Den sköra föreningen mellan tävling och medmänsklighet : om ledarskap och lärprocesser i barnfotbollen

Sammanfattning: The thesis is about voluntary leadership in football for children, how the leadership is manifested, and how the leaders are constituted by this leadership. The aim is to describe, interpret and gain an understanding of football as an informal learning environment and the shape this leadership takes in practical activities. What processes constitute the leadership? How do these processes constitute the leader? The basis of the work is lifeworld phenomenology, but different theoretical perspectives have been used to interpret the empirical findings. In order to find answers to my questions, I have used a case study consisting of a football team with three leaders and ten-year-old children. I followed a football team for a whole season with observations and interviews with the leaders and the children. The result shows three overarching processes in the shaping of the leadership - Controlling the community spirit, The strength of competition, and Beyond the conventions. In the two first , and . In the two first mentioned processes, the instrumental element in the encounter between the leaders and the children is prominent, while the third process shows the intersubjective encounters that arise. In the leaders' encounters with these processes, The leaders' lived experience, there are feelings of affinity, importance and inadequacy. This is the leaders' identity development process. In the discussion section I take up and discuss leadership and learning in terms of pedagogical tact, being a reflecting practitioner. I also discuss the frailty of the assignment as leader, where the leadership is to a great extent dependent on the situated context. Finally I discuss the leadership as part of a societal process of individualization and what this implies for the leadership. My conclusion is that the voluntary leadership is balancing on a thin line and is to a high degree dependent on its specific context, the leaders and parents round the team, and the basic values that the association stands for.