Exercising their 'Right to Be Active'? Care experienced young people's perspectives on physical education and school sport

Care experienced young people have been identified as a hidden group within physical activity and sport contexts (Quarmby, 2014) and questions have been asked with regard to the implications of this for their engagement with physical education and school sport (e.g. O’Donnell et al., 2019). Despite the acknowledged potential of sport and physical activity (and related activities) to act as a vehicle for positive development, there remain concerns about the piecemeal nature of sport and physical activity opportunities for care experienced youth and their capacity to access these. This article presents findings from the ‘Right to Be Active’ (R2BA) project, a British Academy-funded study that sought to examine the sport and physical activity experiences of care experienced youth in England. Whilst the study explored sport and physical activity broadly, the focus of this article will be on those findings from the data that hold particular relevance for physical education and school sport contexts (for a broader discussion, see Sandford et al., 2020; Quarmby et al., 2019; Sandford et al., 2019).