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A challenge in safeguarding children from interpersonal violence (IV) in sport is the reliance on self-disclosures and a limited understanding of the frequency, barriers to and process of disclosures of IV. Through a mixed-methods design, combining survey and interviews, we explored the frequencies of childhood disclosures of experiences of IV in Australian community sport as well as who children disclosed to and how the interaction unfolded. Those who experienced peer violence disclosed at the highest frequency (35%), followed by coach (27%) or parent (13%) perpetrated IV. A parent/carer was most often the adult that the child disclosed to. Interviews highlighted how the normalisation of violence influenced all aspects of the disclosure and elements of stress buffering (normalising or rationalising) particularly underpinned the disclosure interaction. Policies and practices should explicitly identify all forms of IV in sport as prohibited conduct; education and intervention initiatives should target parents as first responders to disclosures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although diversity is an often cited organisational value, its support is often muted when it pertains to boards of governance. The aim of this study is to identify discursive practices that may prevent or limit the implementation of measures to increase gender balance in sport governance at the national and international levels. Drawing on a total of 60 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with board members, we explore both the content of and reasons for discursive opposition to implementing gender balance in the governing boards of international and national sport organisations that purport to value diversity. The results demonstrate that board members justify their resistance to gender balance by drawing on discourses of meritocracy, neoliberalism, silence/passivity, and diversity. Resistance to gender balance in sport governance may in part have roots in the sport capital and habitus of board members, and their ability to utilise that in normalising judgment that may keep women out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the pedagogy of an urban Sport for Development (SfD) initiative in Belgium through the voices of young people. We draw on the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire, and use qualitative research methods (i.e. observations, informal conversations, in-depth interviews and sharing circles) over a three-year period, to analyse the initiative's actual pedagogical practice with key Freirean concepts (i.e. 'banking education', 'dialogue' and 'dialogical action') and virtues (e.g. respect for people's knowledge, rejection of discrimination, caring for people). The findings reveal the presence of several Freirean virtues, emerging dialogue and, for some, action thought. Still, the SfD initiative remains at considerable distance from fully-fledged critical pedagogy. The young people in the SfD initiative nonetheless experience it as a space where they can be themselves, feel at home, gain respect, can learn to reflect and form opinions, and are temporarily freed from daily struggles such as discrimination. We discuss several pathways that could foster the capacity to organise and deliver a programme beyond emerging dialogue and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public health policy and interventions seek to arrest declining physical activity rates in childhood. Two prominent settings for intervening in childhood physical activity are schools and the home. This paper critically examines how these two spaces are constructed in a way that leads to different physical activity outcomes for children in their early primary years. We draw on child-centred ethnographic fieldwork conducted with a cohort of Year 1/2 (5–8 years) students in a public primary school in Australia over a six-month period, and as well as on Bourdieusean concepts of field, capital, and habitus. The results show that many participants perceived the home to be a much safer environment for physical self-expression compared to physical education and the school playground. The way these spaces are constructed leads to the privileging of certain physical activity habitus (PAH), while some children must manage a divided habitus across these settings, which can increasingly create internal tensions over time. We conclude with a call to utilise theoretically informed approaches to better understand the complex processes occurring across the spaces, and to utilise this insight to develop more nuanced efforts to engage children in physical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines football (soccer) fandom as an important yet under-explored site for the production of new understandings of multiculturalism and cultural hybridisation. Building on the analytical framework of everyday multiculturalism, we report on ethnographic research undertaken with football fans in Western Sydney, Australia, to analyse the interactions and conflicts between football fans and authorities that surrounded the 2014 Harmony Day celebrations. This paper argues that across the fabric of professional football in Australia, multiculturalism is lived in conflicting ways. It is shown that despite attempts by stakeholders of the game to promote a mainstream ‘family-friendly’ form of fandom, Western Sydney football fans create new forms of cross-cultural conviviality through their fandom practices that not only reshape their own identities but also challenge the country’s official, governmental discourse of multiculturalism and its attendant policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sport's potential for the creation and maintenance of social capital is well established. The role that sport business organizations (can) play in social capital formation nevertheless remains unclear and underspecified. This article seeks to establish a link between the activities executed by sport business organizations and the different species of social capital that these activities may generate. It is first argued that sport business organizations, like any other organizations, engage to varying extents in activities that are related to their social responsibilities. These activities can lead to the production of bonding, bridging and linking social capital. We extend this discussion by arguing that, dependent on the orientation of the sport business organization (profit seeking or surplus seeking), they will try to exploit opportunities in different markets for social capital that, in one way or another, will advance their business objectives. A differentiated approach to the relationship between sport business and social capital is therefore necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in Australian club-based sport has either plateaued or declined across a broad array of sports over the last 20 years. In contrast, participation in informal forms of sport has increased across the time. Despite the increasing popularity of informal sport, this form of participation continues to lack recognition as a legitimate and valuable avenue for population-wide sport participation. This article focuses on examining the spatial exclusion of informal sport within community sport systems. Theoretically informed by concepts of spatial justice and Lefebvre’s theories of spatial production this article utilises the perspective of multiple stakeholders and a multi-level policy analysis to demonstrate the current spatial injustice that manifests within policy, planning, and use of public spaces and the significant constraints consequently arising for communities wishing to participate in informal sport. We argue that the marginalisation of informal sport is at odds with Australian policy agendas that emphasise an urgent need to increase population levels of physical activity. The article concludes that action to counter spatial injustice within community sport is essential to capitalise on the opportunities that informal participation presents to address key health and social policy priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]