1 | 29 Synthesis sport participation in particular in this period within the life course. The realistic impact of major life events on sport participation is not just determined by objective effects, but to a great extent by the subjective interpretation and appraisal of the events. Therefore, I turn to a micro-level analysis of lived experiences, based on a narrative approach providing people’s insiders’ perspectives on how they experienced and dealt with the occurrence of life events in relation to sport participation, and the dynamics of actors, resources and constraints during the transition to adulthood. The narrative subjective data that yield from this approach, offer valuable qualitative insights in the mechanisms underlying the effects of life events on sport participation during this transition. From the narratives of 46 Dutch adults, I deduce that becoming and being a student, professional, partner and parent confronted the participants with new, more adult roles, responsibilities and activities. As a result, they perceived changes in temporal, social, physical, mental and/or economic resources, and experienced new opportunities and constraints for sport participation. Therefore, participants re-evaluated their priorities and reconsidered whether or not and how to integrate practising sport in their new life situation as a student, professional, partner and/or parent. In general, participating in sport was deprioritised and more challenging after experiencing the life events. However, there is diversity in the choices that people make regarding (changing) their sport participation during the transition to adulthood, whereby the narratives teach us that the choices largely depend on the participants’ willingness to structurally incorporate sport activities in their new life situations, and on if they saw a way to do so. GENERAL CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION Practising sport is, for many, an important leisure time activity in everyday life. Sport participation of individuals is also often subject to change (Hirvensalo & Lintunen, 2011; Malina, 2001; Telama, 2009; Vanreusel et al., 1997). From a life course perspective, individual sport careers are shaped by alternations between active sport episodes and episodes of inactivity (Engel & Nagel, 2011)
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