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We have noted increasing consideration of the developmental consequences of sport and physical activity for development, fuelled by growing recognition of the possible role of such activities in both promoting positive development and preventing unhealthy outcomes. In addition to the established health benefits of physical activity, sport can provide a forum for engagement in challenging tasks, identity exploration, skill building, and social integration. Such benefits are likely to be relevant across developmental stages, gender, and culture.

In keeping with our efforts to cover the lifespan in this special section of the newsletter, we have invited contributions that focus on sport and physical activity in children, adolescents, and adults. The goal of this issue is to highlight the range of approaches to studying sport and exercise used across disciplines and cultural settings, including reports from Egypt, Europe, Canada, and the US. As noted in both commentaries by experts in sports and physical activity, the diversity of research in this area presents challenges when trying to advance theory about engagement in these contexts, but this set of papers offers some promising leads. What unites the papers is the careful attention to the importance of the sport or exercise context, but they each highlight distinct aspects, including sport as an empowerment opportunity and a peer socializing context for youth, and physical activity as a motivational goal domain in adulthood, with particular implications for lifelong health. Contributing to our understanding of the challenges of research in this area are two “Reports from the Lab.” Articles in this section report on scholars’ everyday working conditions or collaborations within a research setting that may be unusual or challenging. In this case, we go “Down Under” to New Zealand and Australia to look at two distinct ends of the sporting spectrum – elite professional athletes at the pinnacle of their careers, and young aboriginal children playing sport. Both of these groups presented their own unique challenges to the investigators, and their lab stories each relate the joys and perils inherent in studying this topic. The contributors to the Special Section features, commentary, and lab stories include scholars who have been international leaders in the emerging research focus on sports and development. We feel privileged that these distinguished investigators were willing to share their insights with us, and anticipate that their stories might inspire further focus on the role of sport and physical activity in development at all ages, and across diverse populations. Engagement in sports activities has recently been identified as a tool for development. Considerable research has documented the links between girls’ participation in sports activities and positive health and social outcomes in Western settings. Regular physical activity helps to reduce girls’ risk of developing many of the chronic diseases of adulthood, enhance girls’ mental health, and reduce the symptoms of stress and depression. Female athletes tend to do better academically and have lower school drop-out rates than their non-athletic counterparts (President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, 1997). The hypothesized links between sports participation and reduced risk of pregnancy were tested in a 1998 study.