Sport, Education and Child and Youth Development

Physical activity is vital to the holistic development of young people, fostering their physical, social and emotional health. The benefits of sport reach beyond the impact on physical well-being and the value of the educational benefits of sport should not be under-estimated.
Within schools, physical education is an essential component of quality education. Not only do physical education programmes promote physical activity, such programmes also correlate to improved academic performance under certain conditions. Sport can also, under the right conditions, provide healthy alternatives to deviant behaviour such as drug abuse, violence and crime.

A number of key themes related to these topics will be explored including:
• The healthy development of children and youth through sport
• Physical education in schools
• Social and emotional development
• Policy developments relating to physical education and sport
• Practical considerations for sport in education
This profile attempts to broadly introduce some of the current themes related to physical education and sport for children and youth. In the literature related to physical education and sport there is much debate across the world over definitions of physical education, sport and physical activity. There is also great variance in the standard age boundaries for youth world-wide.

These issues will not be explored in detail here. Rather a number of links to further reading and resources are provided after each sub-theme to direct readers to additional information.