"Well You Know...": Parents' Perceptions of Morality in AAA Youth Ice Hockey

Abstract

Parents’ involvement patterns serve as a catalyst to their children’s moral development (Bandura, 1991). Yet, sport culture may convolute parents’ authentic ability to socialize their children’s moral development within a compliant structure focused on performance excellence (Hughes & Coakley, 1991). The purpose of the current study was to examine how parents conceptualize morality while entrenched in a conformity-driven elite youth ice hockey environment. The following research question was explored: how do parents ascribe meaning to, and learn the behavioral representations of, moral and immoral behaviors in youth ice hockey? Parents’ (N = 8, Mage = 53.13) perspectives of morality and immorality were explored within the culture of elite youth hockey through individual semi-structured interviews. A transcendental phenomenological approach was implemented to identify both textural and structural experiences parents used to derive their perceptions of morality and immorality in youth ice hockey (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Results exemplify how normative standards socialized through various dimensions of hockey culture obscured parents’ perceptions of morality and immorality through “relatively conscious” acceptance of socialized norms. Findings highlight the socialization processes that parents use to develop their conceptions of morality by overconforming to the normative standards valorized through the youth hockey sport ethic (Hughes & Coakley, 1991). The “relative consciousness” findings reflected how parents transformed their moral conceptions paralleled with youth hockey culture’s delineation of moral norms and values (Burry & Fiset, 2022; Hughes & Coakley, 1991).