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Detta paper diskuterar RAE i ett sociologiskt perspektiv ; The sports movements in the Scandinavian countries have, in an historical perspective, been comparatively well supported by the State.State support for youth leisure activities has been directed to different youth organizations, particularly sports clubs. Government grants tosport are given primarily because it fulfills through its various activities a number of goals which do not necessarily have to do with sports,but which society considers important to achieve by means of government funding. The resources are to be used to reach out to peopleand activate those who want to take part in organized sports or choose to do physical exercise for their own well-being. For sports clubs,however, fostering top athletes is an essential part of their pursuit. Selection systems believed to produce top athletes exists at all levelswithin the sports movements – local, regional and national. And selection systems cannot be used without the appearance of RelativeAge Effects. RAEs have been suggested as representing a form of bias, irrationality, and are counter-productive to longer-term attainmentand the motives of the State to support youth sport. In the long run this could lead to the public acceptance of a generous tax-paid supportto youth sport being jeopardized. Therefore we argue for the research community to engage with sport organizations and sportgoverning bodies to more strongly support child and youth longer-term development. We also believe in the importance of doing thisusing a multidisciplinary approach.

The two main arenas of organised sport in Sweden are sport clubs, in the form of voluntary organisations, and the school subject Physical Education and Health. Thus sport is constructed within two different social fields, in Bourdieus sense. These are relatively autonomous fields, with their own ideals and consecration instances, their own values and positions fought for, and its own appropriate dispositions. The basic aim of school sport is to enable each individual take the responsibility for his or her body in a lifetime perspective, whereas club sport is based on competition and strives towards selection, ranking and elitism. In 2003, the Swedish government made a "hand-shake" (Handslaget) with the The Swedish Sports Confederation, offering one billion Swedish crowns over a period of four years to local sport clubs in order to create project that will engage more children in organised sport. On of the themes for creating projects is by way of sport clubs collaborating with schools, so that within the school day time pupils will be exposed to club sport – either through club instructors coming to the school or the pupils coming to the club facilities. But what happens when an activity constructed on one social field, and according to the specific conditions of that field, is simply lifted over to another social field? In this paper I discuss some consequences emanated from such a process. Keywords: Social Field, Sport, Physical Education, Handslaget/the Handshake.

This edited collection explores the concept of social entrepreneurship in sport, examining how it has been used in Swedish society to date. It explores how this approach in sport could also be used to address wider socio-political issues, including economic, political, cultural and pedagogical in European society. Sport and Social Entrepreneurship in Sweden explores different social entrepreneurship projects which have created new forms of activity and reached groups of children and young people previously disengaged in sport. The authors also highlight the growing momentum of this kind of entrepreneurship in Sweden after a period of societal upheaval that has resulted in a blurring of social borders and the founding of new organisational forms. This book contributes to the formation of a new field of research, involving theoretical and empirical work on the characteristics and possibilities of social entrepreneurship in relation to sport

The relative age effect (RAE) has been found among youth elite athletes within a range of sports. However, the RAE has been studied to a lesser degree among youth non-elite athletes, and even less among school pupils attending sport specialisation programmes (SSPs). The aim of the present study was to investigate RAE, height, and weight, and compare Swedish lower secondary school and Norwegian upper secondary school pupils. Study 1 includes 156 lower secondary school athletes (95 boys and 61 girls) following an SSP in Sweden, while study 2 includes 111 upper secondary school athletes (81 boys and 30 girls) from two Norwegian schools. The RAE was found in both male groups, but only in Swedish girls. Furthermore, the relationship between birth month, height, and weight was found to be non-significant. These results indicate a vital RAE effect among youth non-elite athletes attending SSPs in both lower and upper secondary schools.

The longitudinal and multidisciplinary research project Malmö Youth Sport Study measured the sports results achieved by two cohorts of pupils using a variable named ACHIEVE, dividing the pupils into three categories (an elite group competing at the national or international level, a group competing at the district level, and a third group either not competing at all or below district level). This was assessed three and six years after baseline at age 13. An additional hypothetical measure, based on information from the athletes' trainers, predicted the category the pupils were expected to belong to after twelve years (age 25). Social variables related to the ACHIEVE variable are sex, socio-economic position of the parents, ethnicity, completed secondary sports school, sports capital, and quartile of birth. After three years, 28% of the pupils belonged to the elite group and after six years, 26%. Thirty-two and 48%, respectively, had abandoned their elite efforts. The elite group remained fairly stable over time but fewer girls than boys advanced to the elite group. The pupils at the school have a homogenous middle-class background. We found little evidence that socio-economic factors affected ACHIEVE. Nearly all parents had been engaged in sports, either competing or as coaches. On admission to the school, there was a pronounced relative age effect (RAE). This remained after three years as the age was significantly different between the three groups but was reduced after six years. According to the prognosis made by the coaches, the elite group would be considerably smaller when the subjects reached the age of 25. The RAE was again significant in the prognosis. A further follow-up when the subjects are 25 years old will reveal not only what proportion of subjects are actively competing, but also if they are engaged in recreational sports, to what extent the RAE is present, and how accurately coaches can predict success.

The relationship between birth quarter distribution and physiological characteristics related to athletic skills, in adolescent sport academy students has not been fully investigated. In a cross-sectional study, we recruited 86 boys and 52 girls aged 12–14 years during their first term at a sport academy school. We measured body size, cardiac size, pulmonary function, body composition, lower body power, cardiorespiratory fitness parameters, and running endurance by standard methods and analyzed these estimates in relation to birth quarter by ANOVA. Birth quarter distribution in our cohort was compared with birth quarter distribution in the same ages in the whole of Sweden and analyzed by logistic regression. The academy had an overrepresentation of students born in the first quartile of the year compared to those born in the last quartile (odds ratio 2.3 (95% CI: 1.1–4.7)). When comparing the physiological characteristics between birth quarters, uniformity is prominent since out of 26 performed physiological and anthropometric tests only four showed statistically significant group differences. We thus believe that the selection process to the sport academy favours athletes with higher chronological age, i.e., a so-called relative age effect is present.