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Call for papers: December 19, 2019. – Deadline: March 1, 2020. Publication: September or December 2020. – Editors: Antonio Sanchez Pato, Miquel Torregrosa and Elena Conde

Researchers have demonstrated the problems in the lives of elite athletes, who dedicate most of their time to training and competitions and have great difficulties in developing their academic career (Brackenridge, 2004; Conzelmann & Nagel, 2003). The adequate reconciliation of the sports career and academic life, allows the athlete to prepare an alternative working life outside the sports world as the withdrawal time approaches (Puig & Vilanova, 2006; Torregrosa et al., 2015; Wylleman et al., 2004).

The sporting withdrawal, as a common and inevitable moment for all elite athletes, occurs at an early age, when the person still has a large part of his life ahead of him, and the absence of a complementary training to the sport, prevents the use of capital sports obtained throughout his career (Puig and Vilanova, 2006).

The concept of dual career (CD) refers to the challenge of reconciling a sports career with studies or work, which is a source of concern for most elite athletes. For this reason, the European Union, in an effort to promote the development of sport in a socially responsible environment (EU Guidelines on the double career of athletes, 2012), considers the improvement of learning and education of athletes, through their university training with the objective of developing their skills and competences outside the world of sport (European Commission, 2007, 2012).

This special issue of Cultura, Ciencia y Deporte, aims to be a meeting point for research projects, the result of projects funded by the European Union with the Erasmus + Sport Program in recent years, which have aimed to promote the good governance in sport and support the implementation of the EU Guidelines in the dual career of athletes. More information here.

References

Brackenridge, C. (2004). Women and children first? Child abuse and child protection in sport. Sport in Society, 7(3), 322- 337.

Conzelmann, A., & Nagel, S. (2003). Professional careers of the German Olympic athletes. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 38(3), 259- 280.

Danish, S. J., Petitpas, A., & Hale, B. D. (1995). Psychological interventions: A life development model. Sport psychology interventions., 19-38.

De Brandt, K., Wylleman, P., Torregrossa, M., Schipper-Van Veldhoven, N., Minelli, D., Defruyt, S., & De Knop, P. (2018). Exploring the factor structure of the Dual Career Competency Questionnaire for Athletes in European pupil- and student-athletes. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 35(S1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/1612197X.2018.1511619

Defruyt, S., Wylleman, P., Torregrossa, M., Schipper-van Veldhoven, N., Debois, N., Cecić Erpič, S., & De Brandt, K. (2019). The development and initial validation of the dual career competency questionnaire for support providers (DCCQ-SP). International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 0(0), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/1612197X.2019.1581827

European Commission (2007). White Paper on Sport. Brussels: Directorate General for Education and Culture.

European Commission (2012). EU guidelines on dual careers of athletes: Recommended policy actions in support of dual careers in high-performance sport. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/sport/library/documents/dual-career-guidelines-final_en.pdf

Morris, R., Cartigny, E., Ryba, T. V., Wylleman, P., Henriksen, K., Torregrossa, M., Lindahl, K., & Cecic-Erpic, S. (2020). A Taxonomy of Dual Career Development Environments in Europe. European Sport Management Quarterly. doi: 10.1080/16184742.2020.1725778

Puig, N., & Vilanova, A. (2006). Deportistas olímpicos y estrategias de inserción laboral. Propuesta teórica, método y avance de resultados. Revista internacional de Sociología, 64(44), 63-83.

Sánchez- Pato, A., Calderón, A., Arias-Estero, J. L., García, J. A., Bada, J., Meroño, L., … & Mallia, O. (2016). Diseño y validación del cuestionario de percepción de los estudiantes universitarios-deportistas de alto nivel sobre la carrera dual (ESTPORT). Cultura, Ciencia y Deporte, 11(32), 127-147.

Sánchez, A., García, J. A., Rosique, P. (2018). Modelo de carrera dual para el deportista-estudiante. En A. Sánchez, E. Isidori, J. L. Arias-Estero, & Bada, J. D. (Coords.), Modelo de carrera dual universitario. El caso de los deportistas-estudiantes. Cendea de Cizur: Aranzadi.

Sánchez-Pato, A., Isidori, E., Calderón, A., & Brunton, J. (2017). An innovative European sports tutorship model of the dual career of student-athletes. Guadalupe: UCAM.

Schweiger, G. (2014). What Does a Professional Athlete Deserve? Prolegomena: časopis za filozofiju, 13(1), 5-20.

Torregrosa, M., Ramis, Y., Pallarés, S., Azócar, F., & Selva, C. (2015). Olympic athletes back to retirement: A qualitative longitudinal study. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 21, 50–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2015.03.003

Torregrossa, M., Regüela, S., & Mateos, M. (2020). Career assistance programs. In D. Hackfort & R. J. Schinke (Eds.), The Routledge international encyclopedia of sport and exercise psychology. London: Routledge.

Wylleman, P., Alfermann, D., & Lavallee, D. (2004). Career transitions in sport: European perspectives. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 5(1), 7- 20.