Handball is one of the types of sport in Germany with the broadest interest. With approximately 750,000 members, the German Handball Federation (DHB) is the seventh largest sport federation in this country. For the 2018/19 season, the German handball league expects revenues of 107 million euros and, as far as sports is concerned, it is the largest league in the world. It is all the more surprising that so far only few scientific investigations are available involving this game. That should change in the future.
Networking between the federation and science
As a first measure, the Department of Sport and Health Didactics organized the first DHB university symposium which was held from January 13 to 14. Together with the DHB the congress was carried out in cooperation with the Bavarian Handball Federation (BHV).
"Our emphasis was on the networking between the federation and science as well as between scientists themselves, and also on the collection of the actual situations involving research. Both goals could be achieved," reflects Prof. Dr. Filip Mess, a full professor at the Department of Sport and Health Didactics. "The symposium was a very successful meeting. In the future we expect further impulses on scientific research, in order to further expand the possibilities for handball of expanding from a popular to a professional sport," says George Clarke who is with the DHB Vice President for the youth, education and schooling.
In keynote lectures, different points of view involving handball research were described. Here, Prof. Dr. Stefan König (PH Weingarten) and Clarke presented empirical studies to the volunteers. A large problem consists of the fact that young people, who would be happy to engage themselves in this work receive too little or not enough acknowledgment and appreciation from different participants in the association (most of all from the executive board). A goal is now to develop concepts as to how these incentives could be integrated for the younger generation.
Dr. Steffen Greve (Leuphana University of Lüneburg) presented results on the topic of "integration" and "inclusion", and summarized that the potential here has not been exhausted by far.
Research on handball as a school sport
One of the emphases from the symposium was on research involving handball as a school sport. "The school is an interesting setting to inspire children early for handball and to thus create a basis in popular sports from which the professional sport can recruit talented individuals," explains Ben Schulze. This scientific staff member of the Department of Sport and Health Didactics organized the symposium. Schulze is a doctoral candidate under Mess on the topic of handball in school education. Beyond that, he is vice president of the Bavarian Handball Federation (BHV) responsible for the promotion of talent.
Problems exist with the school education in Germany primarily due to the fact that teachers who have not been trained in this subject are used to provide sport instruction. "Here, as a university and a training facility, we are in demand. We must make new concepts available for the basic and advanced training," says Schulze. Mess could imagine "that we could offer our advanced training seminars for teachers in their schools in the future, in the sense of a voluntary further training."
As a concrete result of the symposium, the DHB will establish a committee by the end of 2019 that will develop a research program for and together with the federation. "We need further research on handball, and certainly best in cooperation with the federation," says Mess.
To the Homepage of the Department of Sport and Health Didactics
To the Homepage of the German Handball Federation
Contact
Ben Schulze
Department of Sport and Health Didactics
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 Munich
Telephone: 089 289 24524
E-Mail: Ben.Schulze(at)tum.de
Text: Dr. Fabian Kautz
Photos: Ben Schulze/Dr. Fabian Kautz