The Phenomenon of Drop Outs Sports among Teenagers. A Case Study in Italy

Between 14 and 18 years there has been, in Italy, the highest rate of abandonment of sport and amounted to over 20% (Istat 2010). What are the factors that have the greatest impact on this choice? To investigate the reasons, ORSA (Regional Observatory sports Abruzzo) on behalf of CONI Abruzzo has conducted in 2012, a research involving nearly 10,000 high school students (equivalent to 20% of the student population of the region), distributed by type of school attended, gender, age, province of residence, to ensure the representativeness of the sample. The survey examined by administering a semi-structured questionnaire and the construction of four focus groups (one in each province of the region), motivation, socio-cultural, lifestyle and eating habits, relationship with individual sports, relationship dynamics and patterns of cultural consumption. The reflection emerged is part of the debate, for some time, has suffered as a national and international level. The aims to understand the reasons that lead to inactivity and neglect, but also to identify possible actions to intervene in order to help contain the phenomenon of drop outs. The results have been demonstrated fully in line with the national data and made it possible to provide a detailed and multifaceted condition and habits of young people of Abruzzo, in addition to interesting ideas that come from the way they conceive of the sport and their requests to the sporting world, aimed at dialogue and make it more challenging approach to physical and motor activities.