COVID-19 Risk in Youth Club Sports: A nationwide sample representing over 200,000 Athletes

Context: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost every aspect of life including youth sports. Little data exists on COVID-19 incidences and risk mitigation strategies in youth club sports. Objective: To determine the reported incidence of COVID-19 cases among youth club sport athletes and the information sources used to develop COVID-19 risk mitigation procedures. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Online surveys. Patients: Soccer and volleyball youth club directors. Intervention: A survey was completed by directors of youth volleyball and soccer clubs across the country in October 2020. Surveys included self-reported date of re-initiation, number of players, player COVID-19 cases, sources of infection, COVID-19 mitigation strategies, and information sources for the development of COVID-19 mitigation strategies. Main Outcome Measures: Total number of cases reported, number of players, and days since club re-initiation were used to calculate an incidence rate of cases per 100,000 player-days. To compare reported incidence rates between soccer and volleyball, a negative binomial model was developed to predict player cases with sport and state incidence as covariates and log(player-days) as an offset. Estimates were exponentiated to yield a reported incidence rate ratio (IRR) with Wald confidence intervals. Results: A total of 205,136 athletes (soccer=165,580; volleyball=39,556) were represented by 437 clubs (soccer=159; volleyball=278). Club organizers reported 673 COVID-19 cases (soccer=322; volleyball=351), for a reported incidence rate of 2.8 cases per 100,000 player-days (soccer=1.7, volleyball=7.9). Volleyball had a significantly higher reported COVID-19 incidence rate compared to soccer (reported IRR = 3.06 [2.0–4.6], p<0.001). Out of 11 possible mitigation strategies, the median number of strategies used by all clubs was 7 with an interquartile range of 2. Conclusions: The incidence of self-reported cases of COVID-19 was lower in soccer clubs than volleyball clubs. Most clubs report using many COVID-19 mitigation strategies to reduce the risk of COVID-19.

Creation of Komsomol Cafés in 1960s

This article, using extensive archival material, examines the history of the emergence of youth cafés, provides an analysis of the preconditions and historical conditions in which they were created, and highlights the problems that they had to overcome on their way. During the 1960s youth cafés was created throughout the country on the initiative of Komsomol members. There were places where one could have an interesting and fun time listening to jazz over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, dancing a popular twist, meeting poets and musicians and artists, or just going an impromptu stage to read poems. The youth café became a symbol of the 1960s. The feeling of freedom was first felt by young people who began to actively explore Western culture and lifestyle. Harsh administrative measures and punishments proved to be ineffective. This is how the idea of creating the first youth club, corresponding to the interests and demands of young people, arose, but under the supervision of an “elder brother” in the form of the Komsomol. Urban young boys and girls were attracted by the democratic atmosphere of the café, which the sixtiers would later write about more than once. In the mid-1960s this interesting experience was relocated to the countryside, but this was less successful. Even in large cities, not many cafés survived until the mid-1970s, faced with enough problems.

CULTURAL AND LEISURE ACTIVITY OF CLUBS` YOUTH CENTERS OF PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Object. The article considers the issue of cultural and leisure activities of club youth centers of pedagogical higher educational institutions. The structure and types of leisure, forms of youth clubs` work are analyzed. Methods. The following methods were used when writing the article and searching for the material: analysis, synthesis, comparison. Results. One of the urgent problems of cultural and leisure activities of club youth centers of pedagogical higher educational institutions is the organization of youth leisure. Unfortunately, due to the socio-economic difficulties of society, the lack of adequate number of cultural institutions and insufficient attention to the organization of youth leisure, the development of non-institutional forms of youth leisure is most widespread. A new type of youth club is a qualitatively different social formation free from political layers, formalism, and strict regulation of internal life. This institution should help meet the growing interest of young people in their history, cultural and artistic origins, household traditions. The use of free time by young people is a kind of indicator of their culture, the range of spiritual needs and interests of a particular individual of young person or social group. As part of free time, leisure attracts young people by its lack of regulation and voluntary choice of its various forms, democracy, emotional color, the ability to combine physical and intellectual activities, creative and contemplative, production and play. Yu. Striltsov, A. Zharkov, V. Chizhikov, V. Kovshar, T. Kiselyova, Yu. Krasilnikov made a significant contribution to the scientific analysis of the theory and practice of cultural and leisure activities. Stylistic and structural features of free time are reflected in research F. Vidanova, V. Dimova, I. Evteeva, L. Kogan, V. Pichi, A. Shchavel. Such scientists as I. Andreeva, N. Golubkova, N. Litovska, L. Shvydka are working on the problems of youth subculture functioning and cultural socialization. Sociological studies of the spiritual young people needs in the field of leisure in the Ukrainian scientists woks I. Bekh, I. Zyazyun, G. Sagach, I. Stepanenko, P. Shcherban, J. Yuzvak are carefully analyzed. The youth club provides an opportunity to provide leisure as a means of entertainment and relaxation of individual and group stress; recreation as a means of replenishing psychophysical forces, restoring creative potential; compensation as a means of involvement in personally significant cultural values; socialization as a means of involvement in informal social processes and structures; self-actualization as a means of embodying individual creative interests, as well as self-development and self-realization of personal growth in culturally significant areas of society. Conclusions. So, today, given the rising spiritual young people`s needs, increasing the level of their education, culture, the most characteristic feature of youth leisure is the growing share of spiritual forms and ways of spending free time, combining entertainment, information, opportunity to create and learn new things. Such «synthetic» forms of leisure organization have become youth interest clubs, amateur associations, family clubs, art and technical clubs, discos, and youth cafe clubs.

The intimacy effect: Girls’ reflections about pornography and ‘actual sex’

Drawing on an online survey that was conducted as part of the media education awareness campaign of a Finnish online youth club, this article explores girls’ conceptions of the difference between pornographic representations and ‘actual sex’. As a result of the analysis, the greatest detachment between these two occurs concerning intimacy. Thus, this article will explore the pervasive influence of the notion of romantic intimacies, which provides the ideal for ‘normal’ relationships, sexual encounters and ‘good sex’ for the girls who participated in the survey through the concept of ‘the intimacy effect’. Like narratives of sexual storytelling in general, the survey dataset helps to trace connections between the personal and the societal. The dataset also draws attention to the ties between social relations and the cultural forms that mediate how these relations are set in motion, and to how certain cultural norms are forcefully influencing girls’ everyday life.