National youth program
particularly on the international, primarily European level
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Croatia 2009 National Youth Program
particularly on the international, primarily European level. On the national, as well as local levels, there are no valid strategies of cultural development described in binding documents. Such situation has far-reaching consequences for the 203 general cultural development in Croatia, and it particularly negatively affects fragile sectors, such as youth culture. With the aim of pragmatics in solving detected problems and responding to recognized needs, we set out three general subfields: • Youth culture and culture for youth 16 • Creative youth expression 17 • Recreational / amateur sport. The first two subfields are much intertwined and have several common key points and elements. First of all, we find similarities and equivalents in the manner of organization and institutional forms which primarily develop in the civil sector. Then, both of them belong to the broader domain of art and culture, i.e. they are a part of the overall culture system, and therefore administratively under the authority and responsibility of the Ministry of Culture. Finally, both segments, generally speaking, are in similar development phases and contain complementary developmental potentials. On the other hand, the field of sport is in a separate system (on the administrative, but on other levels as well) and is characterized by extremely complex problems that cannot be unified with those we find in the culture area, i.e. creative youth expression. For someone who follows sociological researches on this subject, the place that sport has in leisure time of young people is clearly defined, even lifestyles are created on the basis of sport, recognized on the representative sample as broader youth lifestyles related to sport. Also in some shorter researches, conducted according to the qualitative methodology, sport takes a significant place as a mediatory factor for subcultural lifestyles and specific identities. From the broader lifestyle to narrower designation of subcultural groups, over the differentiation between physical exercise, recreation, amateur sport, to top-level sport, which may also be lacking money and marginalized, but powerful, politically mediated as football, the range of the meanings of sport is considerably broad. However, in wider public, sport is almost a single-meaning notion, which shows that one dimension of sport monopolized the others, i.e. that the top-level sport suppressed amateur and recreational forms of sport. Physical activity is simply understood under the notion of sport and an average parent, who wants to ensure for its child conditions for healthier life, will not be able to consider sport outside the existing sport clubs. A large number of scientific researches from all over the world during the last decade indicate the relation between physical inactivity and the development of various diseases; cardiovascular, obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and other. In addition to physical inactivity, unhealthy nutrition and stress are connected with mortality, and healthcare and the treatment of these diseases cost the state and all citizens a lot of money, 16 In this context, the notion of culture is seen as a combination of a range of various activities which have a public dimension, i.e. which are directed to wide youth population, of those arisen as a product of youth self- organization (so-called youth culture) or those primarily directed to youth (so-called culture for youth). 17 Here we primarily have in mind the recognition of young artists, but also various forms of organized leisure time through which young people are encouraged to express themselves creatively, irrespective of whether they consider themselves to be artists, i.e. irrespective of their formal status as artists or non-artists. 204 so insufficient care about physical activity is in fact astonishing. Instead of powerful and organized support for the wider movement for health of an individual and society (such as ‘‘sport for all’’), incomparably more money is spent on the top-level sport, which relates to statistically negligible number of young people. Because of the success of Croatian top- level sportspersons and related media discourse, the impression is formed that we are a ‘‘sport nation’’, that these results would not exist if people were not massively doing sports, and it could follow that we are a healthy nation of physically active people. However, not diminishing the symbolic capital or in any way underestimating great successes of Croatian football, basketball, handball, water polo players, or those competing in individual sports, we must say that it is a phenomenon that has no relation to masses, physical activity of the majority of citizens, and also the presumed health. Research results obtained from the scientific project ‘‘Regionalism of Cardiovascular and Behavioural Risks – Model of Intervention’’, published under the title „Physical Inactivity in the Republic of Croatia“ show a completely different situation from the one created by a superficial media discourse about sport. The authors (Marjeta Mišigoj-Duraković, Stjepan Heimer, Marijan Gredelj, Željko Heimer and Maroje Sorić) talk about dramatic physical inactivity, due to which they suggest the construction of infrastructure for raising the level of physical activity (Mišigoj-Duraković, Heimer, Marijan Gredelj, Heimer, Sorić, 2007). The scientific research conducted (Ćurković, Fučkar-Reichel, 2005) on the sport engagement of heroin addicts and non-addicts, gave shocking results showing that 70% of heroin addicts report they were actively doing sports between ten and seventeen years of age, while among non-addicts almost the same high percentage of young people report they have never been doing sports other than obligatory in school. This is possible to understand, among other things, due to orientation of most clubs to the top-level sport which many young people are forced to enter due to the lack of other sport contents, whereby nobody explained to them what will happen to their bodies, leisure time and the barrier of transition from juniors to seniors, which results in stress and disappointment, in addition to other consequences. There is a great need for comprehensive and representative researches on physical (in) activity of youth in Croatia, because, irrespective of how significant the research by Marjeta Mišigoj-Duraković and co-authors was, physical inactivity was not measured exclusively on young population and it used a small number of questions, although this was enough for warning conclusions. Currently a research by Danijel Jurakić from the Faculty for Kinesiology of the University of Zagreb is in progress, which is unique in Croatia by comprehensiveness of measuring physical activity of our population, and it would be of great importance if we could obtain relevant data relating exclusively to the youth population. Also, with respect to the forms of actions for youth and the offer that society is trying to extend in the sphere of sport and physical activity in general, we must say that it would be appropriate to harmonize social actions with the wishes and needs articulated by young people. The research conducted in 2006 by Vlasta Ilišin among young people in the Zagreb County, emphasizes particularly preferences and wishes related to sport activity. The research could be used as a good model, but with encompassing a representative sample of youth from the entire territory of the Republic of Croatia. Only when we know the actual situation with respect to physical (in)activity of young people and their aspirations, motivations and 205 perceptions regarding sport, will we be able to set guidelines of social activities appropriate for reality, and not only a part of political voluntarism or journalistic sensationalism. The key problems of sport, from the perspective of young people, health and forms of spending leisure time are the following: Under the notion of sport we understand all physical exercise, and top-level sport dominates over recreational. When young persons, due to their wish for physical activity, health awareness, alone or with the help from their parents, want to become physically active, they mainly have at disposal sport clubs only, all competitively oriented and in which every sport is intentionally top-level. For a longer period of time, there is the monopoly of top-level sport, resulting in the lack of space and infrastructure for physical exercise during leisure time of young people, i.e. for recreational, amateur and related forms of adolescent ‘‘engagement in sport activities’’. There are no researches on the level of Croatia that would show what kinds of sports young people would like to engage in, but spaces and contents are offered irrespective of their needs and wishes. To those who want to do top-level sport, this should be enabled, but incomparably larger number of young people remain completely aside if we concentrate only on the minority of top-level ones who become professionals, and therefore it is important to recognize the type of social actions required here, directed to masses, construction of infrastructure and actual support for recreational forms of physical activity, serving the health of individuals and society. Download 0.9 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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