“With de word…, the children”: experience and access to sport and leisure in the west region of Paraná state - Brazil

Abstract

The aim was to analyse and understand the universe of sport and leisure practices that were accessible for children from three cities of the western region of Paraná state – Brazil (Maripá, Marechal Cândido Rondon and Toledo). The research was exploratory, with a quantitative and qualitative approach. It was used a questionnaire with open and closed questions. The sample was composed by 472 children of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades from seven public council schools. The information was analysed considering two categories previous selected: a) Sport and leisure children’s experience; and b) Access to spaces and projects/activities of sport and leisure. The quantitative data was analysed by descriptive statistics using the software SPSS Statistics 22.0 and, the qualitative data was analysed by the content analysis using the software NVivo 11 Plus. The results showed that more than a half of the children (53,3%) participated in projects or activities of sport or leisure. When comparing the cities, it was observed that a minor number of children participated in projects or activities in Toledo (41,2%) than in Marechal Cândido Rondon (57,1%) and Maripá (60,2%). Team sport was more practiced by the children than individual sport and the football/futsal was highlighted as a modality they practice. Moreover, the children described being interested by swimming despite it is less practiced due to the poor offer. In general, the access to sport and leisure spaces and projects/activities had satisfactory results, showing that in the places investigated there were some favourable aspects to practice sport and leisure. Thus, a considerable amount of the children researched participated in sport and leisure activities and had some favourable conditions of access to them. Keywords: Sport, Leisure, Politics, Children.