A study on athletes' attitudes towards human rights in sports

Sports as a fact starting with the history of man contains within itself quiet, peace, fraternity, friendship and similar values which it takes on. In addition to helping individuals improve cognitively, physically and spiritually, sports is also among the driving forces of economic and social development. Though one cannot directly observe practice of sports as a basic right in law, it is stated by such important institutions as the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) that it is a fundamental right to take part in sports activities. Sports aims; to build a healthy, happy, hardworking, dynamic and a contemporary society with high morals; to bring up future generations who are capable of assuming responsibility towards the society, who are physically and mentally well, who are constructive, creative, productive, moral, virtuous and the embodiments of merit; as well as to keep all the members of the society dynamic, fit, in high spirits and happy (Yetim, 2000: 148). The person with such important characteristics is, as Erdemli (2008: 20) puts it, naturally the one who does sports. An appropriate environment has to be prepared and necessary laws have to be made for those who get involved in sports, namely athletes, to gain the above mentioned qualities. Giving them these chances starts with recognition of sports as a fundamental right and helps gain a new perspective on human rights in sports. Human rights in sports comprises topics such as athlete training, social security of athletes, security and safety of competition environments, health conditions of athletes, sports politics, society's perception of sports and sportsmen/sportswomen. In this context, I think it important to determine both athletes' attitudes towards fundamental rights and freedoms as well as their view on the rights extended and those that should be extended to them. Thus, an "Attitude Scale of Human Rights in Sports" has been developed by the researcher in this study to determine athletes' attitudes towards human rights in sports and these attitudes have been analyzed according to several variables. The ASHRS is a scale with 3 dimensions and 29 items – 12 items for personal rights, 9 for social rights and 8 for solidarity rights. The reliability coefficients of the scaling factors were found to be .88, .79 and .83 for the dimensions of personal rights, social rights and solidarity rights, respectively. The reliability of the scale was measured to be .82 (Cronbach Alpha). The participants of the study, which was conducted in the form of a screening model, were athlete university students. A total of 248 athletes, 100 females and 148 males participated in the study. 154 of them were involved in a team sports and 94 in an individual sports. In addition, 97 of the athletes were students at the department of physical education teaching, 82 at the department of coaching training and 69 at other departments. In the analysis of the data obtained, the t-test was used to examine the difference between the independent variables and the sub-dimensions, and the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to investigate the difference among the departments in terms of the dimensions. As the definitive statistical results of the ASHRS were considered according to the dimensions, the means of the athletes were observed to be high in the personal rights and solidarity rights sub-dimensions but low in the social rights sub-dimension. When the gender variable was taken into account, a significant difference was found in favor of male athletes in the personal rights sub-dimension. In regard to team and individual sports, a significant difference was also seen in favor of the athletes involved in an individual sports in the personal rights sub-dimension. No significant difference was observed as regards the dimensions in the one-way analysis of variance of the students' departments.