Football benefits adolescents’ physical and mental health, but participation rates in China remain low despite government efforts. Few scholars have studied peer relationship differences as potential influences on football participation. This study investigated how sport friendship quality profiles relate to football participation and gender among adolescents. We recruited 450 adolescents ( M age = 12.46 years, SD = 1.78; range = 8–16 years; male = 214, female = 236) and used the Sport Friendship Quality Scale (SFQS) to measure six dimensions of peer relationships. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was employed to identify subgroups based on friendship quality. The BCH method was then used to test differences in football participation across profiles, and ANOVA was used to examine gender differences. LPA revealed three distinct friendship quality profiles: a High-Need Group (16.6%) with low scores across all dimensions, and two other profiles characterized by consistently high scores (53.8%) and moderate but uneven scores (29.6%). Football participation differed significantly across profiles (χ 2 = 17.22, df = 2, p 0.001), with the High-Need Group showing the lowest engagement, followed by the moderate-score group, and the high-score group showing the highest level of participation. Friendship quality profiles and gender are associated with adolescent football participation. Findings highlight the need for targeted social interventions, particularly for the High-Need Group, and gender-specific strategies to support female engagement.
Wu et al. (Fri,) studied this question.