Play fighting as a strategy to cope with aggressive behaviours among youth with social disadvantages in Italy

The notion that physical activity can contribute to the promotion of positive behaviours finds support in the claim that sport is useful in the character building of youths in particular. It is commonly spread the idea that sport and physical education allows youths to experience a wide range of situations which enable them with the shaping of different forms of global citizenship. Despite the fact that this claim is strongly supported by sport and education policy makers, little empirical investigation has addressed the question. Additionally, nowadays youths can be highly affected by complexity and rapid changes of modern societies, becoming vulnerable to psychological problems, experiencing social disadvantages, and showing high rates of antisocial and aggressive behaviours. This conditions can hamper the quality of educational experiences and youths can be caught in a vicious cycle of disadvantages. For purposes of this chapter, the school and particularly inclusive physical education is considered as an ideal setting where young people’s socio-emotional problems can be recognized and addressed. In the first part of the chapter, the social fabric of Italian youths is detailed. The demographic reduction of the young population, which has progressively affected the country since the end of the Sixties, the recent increase in the number of youngsters with an immigrant background and the economic crisis represent serious concerns both for the development of an inclusive and fair society and for the health and quality of life of young generations. Strategies to contrast aggressive behaviours among youths and effective policies of inclusion aimed at ensuring the equality of opportunity in all domains of life are urgently needed. The idea that to play fight, players have to assume inherently fair behaviour and to control their compulsiveness and aggression stimulated the authors of this chapter to implement play fighting as a strategy to cope with aggressive behaviour in school physical education and extra-curricular programs. Thus, in the second part of the chapter, findings of interventional studies are showed, and effects among youths from a disadvantaged background are considered. Results of the presented studies showed that in the short term, play fighting seems to significantly reducing aggressive behaviours among youths, with a particular positive effect on the physical dimension of aggression. The chapter concludes with general implications and brief suggestions for future directions for research and practice.