Sport as a Developmental Context: An Analysis of Adolescent Human Development Assets in a Specialized School
Adolescents. Developmental Assets. Sport. Full-time School. Bioecological.
Human development is a continuous, lifelong process marked by physical, cognitive, emotional, and social changes that occur at various stages of life. These transformations do not stem solely from biological maturation; rather, they are shaped by the interaction between individual characteristics and experiences within diverse social, cultural, familial, and educational contexts. Understanding development entails recognizing that the changes observed at each life stage are influenced by the opportunities, relationships, and conditions present in the environments in which the individual participates. Against this backdrop, this research seeks to address the following question: Is participation in sports activities associated with changes in adolescents' human development assets over time? To this end, the study establishes the following general objective: to analyze changes in internal and external human development assets and their association with the duration of exposure to the school-based sports context among adolescents enrolled in a full-time sports-focused school. To address the research question, the general objective is broken down into three specific objectives: (1) to describe internal and external asset scores across four assessment points; (2) to compare internal and external asset scores between assessment points; and (3) to examine the association between the duration of exposure to the school-based sports context—calculated from the date of enrollment to each assessment—and the trajectory of the adolescents' human development assets.