SBYD and Social Justice: Defining Quality and Its Impact on Youth Experience

Abstract

The content in this autoethnography manuscript is significant because it takes a different angle than the typical discourse surrounding sport-based youth development (SBYD). Typically, the discourse on SBYD focuses on the positive outcomes of improved social–emotional learning and academic achievement. In using an autoethnographic approach, I share stories from my personal experience as a practitioner in the field to illustrate a new perspective on how to think about the impact of sport-based youth development on young people. Though those outcomes are positive and impactful, they fail to capture the continued inequity in the quality of youth sports programs in underserved communities compared to others. I utilize research in SBYD to analyze each story as a practitioner in the field to thoroughly reflect on my personal experiences and their relation to social justice. The stories are also a tool for making the connection between the individual work of various organizations pursuing sport equity. Through storytelling, reflection, and analysis, I connect the mission of each organization I worked with to the concept of social justice youth development in a more personalized way than numbers and data can illustrate. Additionally, this autoethnography highlights non-traditional sport spaces and advocates for a way to fuse social justice into them. This manuscript seeks to simultaneously refresh the way equity in sport has been looked at, while also illuminating the ways it is already being examined. The paper presents new questions that can be used to better analyze the presence of social justice in youth sports and provides a potential pathway forward by grounding in a definition of quality SBYD programming. These questions imply that the measures of the impact and potential benefits of SBYD may need to be redefined to better match the real lived experiences of individual youth participating in such programs.

1. Introduction

Sport-based youth development (SBYD) is a theory and framework for youth development work that has experienced an advent into mainstream relevance over the past decade. In 2006, SBYD was officially defined by researchers and youth advocates at a summit hosted by Harvard’s PEAR Program. These experts defined SBYD as “out of school time sport programs that use a particular sport to facilitate learning and life skill development in youth” (Perkins & Noam, 2007). There is now a catalog of research related to various characteristics of the field, best practices, and measures of its impact on its participants.

In this autoethnography, I aim to contribute to the discourse around SBYD through the lens of three stories that illustrate specific experiences, observations, and epiphanies from my years of working with youth in under-resourced communities. Research published in 2021 titled Reimagining positive youth development and life skills in sport through a social justice lens implicates that “Efforts to think outside the box might also be needed in terms of reimagining the context of youth sport itself as it continues to face increasing pressures of professionalization” (Camiré et al., 2021). In line with this, I aim to interpret and analyze these stories using the context of social justice youth development, defined by the Center for Social Justice Youth Development Research as the “focus on creating equitable access and opportunities for all youth by actively eliminating disparities.” (Outley et al., 2018). I suggest my own definition of social justice youth development in the context of SBYD: social justice in youth sports is ensuring that the quality of youth sports in underserved communities must equal or exceed the quality in any other community. By this definition quality is defined by access to resources and positive experiences. I will illustrate this further through the stories in the rest of the manuscript but put simply: when social justice is achieved in youth sports, there will be no visible or measurable difference in the quality of experience as it relates to field and equipment access, coaching quality, and opportunity for development and competition.

With this definition at the forefront, in analyzing these stories it became clear that social justice is an integral part of SBYD. SBYD does not exist in a silo; it operates within the societal context of the intersection of gender, sex, race, religion, socioeconomic status, and all other categories people may fall into, a context which is often inequitable and oppressive. By design, SBYD is intended to improve the lives of its youth participants, and to do so, oppressive societal norms must be overcome. SBYD, including both programs and funders in the field, must be intentional in its design to ensure it is not perpetuating societal norms, but rather actively reducing barriers and acting counter-culturally when necessary. I do not believe that SBYD can achieve this without implementing a social justice lens. I wish to provide a new angle for thinking about these inequities and provide a potential pathway to overcome them through the analysis of my experiences in the field.

2. Methodology

This manuscript utilizes an autoethnographic approach, primarily conducted through narrative inquiry, in which I explore my experiences as a practitioner in the field of SBYD, particularly as they relate to the youth experiences of access to quality programming I observed in that role. It is important to note my positionality as a white woman who grew up in a middle-class suburban environment to paint the full picture of the lens through which I made my observations. This positionality means that my lived experience differs in key ways from many of the youth in the programs I write about. However, the conclusions I draw are also influenced by my education and years of experience as a licensed social worker. Through narrative inquiry, I will recount key stories and share significant takeaways. These experiences and stories are the primary qualitative data used to illustrate the argument at hand. I will analyze these stories through the lens of my definition of social justice-oriented SBYD, and by drawing on common themes related to youth experience, research-backed definitions of social justice, and characteristics of quality youth sports programming. Using this analysis, the paper will illustrate both the positive impact of SBYD as well as the areas where current funding and programming fall short of addressing the inequities between youth in highly resourced areas and those in under-resourced areas, where the intersectionality of identities shapes the experiences of the youth. As a practitioner who has worked in a wide array of roles within SBYD, I am uniquely equipped to analyze my experiences within the context of the current research, though I am aware that my perspective is shaped by my distinct positionality within each experience. My stories and analysis will present that SBYD programs are headed in the right direction but still fall short of quality as defined through a social justice lens.

3. Discovering the Power of Sport: Comoros

From 2018 to 2020, while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Comoros, a country in East Africa, I saw firsthand the organic power and positive influence of sports. As a licensed social worker and someone who enjoys being active, I always considered my work with youth development and personal passion for sport as separate entities. This changed after my female middle school students in Comoros and I formed a simple afterschool soccer club. My students were intrigued by my daily runs around the village. They asked me if it would be possible for us to start exercising together, which very quickly evolved into playing soccer, the most popular sport in Comoros. It required no funding; no special equipment, aside from a ball that I purchased with my Peace Corps allowance; no staff; really no formal structure at all. It simply needed approval from the school director that the girls would be allowed to travel to the village field and play soccer weekly under my supervision.

In Comoros, as of 2017, the adolescent birth rate was nearly 75% (UN Women Data Hub, n.d.). Additionally, as of 2023 there were 30,750 school-aged girls out of school, representing 22% of the school-aged girls in the country (Malala Fund Girls’ Education Report Cards, n.d.). These numbers indicate there are still massive inequities between men and women in Comoros. Women fulfill traditional gender roles; staying at home to raise the children, do the chores, and cook the food.

This, of course, trickles down to the experiences of girls. As these numbers showcase, from a young age, girls in Comoros begin watching the children and taking care of the house. Meanwhile, boys of the same age are typically free to spend their unstructured time however they like; often, this means playing soccer. It is highly unusual to see girls exercising, and in the village I lived in, girls had never played soccer before. In 2019, while I was living in Comoros, the national women’s soccer team had only been in existence since 2006, whereas the men’s national team was founded in 1979 (Afp, 2019). Though there has been a more recent acknowledgment that women can play sports, and funding has even come from FIFA to help develop coaches and referees for the women’s game, culturally, the expectation remains that women are at home with the children, wearing traditional dress, not out playing sports in athletic gear (Afp, 2019).

This made the soccer club a pioneering and liberating endeavor. At each weekly session, I watched the girls getting exercise that was not associated with chores. I saw them laugh and have fun together, gossiping and being themselves without critical observation from school leaders or parents. I watched girls get competitive, take risks, make mistakes and laugh them off, and try new skills. For the girls in Comoros, I believe, these experiences were also liberating. In the eastern African country of Uganda, a martial arts-based sport, gender, and development program was analyzed to see if this claim of single-gender sport opportunities leading to liberation is true. The correlation between participation in the martial arts program and a decrease in gender-based violence was specifically explored.

The paper outlines a dynamic that is relevant to my experience in Comoros. It found that women’s participation in self-defense training led to validation of one’s self-worth and right to protection, though there is little correlation that changes on the individual level actively alter patriarchal beliefs in a society (Hayhurst et al., 2014). From this, the paper cites a different angle on the idea of empowerment: “Empowerment projects seek to constitute beneficiaries as active and responsible individuals with the ability to take charge of their own lives. Thus, empowerment should be viewed not as a transfer of power to individuals who formerly possessed little or no power, but as a technology seeking to create self-governing and responsible individuals…” (Hayhurst et al., 2014). Though changes on the individual level do not directly lead to social change, when facilitated effectively, these changes can create empowered individuals who “take charge of their own lives” or see their lives from a different view—perhaps a view with more opportunity and expansiveness than before.

Playing together created a safe and secure environment where they were able to learn more about themselves and each other, through the natural processes of relationship building, bonding, and developing trust, separate from the contexts of school or family. This provided an opportunity for individuation and an example of how they can be in relationships with others for the rest of their lives as well. Each of these experiences from playing soccer—taking risks, trying new things, navigating challenges, communicating effectively, etc.—were valuable to the social and emotional growth and development of each of the girls. They replicate experiences that the girls will have in the rest of their lives, therefore creating a firm foundation of skills they can rely on when such circumstances arise (Anderson-Butcher et al., 2021). In fact, it has become colloquially accepted, across the world, that sports participation is beneficial to girls and their development, as well as the reduction of sexism. Research conducted to verify these ideas highlights that this may be true, but only if and when the interventions related to women and girls’ sport participation are intentionally designed within the context of society (Rauscher & Cooky, 2015). The sum total of all of these experiences is the tool of empowerment: the ability for the girls to perceive themselves from an angle they had not had access to before. I extrapolate from this that SBYD programming designed with a social justice lens as I have defined it would have an even more impressive impact than this soccer club on the girls of Comoros by allowing them to experience independence, fun, and a reality where they have access to the same opportunities as their male counterparts.

4. SBYD in Practice: South Bronx United

After my time in Comoros, I was formally introduced to the field of SBYD (SBYD) as the social work program manager at South Bronx United (SBU) in 2021. SBU is a grassroots nonprofit organization that serves youth in the area through recreational and academy soccer programs. The mission of SBU is to use soccer as a tool for social change aiming to help youth build character, teamwork, and leadership so that they can succeed in high school, college, careers, their community, and beyond. SBU strives to promote educational achievement, health and wellness, and character development through activities on and off the soccer field and to unite a diverse group of individuals and an incredibly diverse community toward common positive goals (SBU, 2025).

As the social work program manager, I worked specifically with the student-athletes in the SBU Academy. The SBU Academy is a free or low-cost competitive travel soccer program that also provides academic support and social–emotional learning and development to youth in the South Bronx. The academy typically serves immigrant or first-generation students who would otherwise not be able to afford the price of typical travel soccer teams in the city. Student-athletes attend both soccer practice and afterschool academics as part of the academy. The program is holistic, seeking to not only develop the youth as competitive soccer players with potential college prospects but also to ensure that they have high academic achievement and career development, all of which are supported by the infusion of social–emotional learning in every aspect of their experience. My role as the social worker was to oversee this infusion through group work, individual counseling, and other related interventions to ensure the social–emotional growth and development of each student-athlete.

My experience in this role, as well as being a member of the SBU community, taught me a great deal about working with youth and understanding their needs. It also shaped my beliefs about what that work should look like to deliver the highest quality experience for the youth participants. I learned the intrinsic and simultaneous connection between sport and learning life skills; the observations I made in Comoros while the girls played soccer together were solidified as clear and measurable aspects of social–emotional learning that occurs in sport. I also believe the change driven through SBYD is not always found solely within the big picture of evidence-based programming and interventions. Rather, the real lasting impact on young people is found in the details of how each individual experiences the day-to-day interactions and the level of care and quality in the routine aspects of the program.

For context, I will outline the specific characteristics of a quality sports program. These characteristics are not specific to SBYD programs, but I believe SBYD programs, as sports programs at their core, can benefit from aligning to these standards. A study conducted in 2023 identified four high-level characteristics that dictate whether a youth sports program is high-quality or not: fun and enjoyment, opportunity to gain sport skills, social connections, and effective communication (Brown et al., 2023). The authors concluded that each of these characteristics is dependent on the other; sport skills cannot be developed without strong relationships and a sense of belonging (Brown et al., 2023). It is necessary to strategize how to implement the four high-level characteristics of quality in practice. How do SBYD programs ensure that their programming is fun, their players are developing sport skills, solid relationships are forming, and their coaches and players communicate openly and effectively? SBU is an organization aiming to implement these four high-level characteristics into its programming.

As a site-based program, all youth participants come from different schools and communities to SBU programming, instead of SBU going out into different schools or to other partners to provide programming. This means the organization has relative control over certain internal factors and decision-making, like coaching quality, student-athlete experience, schedule, etc., ensuring that there are some aspects related to the quality of programming that are within SBU’s locus of control.

However, there are still constraints. For example, SBU uses field space at a public park, so other community members are always present. Additionally, the field typically needs to be divided into four sections to fit all the SBU teams practicing on it, limiting the types of drills and activities coaches can run. At baseline, this is acceptable; the student-athletes at SBU are still receiving access to field space in their community with quality coaching. However, pay-to-play soccer clubs (which charge high fees to their athletes for participation) in the city and surrounding suburbs typically have larger fields and private play space. In New York, Downtown United Soccer Club, Manhattan Soccer Club, and Asphalt Green all have access to either multiple fields, up to 20+, around the city through permits or private field space up to regulation size, indoor turf fields, and weight training facilities (Downtown United Soccer Club, n.d.; Manhattan Soccer Club, 2020; Asphalt Green, 2025). This begs the question: are student-athletes at SBU receiving equal or greater quality sports programming compared to their counterparts, or is there still a gap in equity?

The US Soccer Foundation has identified access to safe field space as a barrier keeping youth in underserved communities from playing soccer. As such, the Foundation has become a major funder of building mini pitches around the country, with a goal of constructing 1000 by 2026 (U.S. Soccer Foundation, 2025). Over the course of this project, the Foundation has conducted research through surveys around the impact of providing these mini pitches, and therefore access to field space, to youth and communities. The surveys found that mini pitches have a beneficial impact on the community. In total, 96% of those surveyed reported that their mini pitch is accessible to all and 99% of those surveyed found that people in their community were more active after the installation of a mini pitch (U.S. Soccer Foundation, 2025). These percentages tell a story of a wholly positive impact related to access. Without the construction of these mini pitches, communities could be left with no option for safe play, which is arguably a worse outcome. But is access enough in the context of social justice?

Whether or not there is a proven correlation between the field quality and SBU student-athletes’ experiences, I argue the perception is what matters the most, as youth participants’ perception will impact if they see SBU’s programming as fun, as a place where they can develop sports skills, form connections, and communicate effectively (Brown et al., 2023). It is impossible to ignore the discrepancy between the SBU fields and the fields other clubs use. This discrepancy mirrors the potential socioeconomic status discrepancy that exists between SBU student-athletes and pay-to-play club athletes, creating a divide in their experiences that exists due to socioeconomic differences that are inextricably linked to race (Pandya, 2021). Though SBU is providing access to competitive soccer to an underserved community, it is still constrained by the limits of resources and funding. This indicates that the responsibility of running SBYD programs with a social justice lens is not only on the programs themselves, but also the funding structures in place.

Another difference between SBU and pay-to-play soccer clubs is its coaching model. SBU primarily relies on part-time volunteers to be “Coach-Mentors” for its competitive teams. Though paid a stipend, the coach-mentors at SBU are paid considerably less than their counterparts at pay-to-play clubs, especially those who are full-time coaches. As coach-mentors at SBU, there is an expectation that they will be equally as focused and invested in life-skill development as they are with soccer skill development. To achieve this, they are expected to attend a series of professional development training courses throughout the year, which are focused on positive youth development, social–emotional learning, and SBYD practices. They also meet weekly with the social worker and academic advisors to understand their players’ holistic progress. The expectation at SBU is that, with this intentionality, the coach-mentor will be a primary driver of the day-to-day positive experiences of the youth on their teams.

I argue in some ways, the coach-mentors at SBU are held to a higher standard of expertise than a typical, paid soccer coach that places limited emphasis on life skill development. But maintaining this standard is difficult to achieve when relying on volunteers. I also argue that all sports coaches, volunteer or paid, competitive or recreational, can play a role in the connection between sport and life skill development. From a systems perspective, all youth sports are connected, whether an SBYD-specific program or a youth team; each can benefit from a social justice approach to sport and therefore the education and professionalization of coaches remains imperative. Additionally, research has found that the professionalization of coaches reduces the use of emotionally harmful coaching practices and in turn improves the quality of youth sports experiences (Kerr & Stirling, 2015). In recent months, SBU has sought to professionalize their coaching staff by utilizing increased funding to create two full-time coach-mentor positions. I am interested to learn what, if any, noticeable impact this has on the quality of the experience of the student-athletes on the teams with the full-time coaches.

Positive Coaching Alliance is a national nonprofit organization that is seeking to change the culture of youth sports to one where both maximizing performance and teaching life skills through safe and secure relationships are at the center. The organization’s vision is “A world where every young person benefits from a positive youth sports experience with a coach who inspires them to become the best version of themselves in the game and in life” (Positive Coaching Alliance, 2025b). PCA’s model centers coach professionalization through training and development as the vehicle for creating quality and equitable youth sports experience. They specifically identify challenges of racism and socioeconomic status as factors that create systemic barriers to youth having quality sport experiences. PCA recommends that professionalizing coaches to be well-versed in the impact and context of inequity in sports is an essential intervention for addressing inequity. Calling back to the four high-level measurements of quality in youth sports programs—fun and enjoyment, opportunity to gain sport skills, social connections, and effective communication—coaches are an essential driver of those aspects. For participation in sports to be a ripe opportunity to help youth gain the tools they need to have successful futures and life experiences (Positive Coaching Alliance, 2025a), coaches need to be actively involved in both employing these characteristics and removing barriers. What does this look like in practice?

There is a staff member at SBU who volunteers additional time as a coach-mentor for one of the teams, whose story can be used to weave all these concepts together. This coach-mentor has coached the same boys’ team from U16 to U19. He is also a full-time staff member at the organization, as the Director of Soccer Programs. This means that beyond coaching, he manages all the part-time volunteer coach-mentors, oversees the recruitment and retention of all student-athletes, and implements the professional development and training of all coach-mentors. He has vast soccer coaching and SBYD experience, and this is evident in the way he coaches both his team and advises the other coach-mentors.

This coach-mentor has created a culture of belonging and excellence on his team that relies on communication between the players, working towards shared, measurable goals, and believing that they have high potential, not just on the field, but in their lives outside of it. This has been especially evident in the retention of players on his team. Several of the other teams in the SBU academy have had high turnover rates in the years I worked there, with student-athletes leaving to try out for scholarships at pay-to-play clubs. This has not been the case with this coach-mentor’s team. I believe this is because he keeps a strong focus on developing their soccer skills, while viewing them as whole people with varying needs and strengths. This is what a well-trained and professionalized coach does.

This SBU coach-mentor is coaching like this while on a field in a public park where he often must adjust the practice plan due to spacing, weather, disruptions, or any other number of external factors. This itself does not detract from his ability to implement a quality experience on his team, especially from a relational and team culture perspective. However, this coach-mentor and his team are required to operate within a context that differs greatly from their counterparts who do not face socioeconomic barriers to the sport.

Though student-athletes on this specific team have stayed over the years, I have seen up to five student-athletes from a different team decide to leave the SBU academy in favor of a pay-to-play club. Part of my role was conducting the exit interviews for these student-athletes to seek to understand why they had made their decision. Time and again they cited feeling like they would have better opportunities at the pay-to-play clubs. Typically, this feeling was not founded in any actual data or proof, but rather the sense that when something costs more, that means it must be better. The conditions of the SBU public park fields versus the Asphalt Green private fields and full facility were a glaring example of this for some of the families in the SBU program. Quality coaching aside, why should soccer players with less have to operate in a space with less? Lack of equitable field space is an example of reduced access to the same resources others have; therefore, in the current conditions, SBU programming is not meeting the full definition of social justice SBYD. I argue that all youth playing sports and all SBYD programs should have access to both sides of quality: experiences and resources. It is an obligation to problem-solve how external challenges and restraints can be lessened, so the power of sport can flourish.

5. SBYD in Practice: Street Soccer USA

I moved to Los Angeles in 2024, eager to continue a career in SBYD. Now, instead of working directly with youth, I work for a national nonprofit focused on placing and training coaches in youth sports programs in underserved communities, working towards a more professionalized coaching model. This allows me to stay closely involved in SBYD and learn about its landscape in a different city on the opposite coast of the US. My dual-coast perspective has continued to highlight the positive impact of SBYD as well as the ways the landscape changes depending on each location’s specific contexts and needs.

With this in mind, I began coaching with Street Soccer USA, a national nonprofit aimed at developing grassroots soccer programs using an SBYD framework, at one of their sites in south LA, to fulfill my desire to have direct service involvement with youth. At this site, I have witnessed once again the joy, community, and energy that soccer can bring to youth and adults alike, strikingly similar to the joy, community, and energy I found in Comoros and at SBU. How impactful that these qualities of joy, community, and energy are so inherent to sport and how meaningful could it be to harness them to be used to create change in the world?

This is a question the Play Equity Fund continuously considers. I am involved with the Play Equity Fund, an arm of LA84 Foundation, and its coalition of SBYD and youth sport stakeholders from LA County—stakeholders all engaged in the work of harnessing the power of sport and play. The Play Equity Fund was created to ensure that funding from LA84 Foundation would be directed intentionally towards access to play for all youth. It is founded on the premise that access to sport is a social justice issue. In 2024, LA84 Foundation commissioned the California Play Equity Report to establish research on the landscape of youth sports participation and physical activity, with a specific focus on underserved communities across the state of California. The President and CEO of LA84 Foundation, Renata Simril, wrote about this report: “access, affordability, transportation, and safe spaces to play continue to hinder the ability of youth…to engage in the type of physical activity that foster lifelong wellbeing…. advancing play equity is not just about providing opportunities. It confronts the systemic barriers that perpetuate inequities…play equity is a social justice issue. It is why we work to ensure all children, regardless of background, can access the benefits of sports, play, and movement…it’s a matter of fairness and justice.”

Street Soccer USA is also a member of the Play Equity Fund. A deeper analysis of Street Soccer USA, as well as my personal experience at one of their sites in south LA, can be used to illustrate both the significant work towards equity in SBYD programs and the gaps where the potential of these programs is not fully met. At the broadest level, Street Soccer USA

...help(s) neighborhoods, schools, and community-based organizations develop the infrastructure capacity for everyone, regardless of their age or background, to experience the social, emotional, and physical benefits of playing on a team. Through our game-based approach, inquiry-based, growth mindset, and trauma informed coaching methodology and neuroplasticity exercises, we match the highest quality soccer instruction with youth development best practices to create a fun and challenging experience for every player…Through the protective power of sport, our program helps our players overcome adverse childhood experiences.

(Street Soccer USA, 2009)

Additionally, extensive research has been conducted on the efficacy and impact of Street Soccer since its founding. This includes a narrative analysis that concluded that Street Soccer has been able to use the sport to achieve larger goals around trauma-healing, growth, and resilience (Whitley et al., 2021). The Street Soccer model is grounded in this broader focus and therefore its programming in LA is designed with these goals in mind. Street Soccer USA LA provides direct access to the benefits of sport through afterschool programs or pick-up soccer at different sites in south LA, like the one I volunteer at. However, the program model in LA also relies on a variety of stakeholders and partner organizations, which can impact the format and quality of the program. Thus, while the program is accessible and has an evidence-based framework in place for youth development, Street Soccer USA in LA is still unable to maximize its full potential impact on equity in sports.

A closer look at the stakeholders mentioned is required to illustrate the restraints on Street Soccer USA’s ability to achieve their mission in south LA. Firstly, Street Soccer relies on third-party host sites to run their programming. At the site where I volunteer, the housing authority and local community members must approve the programming and use of the newly constructed basketball court. The basketball court itself was funded by the recording label Top Dawg Entertainment. This creates challenges at the site that affect the quality of programming. For one, the basketball court is made of black plastic that becomes slippery as soon as the temperature drops below a certain threshold, making it dangerous to play on. It is unknown what considerations Top Dawg Entertainment took when deciding the type of court space to build. I argue that standardized oversight, guidelines, and regulation about play space requirements for funders could help alleviate such challenges. This is important because SBYD programs are often beholden to the funding and resources they receive. The responsibility of ensuring social justice SBYD is present in practice must be shared between funders and programs.

Additionally, in the winter, it becomes dark during program hours, requiring lights. There are multiple channels responsible for approving use of the lights and actually turning them on, meaning there is no guarantee that there will actually be light by the time programming begins. This has happened on four different occasions this winter season. The first two times programming had to be canceled. The subsequent two times all coaches arrived, and so did a handful of kids who still wanted to play. We adjusted to playing for a shortened amount of time on a small section of basketball court that was slightly lit by exterior building lights. Even with these adjustments, kids and coaches were able to experience community, relationship, and joy, but inarguably the full opportunity for the impact of soccer was missed.

Due to the unknowns surrounding light, the youth who participate in the program are left with uncertainty each week; there is no guarantee that they will be able to play a full pick-up soccer game. In a twisted way, perhaps the youth are learning a form of resilience, understanding that things in life do not always go to plan. However, as Reimaging positive youth development and life skills in sport through a social justice lens notes, “from a social justice lens, life skills [such as resilience] with such a connotation should be reflected upon and perhaps even deconstructed to elucidate whether in some ways, they perpetuate behaviors aimed at getting some youth to persevere as they attempt to beat odds stacked against them” (Camiré et al., 2021). Most likely, youth in more affluent communities have not had to build resilience to cope with the uncertainty of being able to play or not due to issues with the lights.

Revisiting the positive outcomes US Soccer Foundation assigned to field space construction, it is clear to me that the results illustrate a macro view of the situation. The pitch at my volunteer site in south LA was funded by a separate entity than the US Soccer Foundation; however, it does beg the question of how the outcomes US Soccer Foundation found could change over time. To measure the outcomes with a social justice lens as I define it, external factors—such as weather, program providers and field users, time of year, etc.—need to be considered to understand how they could impact the community’s experience with field usage. This would provide a micro perspective on the sustainability of the positive benefits of mini pitches being constructed in communities and potentially provide vital information about how to ensure the positive benefits of accessible field space are maximized for youth sports programs.

Similarly to the coach I highlighted at SBU, the coaches at Street Soccer USA interact with dignity, care, and respect towards all the youth who show up, regardless of whether the lights are on or not. This is a crucial aspect of the measures of program quality. However, as one of the coaches there, it is impossible to deny the disappointment that comes with not being able to play a full session, and the reality that kids are losing out on an experience that their counterparts in more affluent areas rarely do. In this way, access to field space and evidence-based programming itself is not enough to achieve true sports equity, and I argue the onus of that is not on the organizations delivering the programs themselves, but rather on the restrictions placed on them by funding and bureaucracy that directly inhibit access to resources and opportunities for capacity growth.

6. The Pathway Forward

At the start of this manuscript, I suggest my own definition of social justice youth development in the context of SBYD: social justice in youth sports is ensuring that the quality of youth sports in underserved communities must equal or exceed the quality in any other community—meaning there is no visible or measurable difference in the quality of the youth sport experience as it relates to field and equipment access, coaching quality, and opportunity for development and competition.

There are repeated themes from both the research and my observations: visible and measurable differences in quality actively exist in youth sports. The systemic barriers to youth sports access are equivalent to the barriers to equity that are faced in society, inextricably tying youth sports to social justice. Though these discrepancies are present, in my experience, there is significant alignment, both from the existing research and the SBYD program providers, on the pathway to barrier reduction and quality programming. I believe this alignment is the first step because it indicates a collective awareness of the needs and gaps, which is fundamental groundwork for finding effective solutions. The research defining the systemic barriers also indicates the interventions needed to begin creating a more equitable youth sports space, and provides a roadmap for this: access to safe field space and equipped, educated, and professionalized coaches. This alignment and commitment is evident in the work of SBU, Street Soccer USA, and many of the other organizations I am connected with through the Play Equity Fund.

However, the delivery is where SBYD still struggles to be a true driver of social justice. I argue that this is due to the current funding landscape and the lack of standardized oversight and collaboration between all the entities involved. Even though SBU and Street Soccer USA are wholly committed to the interventions listed above, in my experience, youth in those programs are still encountering discrepancies in experience, as described in the previous stories about those programs. This is a reality for many SBYD programs. In fact, the California Play Equity Fund Report uncovered many of the challenges associated with lack of standardized oversight (Play Equity Fund, 2024). Put simply, these challenges are disparities in the access, opportunity, and environment of sport and recreation opportunities for youth across the state. I think it is fair to assume that these challenges could be found in other states across the US. A potential solution is the installation of statewide oversight departments which would be responsible for setting and maintaining a non-negotiable quality standard for all youth sports and recreation programs in the state. Any such oversight would be most beneficial if it still allows for autonomous decision-making within each organization in their unique contexts.

Street Soccer USA and SBU are just two of many organizations engaged in SBYD, driven by missions that seek to promote access and equity to sports and use them as a vehicle for positive youth development. In LA, there are 50+ organizations as members of the Play Equity Fund coalition alone (Play Equity Fund, 2024). It is encouraging that the number of organizations engaged in this work is growing, but this also means the landscape is ripe for raising the standards of quality.

This can be created through collaboration and advocacy from the grassroots and community organizations, which is beginning to occur through the coalitions now formed across the country. If organizations can align on best practices grounded in the definition of social justice SBYD posited in this manuscript, and organize advocacy efforts, standardization of quality can then be translated to funders so each individual organization can receive the funding and resources they need to fill their equity gap. In practice, this could mean Top Dawg Entertainment, the recording label that funded the basketball court at the Street Soccer site in south LA, would have required guidelines on court design to follow before approving and funding construction, ensuring the court is usable in all weather.

Thus, simply creating a space for kids to play, or even providing programming, is not sufficient because of the broader context of societal barriers. All leaders, providers, and researchers in the field of SBYD must continuously check that they are not defaulting to “at least the kids now have access to…” and instead continuously ask themselves “is the program we are providing up to a quality standard that is fair and equitable compared to its counterparts?” and if not, actively working with others to advocate for what is needed to fill that equity gap, in such a way that funders are held accountable to providing the resources needed. As indicated in their mission statements and published impact of their work, it is evident that Street Soccer USA and SBU are committed to sport equity through SBYD. For social justice oriented SBYD to become the true reality, it is essential that organizations like Street Soccer USA and SBU continue to come together to advocate for the needs of their programs, not just the bare minimum needs, but rather the areas that would truly bring equal or greater quality to the individual and collective experiences of the youth they are serving. Then, youth will experience sport equity: access to life-changing experiences and opportunities to develop skills to build futures previously barred to them. Just as the girls in Comoros wanted the chance to enjoy soccer like the boys did, all youth deserve the opportunity to experience a world absent of barriers to their ability to develop to their full potential.