نوع مقاله : مقاله مروری
نویسندگان
1 دانشجوی دکتری مدیریت ورزشی، دانشکده تربیتبدنی و علوم ورزشی، دانشگاه تبریز، تبریز، ایران.
2 استاد، گروه مدیریت ورزشی، دانشکده تربیتبدنی و علوم ورزشی، دانشگاه تبریز، تبریز، ایران.
3 استادیار، گروه حقوق عمومی، دانشکدۀ حقوق و علوم سیاسی، دانشگاه تهران، تهران، ایران.
4 دانشیار، گروه مدیریت ورزشی، دانشکده تربیتبدنی و علوم ورزشی، دانشگاه تبریز، تبریز، ایران.
چکیده
کلیدواژهها
موضوعات
عنوان مقاله [English]
نویسندگان [English]
Purpose: Modern societies, shaped by rapid technological advancement and increasingly mechanized lifestyles, are witnessing declining physical activity levels, particularly among children, highlighting the importance of their physical, psychological, and social development. Although sport promotes health, well-being, and skill development, its competitive nature and inherent power imbalances between adults and children can place children’s rights at risk. Children’s rights in sport include safe and age-appropriate participation, respectful treatment, quality education, and protection from all forms of violence and abuse, as established in international frameworks such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Despite growing global attention and dispersed research on this topic, substantial legal and regulatory gaps persist, especially in countries such as Iran. Furthermore, the expansion of studies without systematic knowledge mapping limits evidence-based policymaking. Bibliometric analysis provides a strategic approach to mapping the intellectual structure of the field, identifying leading contributors and countries, and detecting emerging themes and research gaps. Accordingly, this study asks: How can bibliometric analysis of research on children’s rights in sport reveal the field’s knowledge structure, influence networks, and emerging trends, and what critical gaps should guide future research?
Methodology: The present applied study employed a scientometric approach integrating complementary analytical methods, including performance analysis, science mapping techniques (co-word and co-authorship analyses, and structural network analysis), and keyword content analysis to strengthen conceptual interpretation beyond purely quantitative metrics. Initially, Publish or Perish was used to identify highly cited and influential publications to inform the theoretical framework. Subsequently, a systematic search strategy was implemented in the Scopus database. The search, conducted on December 15, 2025, across title, abstract, and keyword fields, yielded 7,700 records. After applying filters for document type (articles and reviews), subject area (social sciences and arts/humanities), language (English), and publication stage, 998 documents remained. The screening process followed the PRISMA protocol—identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion. Duplicate records were removed using EndNote, resulting in a final sample of 174 eligible articles. Data analysis was performed using R (v4.5.1) and RStudio (v2025) through the Bibliometrix package and its Biblioshiny interface to generate performance indicators. VOSviewer (v1.6.20) was employed to visualize and cluster collaboration networks. To enhance network accuracy, synonyms were unified and irrelevant terms removed using a thesaurus file, ensuring a coherent and conceptually robust representation of the field’s knowledge structure.
Findings: The findings indicate that the field of children’s rights in sport has demonstrated steady growth from 1976 to 2025, with 174 publications identified across 73 academic journals and an annual growth rate of 6.7%. The average citation rate of 17.24 per document reflects a moderate yet meaningful level of scholarly impact. Authorship patterns reveal a predominance of collaborative research, with an average of 2.67 authors per publication and an international collaboration rate of 16.67%. Geographically, the United Kingdom emerges as the principal hub of scientific production, while Canada exhibits the highest average citation impact, indicating superior per-article influence. Co-word analysis identified five principal thematic clusters: (1) legal and policy frameworks in sport, (2) educational and safeguarding systems for athletes, (3) leisure and childhood play, (4) health and safety in school sport, and (5) human support factors. Core concepts such as sport, children, children’s rights, and child safeguarding demonstrate the highest levels of centrality and linkage strength. Strategic diagram analysis reveals that “children’s rights and coaching” functions as a motor theme, whereas “sport and safeguarding” represent basic yet underdeveloped themes. Additionally, “child safeguarding and injury prevention” emerges as an emerging research frontier within the domain
Conclusion: The primary objective of this study was to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on children’s rights in sport to map its knowledge structure and identify emerging trends. Although the field demonstrates a dynamic annual growth rate of 6.7% and increasing international collaboration, it remains largely dominated by developed countries—particularly the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States—revealing substantial global knowledge gaps. Conceptual and keyword analyses indicate that the literature is structured around five core themes: legal frameworks, educational and safeguarding systems, leisure and play, school health and safety, and human support. These themes reflect a paradigm shift from a skill-centered approach toward a rights-based and child-protection-oriented perspective. Cluster analysis further shows that topics such as coaching and children’s rights have reached relative maturity, whereas areas including injury prevention and comprehensive protective policymaking remain emerging or underdeveloped. Despite scientific progress, persistent legal, regulatory, cultural, and administrative challenges—particularly in countries such as Iran—underscore the need for strengthened international collaboration and the development of preventive, rights-based legal and managerial frameworks to safeguard children’s dignity and well-being in sport.
کلیدواژهها [English]
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