The local organizers of the ECSS Congress 2015 in Malmö will endeavour to increase the number of sessions and presentations – of all kinds – within the Social Sciences & Humanities area. To that end we will utilize the blog to present some of the sessions, and later presentations, in this area.

The invited session Relative Age Effect is chaired by Steve Cobley, University of Sydney, who also is one of three presenters, the others being Susana Gil, University of the Basque Country, and Tomas Peterson, Malmö University.

Stephen Cobley, Susana Gil and Tomas Peterson (author of post).

The existence of Relative Age Effects (RAEs) is now a widely recognized phenomenon within youth sport and education systems across the world. RAEs refer “both to the immediate participation and long-term attainment constraints, occurring as a result of chronological age and associated physical (e.g. height) differences along with the selection practices that occur within such age grouped cohorts” (Cobley et al 2009). In sporting contexts, RAEs have been suggested as representing a form of bias, irrationality, and are counter-productive to longer-term attainment. A number of recommendations have been proposed to resolve RAEs. But the ‘road block’ to date for these solutions is their demand on resources (i.e., organizational and economic), the sheer inertia and inflexibility within present sporting systems, and the inability to test out potential solutions. On this basis, there are several challenges ahead for the research area of RAEs, and the general need to better improve the conditions for youth/athlete development. These issues will be addressed and discussed by the three invited speakers – from a psycho-social-physiological perspective, Steve Cobley; from a physiological-performance perspective, Susana Gil; and from a sociological perspective Tomas Peterson. Common and central to their discussion will be an argument for the research community to engage with sport organizations and sport governing bodies to more strongly support child and youth longer-term development, and to build momentum in mitigating against these unnecessary trends that differentially affect childhood and youth experience.