Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 2279: Effects of Sports Activity on Sustainable Social Environment and Juvenile Aggression (Sustainability)

It is believed that sports, as a social institution, are one of the most critical extracurricular activities for adolescent as they teach the rules and disciplines. However, the effects of sports participation on adolescent development are still controversial at the level of theoretical and empirical perspectives in sociology and psychology. For this reason, this study focused on the causal relationships among sports activity, social and environmental factors, and juvenile aggression based on empirical research to examine the effects of sports on adolescents. For this purpose, this research used the Korean Children & Youth Panel Survey (KCYPS) which surveyed 2378 adolescents by multi-stage stratified cluster sampling from 98 schools across South Korea. The data was analyzed by reliability analysis, correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis, multiple regression, and path analysis with SPSS ver. 23.0 program for Windows. The results were as follows: Firstly, sports activity had a statistically significant effect on the sustainable social environmental factors, and teacher and friend relationships. Secondly, it was found that sustainable social environment had a statistically significant effect on juvenile aggression toward others and oneself. Lastly, sports activity also showed an indirect effect on juvenile aggression toward others and oneself. This means that sports activity affects juvenile aggression through a sustainable social environment. In detail, more sports activity could positively improve one’s relationships with teachers and friends and then reduce aggression toward both others and oneself.