Lapsuuden ja nuoruuden kasvuympäristö aikuisiän liikuntaharrastusten selittäjänä : retrospektiivinen tutkimus

The purpose of the present study was to make a survey of the factors that influence the development of primary (active) sport involvement in Finland. A random sample of 300 was drawn from people of 26 and 32 years of age living in the town of Jyväskylä. In the first stage, they were asked about their sport activities by means of a mailed questionnaire. In the second stage 288 of them were interviewed personally in order to measure socialization variables. The results indicated that in women the percentages of explained variance of sport participation varied between 7.9 % and 34.1 %, The most important predictor among the socialization variables was sisters' sport involvement and among the variables describing adult living conditions the restricting effect of below-school-age children. In the male group the percentages of explained variance were between 16.4 % and 40.7 %. The most comprehensive predictor was the time of residence in the community, but also participation in extracurricular sport activities at school. The socialization factors proved to have direct effects on the total amount of sport activities at adulthood. In explaining the activities in different sports they also had indirect effects via youth-age sport involvement, studied by means of path analyses. Adult living conditions proved to be important for sport activities together with socialization variables. The picture obtained of the development of sport activities by means of quantitative methods was supplemented by case descriptions based on interview data. The typical cases were sought by reclassification of discriminant analyses.