الرّياضة والشّباب والتّنمية الاجتماعية
Social development encompasses a wide range of issues, including reducing poverty and unemployment, strengthening the role of the family, youth and the civil society, and achieving social integration. From a social point of view, it focuses on the study of social relations and the development of human beings in their common relations, and for this reason it is viewed as the enhancement of reciprocal relations between human beings. Since youth are the most important resource for development and progress, attention must be paid to developing their physical strength, preserving their spiritual energies, and activating their intellectual abilities, social relations, and skill and creative energies. In this context, the important role, played by physical and sports education, is observed in refining the talents of young people, nurturing them, refining their behavior and reforming their morals, because of the effort it involves that boosts the body energy and vitality, as well as earning healthy sports habits such as honest competition, spirit of cooperation, solidarity and love of work and establishing a culture of public order and the need to respect it. In this paper, we aim to clarify the role of youth as participants and also as beneficiaries of the sport that strengthens community participation, and increases youth awareness on important issues, thus contributing to social development. Our research paper combines a synthesis of theory and practice. The relationship between sports, youth and social development in our paper raises the following problematic: What opportunities does the practice of sports by youth provide in terms of the implementation of development plans in their various dimensions? And what role can sport, as one of the social systems, play in enhancing the role of youth in building society? We have developed several hypotheses about the impact of sports on the physical and psychological health of individuals, as well as on spreading sports ethics and promoting the values of belonging and citizenship, and in achieving elements of adaptation and social integration and promoting social development, and we have limited the sample to 600 individuals. We followed the descriptive-analytical approach, until we accomplished the objectives of the research paper and confirmed the hypotheses and finally drew the conclusions and recommendations related to the research. (Author’s abstract)