Description: Tens of millions of children in the United States participate in youth sport, a pastime widely believed to be part of a good childhood. Yet most children who enter youth sport are driven to quit by the time they enter adolescence, and many more are sidelined by its high financial burdens. Until now, there has been little legal scholarly attention paid to youth sport or its reform. Dionne Koller sets the stage for a different approach by illuminating the law and policy assumptions supporting a model that puts children's bodies to work in an activity that generates significant surplus value. In doing so, she identifies the wide array of beneficiaries who have a stake in a system that is much more than just play--and the political choices that protect these parties' interests at children's expense.
Review Quotes:
"In this fresh, accessible, meticulously researched work, Dionne Koller. . . has provided scholars, jurists, students, and citizens concerned about the current role of sport in the United States with a volume that can serve in graduate and higher- level undergraduate classrooms or even sit in a federal judge's bag of summer reading--the work is that informative and suited to broad appreciation."
-- "Journal of Sport History"