I.V. Manzheley, professor, Dr.Hab.
S.V. Ivanova, senior lecturer, Ph.D.
Tyumen State University, Tyumen

Key words: domiciliary physical culture and sports activities, environmental approach, physical culture and sports needs and motives, networking cooperation, park area.

Abstract. The paper presents the theoretical and practical foundations of the environmental approach to organizing domiciliary physical culture and sports activities at the municipal level. The model and conditions of organizing domiciliary physical culture and sports activities are described. The author claims that development of each district’s infrastructure focusing on the adjustment of park areas for organizing physical culture and sports activities, creation of networking cooperation of subjects regardless of their affiliation, training and retraining of personnel and differentiation of services, methods and forms of work to meet the needs of the population contribute to proactive attitude of residents of municipal districts with regards to physical culture and sports.

Introduction. Environmental, political and socio-economic instability in the first decade of the XXI century did not have the best impact on the quality of life, bioenergetic potential and human welfare, thus aggravating the problem of “health reproduction”, the solution to which, according to the general public, “is the function of education rather than treatment” [2]. In this regard social and educational research has been moved to the forefront, including organizations engaged in domiciliary physical culture and sports activities and focused on the search for new ideas and technologies.

Europe and the United States have accumulated an extensive experience of organizing mass physical culture and sports activities (school action sports clubs (Swift etc.), youth clubs (Engström etc.), while in the East gymnastics in parks and squares - Wushu, Qigong, Tai Chi - has become traditional.  

In Russia V.I. Stolyarov developed the theory and practice of sports and humanistic education of children and young people [12], the ideas of sports-centered physical education for students are being actively introduced into mass practice by V.K. Balsevich and L.I. Lubysheva [1,5]. S.N. Litvinenko developed organizational and pedagogical basis for development of sport for all [4], G.N. Kuz’menko suggested algorithms for creating predictive models in mass physical culture [3]. However, in our opinion, to organize domiciliary physical culture and sports activities (DPhCSA) at a qualitatively new level a new approach is required to the problem in the context of ideas of environmental psychology, according to which changes in the person’s behavior and his/her identity without changes in the environment provides for temporary success and do not solve the issue completely [7]. 

In this regard particular attention should be paid to the assumptions of R. Barker and E. Willems stating that environment is active and forms of human behavior together with inanimate objects form self-sustaining patterns of human behavior that change along with environmental changes [11], to the idea of J. Gibson (ecological world) about activity of a subject while exploring the possibilities of the environment as a possibility is an environmental factor just as much as a behavioral one [11], as well as to the statement of V.V. Rubtsov [10] that a person influencing another person is also the latter’s environment.

The purpose of the study was to identify physical culture and sports needs of different socio-demographic groups of urban population, to develop and provide theoretical and experimental    validation of the model and conditions of organizing domiciliary physical culture and sports activities based on the environmental approach.

We determine the environmental approach in organizing physical culture and sports activities as a method of construction (a management tool), distinguished by the cluster study and enrichment of social, spatial and substantive and technological components of the physical culture and sports environment of a particular municipal district in order to give a chance to actualize physical culture and sports needs of its residents.

Physical culture and sports environment of a municipal district is defined as conditions and opportunities present in spatial and substantive as well as social environment that can be used to form physical culture and sports lifestyle of the population. In the physical culture and sports environment of a municipal district (PhCSEMD), according to the ecopsychological approach of O. Duncan and L. Shore [11], we identify subjects (officials, coaches, sports managers, physical education teachers, athletes and other residents), spatial and substantive (physical environment: landscape, parks, public gardens, buildings, park area, sports equipment, etc), social (values, traditions, norms of law, social interactions, etc) and technological (programs, technologies, methods, services, etc) components.

Materials and methods. The research methods included: pedagogical modeling and design, questionnaire survey and testing, expert evaluation method and experimental and research work that was organized in the city of Tyumen and in the Tyumen region in two stages. On the trouble-shooting stage in 2009 the organization of DPhCSA in Tyumen was analyzed and the analysis proved that only 16.7% of the population are regularly engaged in physical culture and sports activities; the deficit of sports facilities is more than 50%; weaknesses were identified in the regional regulatory framework and human resources issues. On the transformative stage we designed and tested an author’s model of DPhCSA in the period from 2009 to 2013. 2,651 persons were involved in the questionnaire survey (600 and 1,714 residents, 305 sports managers and coaches and 32 experts) [9].

Results. Consistent patterns are identified in the hierarchy of motives for doing physical culture and sports in different socio-demographic groups that are related to a shift of motives dispositions of different classes depending on age that, as it rises, leads to an increase of importance of vital motives (“tone”, “performance”, “health”), while in the social motives group “recognition” and “achievement” give way to “communication” and “gender relations”. Social (“fame”, “achievement”, “fashion”, “attention paid by the opposite sex”) and material (“reward”) motives prevail among schoolchildren; social (“communication”, “attention paid by the opposite sex”, “achievement”, “fashion”) and material (“reward”) among students; vital (“tone”, “performance”, health) and social (“business connections”, “self-assertiveness”) among employees under 30 years old; vital (“health”, “performance”)  and social (“communication”, “attention paid by the opposite sex”, “fashion”) motives prevail among employees over 30.

Specific features of sports managers activity were identified according to which the latter should be sociable, tolerant, public and integrated into the natural and socio-cultural environment of a municipal district. It is proved that sports managers should be taught constructive cooperation, self-regulation techniques, methods of working with adults and physical culture and sports services marketing.

A structural model of organizing physical culture and sports activities was offered. The noted model underwent three stages in its development, with each following stage having a wider circle of networking subjects and the relations between them became qualitatively wider (unstable - stable; narrow - wide; directive - constructive): stage 1 - administrative and directive relations; stage 2 - administrative and coordination relations; stage 3 - systematic and constructive relations (Figure 1), at which control over the domiciliary physical culture and sports activities was transferred to the Department of sports and youth policy (DSYP), where a special department was created (a managing entity of the first tier) to coordinate the interaction among the subjects of the network that had expanded both vertically and horizontally. Dialogue, cooperation and support became the basis of the interaction. Agreements on the use of sports facilities of all forms of ownership were reached with departments and agencies. The Department of Health took part in the work, councils experts got engaged in site improvements. DSYP connected all the institutions of supplementary education (ISE) within a local computer network and started using the departmental network management system (video conferencing).

Figure 1. Model of organization of DPhCSA at the municipal level

Positions of sports managers were created within ISE staff. According to the monitoring data, ISE director now determines areas of activities of sports managers, sets up contracts with agencies for provision of sports facilities, provides sports equipment, supervises DPhCSA.

Organization of physical culture and sports activities based on the environmental approach included the following:

- study of socio-demographic characteristics, physical culture and sports needs, motives and present activity of various socio-demographic groups of municipal districts population and identification of potentials (number of groups of different kinds, events and activities) for the physical culture and sports environment in each district based on a thorough analysis of its resources provision (sports facilities, park area; human resources; programs and technologies; financing);

- improvement of the social organization of the physical culture and sports environment by means of development of physical culture and sports values, traditions and ideals, development of the legal and regulatory framework, expansion of the members network and establishing constructive networking of its members; scientific and information support of DPhCSA;

- improvement of the spatial and substantive structure of the physical culture and sports environment with a focus on the rational use of sports facilities of various agencies and forms of ownership as well as adjustment of park areas for physical culture and sports activities (construction of playgrounds, installation of equipment storage modules, bike parkings and bike paths) subject to compliance with environmental, safety, authenticity, symbolic, coherency and transformation requirements for functional areas;

- development of differentiated programs for training and retraining of personnel and physical culture and sports services, technologies, methods and a variable system of sports events (the technology component of the environment) based on a hierarchical set of physical culture and sports needs of different population groups and traditions of municipal development of physical culture and sports.

In view of physical culture and sports needs of the residents and landscape and material and technical base specifics within the districts of the city, we have distributed positions of sports managers, formed groups for sports activities of different kinds, made up programs and events plans. The focus was on the development of environment-oriented types of physical culture and sports activities (tourism, cross country ski race, cycling, Nordic walking, street football, hockey, streetball, etc). Park areas, gardens and green belts were widely used when working with people. Playgrounds were built and equipped with inventory storage modules; bike paths were arranged and bicycle parking modules were installed. Staff training programs were developed and implemented along with guidelines and manuals. The residents’ engagement in systematic physical culture and sports activities has increased by 7.5% within 3 years (Table).

Table. The attitude of residents to physical culture and sports activities (by gender, in %)

The number of men regularly engaged in physical culture and sports activities has increased by 11.9% and doubled compared to women. By administrative districts the population involvement has become as follows: the first place - Kalininsky administrative district (29.8%); the second - Leninsky administrative district (27.7%); the third - Vostochny administrative district (23.1 %);  the fourth - Tsentralny administrative district (17.0%), despite the fact that Leninsky administrative district was in the best position with regards to available sports facilities and equipment, while Kalininsky administrative district occupied the third place [8].

Young people aged 14-17 years were proved to be the most physically active, then at the age of 18-19 their activity decreased to increase again at the age of 20-22. All in all, people of the city of Tyumen got more interested in doing figure skating, cycling and lawn tennis. Good quality of rendered services was noted in 48.3% of sports facilities (13.0% in 2009), satisfactory - in 33.8% (37.1% in 2009), and in 10.8% of cases the quality of services was poor (24.4% in 2009).

Conclusions.  There has not been detected any direct correlation between the number of municipal sport facilities and physical culture and sports activity of the population. The probability ratio of physical culture and sports components of the environment necessary and sufficient to ensure the engagement of 25-30% of the population in regular sports activities was defined. It is necessary to have functioning at least 16,000 square meters of sports facilities and 15,000 square meters of park area adapted for physical culture and sports activities for 10,000 residents; have at least 2 sports managers (8 groups), provided that at least 20 sports educators (sports managers and coaches) work in the municipal education sphere; create at least 80 groups of different physical culture and sports activities.

In the situation of economic instability and deficit of sports facilities that traditionally hinder development it is defined that the conditions of raising domiciliary physical culture and sports activities to a qualitatively higher level are: cluster study of physical culture and sports needs of the population and the physical culture and sport environment capacity; development of the infrastructure in each district focusing on the adjustment of park areas for organization of physical culture and sports activities; creation of networking cooperation of subjects regardless of their affiliation; staff training and retraining; differentiation of services, methods and forms of physical culture and sports activities to meet the needs of the population, extensive use of the media including social networks for introducing the fashion for physical culture and sports lifestyle among the population.  

It has been proved that organization of physical culture and sports activities based on the environmental approach is effective, as expressed in the increased number of people engaged in physical culture and sports activities by 2.5-4% per year on the average, increase of the range (1.5 times) and the quality of physical culture and sports services (3 times more good ratings), increase of the number of large-scale sports events participants (3 times); in decrease of the cases of asocial behavior among young people (by 15%) [9].

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Corresponding author: mangeley60@mail.ru