The development of societies is possible with healthy and successful individuals. The youngest members of societies are children and they are the future of their countries. The better they are trained, the better they lead their society to the future. Self-concept is important in the growth of children and the formation of their personality. Self-concept, which is aquired through socialisation and maturation, is a feature that differentiates individual's self and one person from another  (Onur, 2000;  Sayar, 2003) and it is the way the person knows himself. Self-esteem is accepted as an important aspect of personality and a positive personal trait and it expresses one’s own personal feelings about his value, importance, success, and being perfect (Coopersmith, 1987; Kalliopuska, 1990). Self-concept is affected by the values and life style of the society and family (Sayar, 2003; Bayazıt, 2014). Researches on the self-esteem of children and teenagers have  found   that   while   positive  social  manners  have positive effect on the self-esteem, negative social manners have negative effects (Bayraktar et al., 2009). The connection between the self-esteem and the age, gender, the number of friends, being or not being friends with opposite sex, the attitudes of family, economic status, social appearance, doing sports, and life conditions have been investigated.

Hope is the desire and expectation to reach a goal. Snyder et al. (2009) stated high level of hope increases the level of self-esteem and people’s kindness (Atik, 2009). Self-perception begins in childhood. Family, school, and environment are influential in the development of self-perception. Children should be brought up with love, frienship, cooperation, morality as good examples. Those who grew up in an unhealthy environment harm not only the family but also the society (Stekel, 1997; Eres, 2009). In the studies that were performed on juvenile delinquency, it was concluded that the factors that led the child to crime were as follows: domestic violence, leaving home, drug abuse, having individuals in the family that committed crimes (Seyhan and Zincir, 2009), family structure, circle of friends, the way he spends his leisure time (Avci, 2008), socio-cultural position and education level (Sengul et al., 2012). As seen here, they are personal and environmental reasons (Akduman et al., 2007). The child tending to crime is the one who pays the family’s and society’s mistakes and then makes the society pay. That is why, there is no child who commits a crime; there is a child who is pushed into the crime. The most effective and the most permanent ways to fight against crime consist of the preventive activities that are done before the crime is committed (Zengin and Kesgin, 2013). One of the preventive activities is recreation activities.

Recreation is a set of relaxing and entertaining activities that individuals and social groups do voluntarily in their spare times (Karakucuk, 2008). It is put forward by many researches that various sports, cultural, and social activities practiced for children contribute positively to both self-esteem and development of self. Moreover,  recreative activities are chosen  to improve mental health, self-esteem, problem solving ability and communication skills (Gray and Judy, 2003). These activities have been considered to be important for the child to fit in the society. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the effect of sportive and cultural recreative activities on the self-esteem and hope level of children who have tendency to involve in a crime in contemplation of the following question: ‘’Can children be provided with positive attitudes by enhancing their self-esteem and hope level via recreative activities?’’

Experimental group

The research was done in Kocaeli city of Turkey. The sample of the research  consists  of  41  children   who   completely   filled   in  the questionnaires. They are in the project* called ‘Our Future is Safe with Sport’. These children come from the bustees where the crime rate is high. They are elementary school students aged between 8 and 14. They were chosen with the help of school principals and guidance counsellors. Their school success is usually low. They have problems such as fighting, racketeering, attacking with a knife, and poor attendance to school. Their financial status is below the average and very low. There is violence and marital conflict in their families. There are even members in their families who have substance-abuse problem (like alcohol), even the ones who’d committed crimes.

These children were given a programme consisting of judo, table tennis, ice-skating, gymnastics, and teakwondo trainings two days a week, for eight weeks. Total number of children were divided into two groups and then studied considering the age and numbers of group members. Furthermore, trips to different cities (Ankara, Istanbul, Canakkale, and Bursa) were organised to introduce history and culture of the cities visited once in two weeks. This research was conducted between December 14, 2013 and January 31, 2014. The program is shown in Table 1.

Teaching subjects and techniques that were used in these classes

Judo: Basic turns, fall to forward and backward, basic stance and basic walk, moreta seonage technique, and kosher guruma technique.

Ice-skate: Slip forward, snow slingshot and forward brake, draw of the lemon shape on the ice, opening and closing of foots.

Taekwondo: Cumbi and caryo, apsugi, apkubi, cucumsogi, maki, apsugi monton, absugi olgun, cirigi, palding, tolyo, and apcagi techniques.

Gymnastics: Eagle posture, forward somersault, backward somersault.

Table tennis: Rules of table tennis, forehand, backhand and service techniques.

Instrument

Personal information form consisting of demographic features, the scale of hope in children (Snyder, et al., 1997), and Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (1991) were used as the data collecting tool.

The scale of hope in children (CUO)

CUO was developed by Snyder et al. (1997). This scale which is used to determine the continuous level of hope in children consists of 6 items in accordance with Likert type. The grading is like this: ‘Never: 1, Seldom: 2, Sometimes: 3, Often: 4, Most times: 5, and Always: 6.’ The grading of the scale was done by adding the point obtained from each item and the highest point that came from the scale is 36, whereas the lowest is 6. The questionnaire has two dimensions; ‘pathways to the target’ and ‘motivation to the target’. Snyder et al. (1997) stated that hope is formed together with these two dimensions; therefore it should not be dealt with separately. In the original questionnaire, Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient was calculated for the whole and different coefficient was found in different samples ranging from 0.72 to 0.86. The test-retest correlation coefficient for the questionnaire was found positive and significant (n=359; r=.71, p<.001) (Snyder et al., 1997). The scale translated into Turkish by Atik and Kemer (2009).  In the adaptation of the questionnaire done according to the data set in this research, 0.74 was found for the internal consistency reliability Cronbach alpha coefficient, whereas the test-retest reliability correlation coefficient  was  found  positive  and  statistically significant (n=191; r=0.57, p<0.01) (Atik and Kemer, 2009). In this study, the hope scores of the participants were analyzed by assessing on total scores. Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient was calculated as 0.72.

Coopersmith self-esteem inventory (CSEI)

Coopersmith self-esteem inventory was developed by Coopersmith (1967) so as to evaluate the person’s social, personal, academic, and familial opinions. He calculated the reliability coefficient of the test-retest in the inventory as 0.88 (every 5 weeks) and 0.70 (every 3 years). Coopersmith also stated that Kuder-Richardson reliability coefficient as 0.91 for the girls and 0.80 for the boys. It has been revised a few times since it was developed. These are School Form, School Short Form, and Adult Form. School Short Form consists of the first 25 questions of the School Form. It was applied to children. It does not have a lie scale. Total scores are considered. Turkish validity and reliability was carried out by Turan and Tufan (1987) as  r=0.76, Ozogul (1988) as r=0.77, Gucray (1989) as r=0.70 and 0.83, and Piskin (1996) as r=0.76 (Korkmaz, 2007; Kucuk, 2011).

Those who reply ‘No’ for a negative statement and ‘Yes’ for the positive one are given one point for each statement. All the points are added and they are multiplied with 4 so as to make the assessment out of 100. Thus, the score that is obtained after all these steps shows the person’s self-esteem level. If the score is high, it means that the level of self-esteem is high, and if it is low, the self-esteem level is low (www.mebk12.meb.gov.tr). Coopersmith’s (1991) short form (CSEI) was used in this study. The reliability coefficient was found to be r=0.76 (p<0.05).

Collecting the data

The questionnaires were given to all the children both on the first day who are in the judo hall and on the final day to the ones who are in the table tennis hall of the application at the same time. The data from 41 students who completely filled in every question in each three questionnaires was processed for this research. The processes took about twenty minutes. According to the data, the majority of the children are male (68.3), most of them were born (65.9%) and brought up in Kocaeli, 95.2% of them live with their parents.

Data analysis

The data was analyzed using SPSS 18.0. Descriptive statistics, paired samples t-test which determines the difference between two dependent variables in parametric data and corelation which determines the relationship between tests were used to analyze the data. Significance level was taken as 0.05. 

According to the Table 2, ages of children in the research group are 8 (4.9%), 9 (7.3%), 10 (24.4%), 11 (29.3%), 12 

22%), 13 (9.8%), and 14 (2.4%). The majority of them are male (68.3%), the others are famele (31.7%). The children have siblings who are 1 (4.9%), 2 (48.8%),  3 (26.8%), 4 (14.6%), and 5 (4.9%). Most of them were born (65.9%) and brought up in Kocaeli, the others came from (34.1%) different cities. 95.2% of them live with their parents, 2.4% of them live with their mother, and  2.4% of them live with their relatives.

When the averages of self-esteem are examined at Table 3, it can be observed that there is statistical increase between the post-test (67.2±15.16) and pre-test (65.3±17.38). However, this was concluded not to be statistically significant (p=0.053). The scores pre-test (28.8±4.3) and post-tests (28.8±5) of hope are at the same level.  

No connection (r=-0.162, p=0.312, p<0.01) was traced between the self-esteem level of the children and pre-test of the level of hope at the end of the correlation analysis (Table 4). However, there was a statistically significant and negative connection between their post-tests (r=-0.430 p=0.005 p<0.05).

In the study, the sample group are children whose ages are 8 (4.9%), 9 (7.3%), 10 (24.4%), 11 (29.3%), 12 (22%), 13 (9.8%), and 14 (2.4%). The majority of them are male (68.3), the others are famale (31.7%). The children have siblings who are 1 (4.9%), 2 (48.8%),  3 (26.8%), 4 (14.6%), 5 (4.9%). Most of them were born (65.9%) and brought up in Kocaeli, the rest came from (34.1%) different cities. 95.2% of them live with their parents,  2.4% of them live with their mother and  2.4% of them live with their relatives (Table 1). They have a risk of involving in a crime. They live in the bustees of Kocaeli, which is an industrial city in Turkey. Their family income and level of parents’ education is low. In their family, there is domestic violence, substance abuse (alcohol, etc.), and derangement. There are even convicted members in their families. Their school success is usually low. They have problems at school, such as fighting, racketeering, attacking with a knife, and poor attendance to school.

The reasons why a child commits a crime are personal and environmental (Eres, 2009). They can be listed as follows:  inadequate  child education, parent delinquency, family structure, unemployment, financially insufficiency, broken family, immigration, demographic features of the family, and the conditions of the house, low level of the child’s intelligence, friends group and the school, the way he spends his leisure time. These are some of the factors that lead a child into crime (Avci, 2008). It was aimed in this research to help children who are deprived of social, cultural and sportive opportunities to develop motor skills and self-confidence with the help of the healing effect of sport, to help them act with coordination, gain leadership skills, develop collaborative and friendly manners instead of self-centred behaviours, and obtain communication skills. (Yarımel, 2014) and aimed to reintegrate them into the society. Effect of 8-week sportive and cultural activities applied with this purpose on the self-esteem of the children was found to be at the average level. In the research conducted by Seyhan and Zincir (2009), they determined that convicted children often had someone in their family or in their social environment who had committed crimes before. They also found out that their self-esteem was at the average level. Besides, it was also observed that self-esteem level decreased in the children who were exposed to violence or cruelty (Cetinkaya et al., 2009), who were neglected or abused (Unal, 2008) and who had substance abuse (Toker et al., 2011). In this research, there was a statistical increase between self-esteem pre-test mean (65.3±17.38) and post-test mean (67.2±15.16). However, this increase (p<0.05) was observed not to be statistically significant (p=0.053) (Table 3). This was because of the limited time for such a research. Besides, it may also be explained with the fact that the age group was young and the age gap was quite wide.

In the research performed by Walters and Martin (2000), they found that aerobics exercises had no effect to increase the self-esteem. In another research by Tracy and Erkut (2002), it was determined that participation in sportive activities by Afro-American girls was not an important way to fancy the school and their self-esteem level. One more study by Acar (2009), the researcher stated that the effect of teamwork on the self-esteem level of convicted children displayed an increase when compared with the children in the control group. However, it was not statistically significant. These results all  match  with  our  research.  Yet,  there  were  different results, as well. Ekeland et al. (2005) stated at the end of the analysis of 23 different studies that exercise could have affirmative, but short-term effects on the self-esteem of the children and teenagers aged between 3 and 20 in some low-quality events. Whitehead and Corbin (1997) stated that physical activities and physical education course programmes could help to develop self-esteem only when they were well-applied. Tramblay et al. (2010) too found an affirmative connection between the sportive activities and the self-esteem. Bayazıt (2014) detected a positive effect of recreation activities on the self-esteem of teenage females. There are more research supporting the positive effect of sport on the self-esteem level of handball players (Gacar and Yalıc, 2012), and badminton players (Gencer and Ilhan, 2009). Sport was also proved to decrease the social phobia level (Karagun et al., 2010).

Ciarrochi et al. (2007) declared that positive thinking increased the self-esteem and the level of hope in high school students. Kitano and Lewis (2005) suggested that we strengthen optimism in children at risk, teach them hope, and help them develop courage and life skills (Oktan, 2012). Kabakcı and Totan (2013) found out that hope only differed according to the class level. In this research, when the effect of sportive and cultural activities on the level of hope in children was examined, a connection was detected between the age and hope. However, there were no change in the level of hope and no correlation (0.403) between pre-test (28.3±4) and post-test (28.3±5) (Table 3). Because children’s average scores of hope (Mean=28) were high, it might be deduced that applied activities did not make a difference. Another reason is that some manners known as crimes by the society are likely to be recognised as success in the neighbourhood where these children grew up.

However, it was concluded that there could be differences according to the age. While no connection was traced in pre-tests (r=-0.162 p=0.312 p<0.01) at the end of the correlation between hope and self-esteem, a statistically significant and a negative connection was observed in post-tests (r=-0.430, p=0.005, p<0.05). This finding illustrates that sportive activities increased self-esteem scores, which were lower. However, they made no difference in their level of hope, which was already high  (Table 4).  Shotade (2010)  emphasized  in  a  study 

that the participation of youngsters in entertaining sports activities is effective in integration into social life, increasing self-esteem, developing a social and cultural identity (as cited in Bayazıt, 2014). This study aimed to develop positive personality traits in children by increasing self-esteem through various recreational activities. 

In conclusion, the present study examined the effect of sportive and cultural recreational activity programs on hope and self-esteem development of the children who have tendency to involve in a crime. According to the data, these activities have not changed the level of hope of the children. These activities have had a positive effect on self-esteem development of the children. Also, positive changes in their manners were observed in these children, such as attendance to school regularly, a good way of addressing each other, dealing with problems in a much calmer manner, and willing to take responsibilities. In this context, it is suggested that a long-term planning should be done including recreative activities. The plan should be prepared with cooperation between state and local governments. Programs should be well-planned, carried out continuously, and tracked regularly. These recommended programs provide an opportunity to the children to improve their self-esteem, to integrate into their comunity, and to keep them away from crime.

The author has not declared any conflicts of interest.