Between Sport and Education. Pedagogical reflections about the Dual Career of Athletes

Abstract

The Dual Career of Athletes represents a chance for élite athletes involved in higher education too, from school to University, to be able to successfully combine excellence in sport with higher education, with the intent to prevent school and university drop-out, increasing the number of university graduates, as well as the rise of the European employability rate, things at the basis of the European 2020 Strategy. Under investigation are the institutions that organize and govern sport and education, because it seems useless to talk about a fruitful integration between sport and education where the skills developed in the first are not seen as value and resource in the second, and vice versa. Even if Italy has witnessed a rapid spread of research projects and guidelines about the Dual Career of Athletes, which have spread an increasing recognition of sport in school and university, pedagogy critically contributes in suggesting guidance as a tool of harmonious integration between sport and education that, first of all, concerns the subject’s identity as athlete and as student.