What’s in it for me? Young teenagers’ meaning-making experiences of movement activities

The aim of this article is to shed light on the lifeworld of thirteen-year-olds with high and low activity levels in relation to movement activities. Insights on this topic could serve as important resources for all those who contribute to the development and life quality of young teenagers through various contexts involving movement activities. The empirical material is based on individual interviews with four young teenagers. Two of the teenagers were characterized by a high physical activity level, and two by a low physical activity level. The analysis process has been carried out in accordance with the interpretative phenomenological analysis method. The study uncovered both unique and parallel meaning-making dimensions among the participants, but a pattern of several dissimilarities distinguished the highly active from those with low activity. Among those with high activity 'finding oneself in the activity', 'to be better', 'interplay', and 'self-regulation' were identified as meaning-making dimensions. Among those with low activity, 'ambivalence', 'to be good', 'interplay', and 'self-regulation' were identified as meaning-making dimensions. Meaning-making, in terms of interplay and self-regulation, expressed a partly polarized picture of the lifeworld of young people with high and low activity levels in relation to movement activities. The identified meaning-making dimensions have been interpreted and discussed in accordance with physical literacy (Whitehead, 2010. Physical literacy: Throughout the lifecourse. Routledge), as an expression of individual stances in a journey of bodily formation. In light of this perspective, the importance of gaining experience with a wide range of activities in different activity contexts, in addition to experiencing self-confirming and competent interplay with the surroundings, are highlighted as important meaning-making dimensions in a positive and confirming relationship to movement activities.