The aim of the paper is to analyse the increasingly prominent role of private sports schools in the development of elite athletes in Norway. The context for the analysis is the apparent paradox between the emergence of a network of sports schools, the most successful of which are private and require that parents pay a fee, and the social democratic values of Norway. Data were collected through a series of interviews with 35 respondents from nine stakeholder groups, including athletes, coaches, parents and sport school managers. The research describes an elite sport system that is successful in producing medal-winning athletes, but which is organisationally fragmented, uncoordinated and under-funded with regard to youth talent identification and development and susceptible to tensions between key actors. The primary analytical framework is Kingdon’s multiple streams framework augmented by path dependency theory. The findings include, a picture of an elite youth sport development system in which multiple and overlapping problems have received, at best, only partial policy solutions some of which, such as the growth of private sports schools, have emerged by default. When focusing attention on the relationship between structure and agency in the policy process it is argued that the government, through its inaction, has allowed sports schools the policy space to expand. The consequence is that the government has, whether deliberately or not, enabled the strengthening of a commercial elite youth sport development system, while still preserving its egalitarian and non-interventionist credentials.

Wrestling is a male-dominated sport in terms of participation, commonly perceived as a masculine sport due to the requirement of muscular strength, courage, fighting spirit, as well as and the element of combat. Integral to achieving wrestling skills and physical capability is muscularity, something which may contradict common perceptions of feminine body appearance. The objective of this study is to examine female elite wrestlers' enactment of the wrestler's role and how they experienced enhancement of skills and bodily structure. This was done by means of a qualitative interview of eight Norwegian elite wrestlers comprising four females and four males in the age group 17 to 32 years. Since the wrestlers practice in a mixed gender setting the males were included as being part of the interaction. The study revealed different ways in which the female wrestlers were doing femininity which also seemed to be contextually bound. This was particularly related to strength training and overall performance as wrestlers. The seniors had apparently accepted strenuous strength training and big muscles, whereas the juniors were `holding back' giving priority to the `private body'. The seniors had accepted the `athletic body' and muscularity with its social costs.

Objective The aim of the present study was to examine how six young female handball players (aged 13–14 years) perceived the transition from primary school to a sport-specialised secondary school. Methods Physical and physiological data as well as data from questionnaires were collected at baseline and after the first year at the sport school, and qualitative interviews were performed retrospectively after the first year at school. Results Evidence of competition-related stressors, organisational stressors (sport and school balance) and personal stressors (social life and sport balance, lack of sleep and severe injuries) was found. Three girls developed long-lasting musculoskeletal injuries (>3 months out of ordinary training) and one experienced repeated short periods (≤2 weeks out of ordinary training) of injuries during the first year. Onset of menarche and a length growth between 6 and 8 cm during the first year were characteristic traits of the four injured girls. Conclusions From our small study, it appears that young athletes attending a specialised secondary sport school experienced many stressors due to a significant increase in training volume, reduction in sleeping time and development of severe and long-lasting injuries. Hence, trainers at sport schools, club trainers and parents need to communicate and support them in order to prevent this.

I Brage finner du siste tekst-versjon av artikkelen, og den kan inneholde ubetydelige forskjeller fra forlagets pdf-versjon. Forlagets pdf-versjon finner du på www.sciencedirect.com: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2014.06.002 / In Brage you'll find the final text version of the article, and it may contain insignificant differences from the journal's pdf version. The original publication is available at www.sciencedirect.com: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2014.06.002Much research on volunteers has focused on who the volunteers are, and what motivates them on an individual level. This study, however, aims to contextualize the long-term commitment found in a whole community of volunteers and to explain this pattern of collective volunteering not in terms of individual motivations but in terms of broader social processes. Data gathered from interviews with volunteers in Vikersund, Norway, and the analysis of local and national press coverage in the years leading up to the 2013 World Cup in Ski flying in Vikersund suggest that long-term volunteering can be understood in terms of (i) a high level of social integration (socialization, institutionalization); (ii) the creation of a collective identity focused around the ski flying hill; and (iii) the maintenance and reinforcement of strong community identity and social solidarity by local resistance to the perceived hostility of outside organizations. This focus on the broader community/social processes has implications for researchers examining sport event volunteers as well as managers of recurring sport events wishing to retain volunteers.Seksjon for kultur og samfunn / Department of Cultural and Social Studie