls into sports and coping methods were multidimensional. At the intrapersonal level, facilitating factors are role modeling/emulation, happiness, perception of self-skills/sportive skills, feeling of empowerment, and sports-related goals. Facilitating factors at the interpersonal level were found to be encouragement/support of family and close relatives, leading physical education teachers and coaches, both support and active peers, and family's relationship with sports. Among the environmental facilitating factors, the presence of safe sports areas in the neighbourhood and sports club as a family findings were found. Financial hardships in the dimension of intrapersonal level was found as a barrier, also themes of families that are not interested in sports/having negative influences and prejudice/labelling of the social environment in the interpersonal level have been found as barriers. On the other hand, in terms of environmental barriers, there were findings of lack of facilities, lack of gymnasium/equipment in schools and insufficient quality of sports clubs. For coping with obstacles, no findings were found in the intrapersonal and environmental level. In coping with interpersonal obstacles level, the findings of extrinsic motivation, identification with role model, internal regulation, perseverance and determination, passion for sports and self-affirmation were reached. During the socialization into sport process, girls' personal traits and characteristics, their close environment, physical education teachers, trainers, the quality and quantity of sports clubs, playgrounds in the neighbourhood and the cultural values of the families and their relationship with sports were found to be important. Key Words: Socialization into sport, female, athlete, facilitators, barriers, girls.