Goals

Sport, as an elaborate social phenomenon and a strong social producer of relationship among people and groups, has always taken on an important role for individuals and communities: it creates group identity, it is place of social recognition, rules learning, competition and comparison with others. Like other social phenomena, nowadays it is more and more going through elaborated and often contradictory dynamics, due to the need to manage different relationships and working plans at the same time: from technical and organizational aspects, to aspects linked to marketing and efficacy; from social-educational features, to the promotional ones. For this reason the Research Unit aims at developing a psycho-social gaze on sport phenomenon, which can consider such complexity and can promote well-structured research and thought, able to keep together a wider gaze on organizational and social processes from which sport takes shape, from both single actors' and sport users' (athletes, trainers, supporters, etc…) point of view.

Main research areas

• SPORT AS A TOOL OF SOCIAL INCLUSION: sport and development of social capital (sport in jail, sport for youngers in weak situations, sport in poverty contexts), sport and psychic disadvantage, sport and migration (use of urban facilities). Specifically, the RU is interested in dialogical project processes, which fosters the launch of complex planning using sport as the main tool and incentive social change, with specific interest in the issue of efficacy evaluation of such actions. Referring to this issue, at the moment there are active cooperation with Blanquerna University (Barcelona), the Western Cape University of Cape Town (South Africa), Laureus Foundation Italia, Champions for Children Foundation, UISP.
• SPORT AND CONFLICT MEDIATION: promotion of mediation competences within sport context, strongly crossed by cooperative and conflict dynamics. Specifically researches activated are about promotion of mediation competences for technical figures (trainers, instructors) and management competences which work in sport organizations (clubs, federations, foundations).
• PROMOTION OF YOUTH SECTORS QUALITY: since youth sport phenomenon is extensively widespread (in particular for associations and oratories), requests are more and more required by those who promote such activities at high levels. RU has been working for some years in cooperation with sport promotion Corporations aiming at monitoring the main needs and efforts of playing actors (young players, parents, technicians, managers) and at promoting essential competences to face them. In particular research and training-research paths have been activated with School-Youth Sector of FIGC Lombardy Region, with professional and amateur soccer clubs.
• TALENT DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT IN SPORT FIELD: issue of talent development represents today a widely debatable matter in different professional fields: such issue takes on both a strong and specific relevance when one talks about sport environment, since sport talents are mainly young and adolescents in delicate developmental phases. For this reason it is important to introduce a multidisciplinary and articulated perspective, since the issue of sport talent requires a process gaze which considers complex dynamics in which young talents are in. Among the subject matter issue we stand out: which competences for talent management within sport clubs? Which professionals? Which peculiarities in sportsmen carriers, which professional trainings?
• CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND CAREER TRANSITION IN SPORT: in the actual professional context the career processes are increasingly fragmented and unpredictable; the transition from professional roles to others and, more generally, the issue of career transitions is a central theme. In the context of sports interest in this field of research is particularly strong for transitions such as those of the end carrier as an athlete, or from athlete role to coach role.
• SPORT PSYCHOLOGIST: in a scenery in which the professionalism of psychology has to cope with questions and different requests coming from social context in a new way, sport world appears as a context in which psychological competences are felt as necessary but hardly "questionable". For this reason a reflection on roles and essential competences for those working in the sport world seems to be fundamental, promoting a debate among different organizational and cultural (Italian and international) realities.

   

   

  Coordinator

  Prof. Caterina Gozzoli, associated professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at Università Cattolica of Milan, Scientific Director of post-degree Master in "Sport and Psychosocial intervention". Research Unit avails itself of the cooperation of Italian and foreign professionals, afferent from different academicals and organizational realities.

  Contacts

  caterina.gozzoli@unicatt.it

  chiara.dangelo@unicatt.it

  Telephone +39-02-7234-3644