Who wants to be a sportsperson? Student aspirations for sporting careers

Abstract

ABSTRACT Sports participation and elite sporting success are fundamental to Australian culture and a prominent source of national pride. As sport is a major part of day-to-day living in Australia, it is not surprising that many young people aspire to careers as sportspersons. While such aspirations are often dismissed as fanciful and unattainable, the reality is that a higher proportion of Australians participate in the workforce as sportspeople than in careers as mining engineers, surgeons, optometrists or barristers. Indeed, little is known about aspirations for sports careers. Drawing on data from a 4-year longitudinal study involving 6492 Australian school students in Years 3–12, we sought to understand the extent to which young Australians aspire to a career as a sportsperson and the extent to which these aspirations are evenly distributed across demographic categories. Our findings suggest that not only was sportsperson the most popular occupational category, but this interest was heavily shaped by social and cultural markers of difference. Logistic regression analysis revealed that significant predictors of interest in a career as a sportsperson were being male, Indigenous, from high socioeconomic background, and attending advantaged schools. Far from sport’s reputation as the great equalizer, accessible to all, these results demonstrate that aspirations for a career as a sportsperson largely reflect the status quo of sports participation in Australian society and wider inequalities. Given the growing number of careers in professional sports and the value sport holds in the lives of Australians, we argue that aspirations for careers in sport should be treated seriously, and that disrupting current patterns in who aspires to careers as sportspeople is vital. It will require access for a more diverse range of students to the kinds of social resources and networks that nurture their capacity to aspire.