Sports provide many opportunities for our youth today. In fact the British usedsports in educational institutions to develop socialization, social control, and characteron their youth (Sage 1986). Sports also provides an obvious form of entertainment inmany societies as well. Many role models, heroes, and idols can originate from sports.It also provides a mean of recreation for youth to participate in and spend some freetime on something constructive. This study agrees that sport does apply a lot ofbenefits for our youth, but what does it do for youths that are in a higher riskenvironment? Children brought up with factors that increase their chances of involvement withlifestyle compromising activities, for the purposes of this study, will be referred to as“at-risk youth”. Lifestyle compromising activities can also be seen as a type ofdelinquent behavior. These kinds of behaviors are not kinds that are ideal for a youth togrow up with into adulthood. Some of the delinquent behavior performed by at-riskyouth include criminal activities such as the use of drugs and alcohol. Other behaviorslike violence, truancy, and depression can also be originated by delinquent behavior(The Bureau for At-Risk Youth 1996).What can be done to prevent at-risk youth to participate in lifestylecompromising activities? Many studies have recommended many different kinds ofsolutions. This study will discuss, although it is not the answer, how sport positivelyeffects the behaviors of an at-risk youth.METHODOne of the first tasks that the writer had to accomplish was to learn how to writea research paper. This feat was attempted by reading articles and notes that wereprovided in the note package from the Physical Activity and Sport Studies course,taught by Thomas Patrick. Secondly, the writer also had to learn how to obtainanalytical research information that is provided by The University of Winnipeg. Forexample, there are many journals t...
