ISSP Position Stand: To Sample or to Specialize? Seven Postulates About Youth Sport Activities that Lead to Continued Participation and Elite Performance

A comprehensive approach to sport expertise should consider the entire situation that is comprised of the person, the task, the environment, and the complex interplay of these components (Hackfort, 1986). Accordingly, the Developmental Model of Sport Participation (Côté, Baker, & Abernethy, 2007; Côté & Fraser-Thomas, 2007) provides a comprehensive framework for sport expertise that outlines different pathways of involvement in sport. In pathways one and two, early sampling serves as the foundation for both elite and recreational sport participation. Early sampling is based on two main elements of childhood sport participation: 1) involvement in various sports and 2) participation in deliberate play. In contrast, pathway three shows the course to elite performance through early specialization in one sport. Early specialization implies a focused involvement on one sport and a large number of deliberate practice activities with the goal of improving sport skills and performance during childhood. This paper proposes seven postulates regarding the role that sampling and deliberate play, as opposed to specialization and deliberate practice, can have during childhood in promoting continued participation and elite performance in sport.

All Roads Lead to Rome: Background, Context and Legacy of the Treaty on the European Community. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Special Issue 3, August 2012

From the Introduction. The rejection by the French National Assembly of the ill-fated European Defense Community (EDC) Treaty in August 30, 1954, together with the automatic shelving of the equally faulty European Political Community (EPC) proposal, put an end, at least for the time being, to any form of political and military union of the existing Western Europe on a supranational level. The times were difficult in Europe and the international atmosphere was cloudy. The end of the Korean War coincided with the insistence of the Soviets to stick to a policy of détente, leading to the suppression of the Hungarian rebellion. France was facing opposition to her colonial presence in Indochina, as well as in North Africa. But the crisis of Suez prompted the French government to distance itself from the British and the United States. The defeat of the EDC and EPC was not going to be the end of the story and the dream inaugurated by Monnet and Schuman in 1950. It was not long before plans in favor of a European re-launch were taking shape. 1