Search

There are systemic and longstanding inequalities in sport participation for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) migrants. Drawing on theoretical foundations of critical pedagogy and social justice education, as well as a public sociology perspective, this paper examines the development of an action research (AR) project to support the co-creation of inclusive climates in sports clubs in CALD communities in Melbourne, Australia. We use artefacts from collaborative sessions, interviews, and surveys to analyse the AR's impact on participating community sport leaders’ awareness and practice. The findings indicate how the collaborative process of assessing clubs’ diversity and inclusion climates affected participants’ awareness of inequities and exclusionary practices, and how the co-creation of strategies for change brought together diverse perspectives. We reflect on the implications and limitations of the AR for research practice aimed at promoting equitable social inclusion for CALD migrants in community sport.

There is a body of research that indicates the need for community-driven and culturally responsive pedagogies in sport-based interventions. There is much to learn from the pedagogical approaches and experiences of African Australian refugee-background coaches who work with refugee-background young people toward acceptance and affirmation of their cultural and racial identities. This paper explores African Australian refugee-background coaches’ pedagogies in working with African Australian refugee-background young people in a grassroots football programme in Melbourne. Participants included an African Australian refugee-background young woman and four coaches. Data collection spanned a six-month period and included observations and semi-structured interviews. The findings were analysed using Ladson-Billings’ [Ladson-Billings, G. (1995b). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312032003465; Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). The dreamkeepers : Successful teachers of African American children. Jossey-Bass Publishers; Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: A.k.a. The Remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.84.1.p2rj131485484751] conceptualisation of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. The study identified three main themes. First, the coaches considered themselves ‘barrier breakers’: they were able to connect the African Australian refugee-background young people to different resources in and outside of sports contexts to develop their success in football and in life. Second, the coaches considered the sport programme ‘a family’ where they were willing to nurture and support cultural competence by sharing power with the participants and their community. Third, the coaches created spaces for young people to develop awareness that allowed them to critique some of the social inequities experienced. Future studies should continue to move beyond a focus on predominantly white and middle-class providers and coaches in sport-based interventions. By including and foregrounding the voices of coaches who have diverse experiences, more diverse cultural knowledges are validated, enabling the translation of this knowledge into more culturally responsive sport programmes.

Background: Over the past five decades, the number of people from refugee backgrounds in developed countries has been on the constant rise. Although the field of refugee and forced migration studies in relation to education and sport has grown considerably in recent years, very little is known about refugee-background students’ perceptions of Physical Education (PE).Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate refugee-background students’ perceptions of PE in Swedish high schools, using a salutogenic approach.Participants and settings: This qualitative study was conducted in two Swedish high schools and involved eleven students from refugee backgrounds aged 16–18 years (seven boys and four girls) who originated from a variety of countries including Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Ethiopia and Albania.Data collection/analysis: A total of 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the interviews were systematically coded and analyzed using the sense of coherence (SOC) components as analytical tools.Findings: Three themes were identified that captured the students’ perceptions and experiences: (1) PE was perceived as more meaningful in Sweden than in their country of origin due to short-term benefits (e.g. social interaction with friends, and improving personal health and wellbeing) and long-term benefits (e.g. learning for the future); (2) understanding the rules and purpose of the activities helped students to better comprehend the experiences acquired in PE and communicate with others; and (3) constructive social relationships with teachers and classmates were an essential resource in order to make PE manageable.Implications: We suggest that strengths-based approaches should be recognized and incorporated into PE in order to facilitate health promoting factors and wellbeing among students from refugee backgrounds.

Childhood sport participation is associated with physical, social, and mental health benefits, which are more likely to be realized if the sport environment is safe. However, our understanding of children’s experience of psychological, physical, and sexual violence in community sport in Australia is limited. The aims of this study were to provide preliminary evidence on the extent of experiences of violence during childhood participation in Australian community sport and to identify common perpetrators of and risk factors for violence. The Violence Towards Athletes Questionnaire (VTAQ) was administered online to a convenience sample of Australian adults (>18 years), retrospectively reporting experiences of violence during childhood community sport. Frequencies of experience of violence were calculated and Chi-square tests were conducted to determine differences between genders. In total, there were 886 respondents included in the analysis. Most survey respondents were women (63%) and about a third were men (35%). About 82% of respondents experienced violence in sport as a child. Psychological violence was most prevalent (76%), followed by physical (66%) and sexual (38%) violence. Peers perpetrated the highest rates of psychological violence (69%), and the rates of physical and psychological violence by coaches (both >50%) were also high. Age, sexual orientation, disability, and hours of weekly sport participation as a child were all associated with childhood experience of violence in sport. The rates of interpersonal violence against children in sport were high. This novel data on perpetrators of the violence and the risk factors for experiencing violence provides further context to inform safeguarding strategies in sport. A national prevalence study is recommended to advance our understanding of the childhood experiences of violence in Australian sport.

Background: Several studies demonstrate the benefits of understanding explicit and tacit embodied interactions in physical education (PE). However, there is little research that explores the embodi...

If designed well, sport-based programmes may facilitate increased wellbeing, inclusion and feelings of belonging for refugee-background young people. An activist approach is a pedagogical way to co-create programmes with young people in order to better address their needs and aspirations. The aim of this study was to explore the process of co-creating a sport programme with refugee-background young women and what they, and the researcher, learned throughout this process. The project comprised a six-month participatory action research in a football programme in Australia. Participants included the first author and 13 African Australian refugee-background young women (including the second author). Data collection comprised: (a) observations; (b) collaborative meetings; (c) photovoice; and (d) generated artefacts. Data analysis involved both inductive and deductive processes drawing on critical pedagogy and feminist studies. The first eight weeks were designed with the intent of identifying what facilitated and hindered the young women’s engagement in sport. We identified the lack of female representation in the sport programme as their main concern. Given what we learned from them, we co-created and implemented a coaches’ workshop where the young women shared the data collected and brainstormed spaces for future change. The young women reported that they learned that ‘together we have power’, and the importance of ‘speaking up to those in charge’. We suggest that an activist approach can bring a much-needed strengths-based model to sport programmes and interventions with refugee-background young people, particularly young women who have historically been silenced and sidelined in sport-based interventions.

Sport is widely utilised as an integration tool for refugee-background young people in resettlement countries, with a concomitant research focus on the implementation and outcomes of health and integration initiatives. However, a narrow focus on integration as the context and outcome of sport participation limits our understanding of the wider role sport plays as a sphere of belonging for refugee-background young people. By taking a wider view of football that includes fandom, informal participation, and community sport, we can gain important insights into how it functions as a mobile, transnational sphere of belonging that can, for some, provide a continuous sense of embodied, affective, practical, and sociocultural belonging in the face of multiple migrations and transitions. Drawing on three ethnographic and participatory studies conducted with refugee-background young people in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Netherlands, this article explores the ways in which engagement with football both precedes and exceeds integration in the everyday lives of refugee-background young people. The authors demonstrate the need to place instrumental sports-based integration approaches in a wider transnational and historical context, and to attend to the wider affordances of sport for refugee-background young people.

Politicians, scholars, and practitioners have drawn attention to social and health benefits of sport participation in the context of forced migration and refugee settlement. This study aims to progress conceptual and practical understandings of how asylum seekers’ past and present experiences shape their sport participation. We present an instrumental case study drawn from the Movi Kune programme to discuss the experiences of an asylum seeker holistically, in a particular context in time and space. The findings illustrate how pre-migration, migratory, and present experiences of living in prolonged uncertainty and liminality all strongly affect sport participation and its health and integration outcomes. The results further show that sport participation was an opportunity to perform agency, experience mastery, coping, and social recognition, promoting positive self-efficacy beliefs, health and social connection over time. Our findings extend the literature by indicating that sport practices can enhance human agency to cope with health issues and distressing past and present experiences during the asylum-seeking process.

This study employs a spatial analysis to critically examine gender relations within an Australian football and netball community sports club that has sought to address gender inequity and promote the participation of women across the club. Notable changes included increased female representation in the club’s decision-making structures, growing numbers of female members, and the establishment of a women’s and girls’ football section. Using an in-depth case study that combined interviews and observations over a 6-month period, we investigated the impact these changes have had on transforming gender relations and in challenging perceptions of the club as a privileged space for its male members. The study utilized spatial and feminist theory to illustrate that, despite the club’s efforts to change gender relations, men who are able to embody dominant forms of masculinity (i.e., high ability and able-bodied) continue to be privileged within the club environment. The article highlights the importance of spatial analysis in illuminating the ways in which various micro-level practices preserve dominant gender relations within community sports. The findings reinforce that although a greater number of women and girls are participating in community sport, this alone is not significantly reshaping gender relations. Policies seeking to promote gender equity in sport need to enforce changes in club environments in addition to focusing on increasing women’s participation.

Community is a context for much research in sport, sport management, and sport policy, yet relatively few authors explicitly articulate the theoretical frameworks with which they interrogate the concept. In this paper, we draw from communitarian theory and politics in order to contribute to a robust discussion and conceptualization of community in and for sport management research and practice. We provide a synthesis of current sport management and related research in order to highlight contemporary theoretical and methodological approaches to studying community. We distinguish between community as a context, as an outcome, as a site for struggle or resistance, as well as a form of regulation or social control. We then advance a critical communitarian agenda and consider the practical implications and considerations for research and practice. This paper synthesizes current research and establishes a foundation upon which sport management scholars and practitioners might critically reflect on community and deliberatively articulate its implications in both future research and practice.

Funding bodies seek to promote scientific research that has a social or economic impact beyond academia, including in sport management. Knowledge translation in sport management remains largely implicit and is yet to be fully understood. This study examines how knowledge translation in sport management can be conceptualized and fostered. The authors draw on a comparative analysis of coproduced research projects in Belgium and Australia to identify the strategic, cognitive, and logistic translation practices that researchers adopt, as well as enablers and constraints that affect knowledge translation. The findings show ways in which knowledge translation may be facilitated and supported, such as codesign, boundary spanning, adaptation of research products, and linkage and exchange activities. The findings reveal individual, organizational, and external constraints that need to be recognized and, where possible, managed.

This paper explores how multiculturalism is enacted and negotiated among Brazilian and Portuguese migrants at a football (soccer) club in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The authors use the len...

Sports educators have long used coaching and teaching methods based on regimes of mechanical execution of movements. Without accounting for the social context in which sports education takes place, these methodologies consider exhaustive action replication the best way to master physical skills. The past decades have seen a surge in alternative pedagogies that acknowledge that sporting bodies are much more than a combination of techniques. Pedagogies such as Game Sense approach the sports teaching-learning process through a constructivist perspective in which the intellectual dimensions of games are highlighted. This paper empirically examines how dialogic pedagogies can be put to work in sports education in order for students’ bodies to become creative and a central part of their own development. Using autoethnographic data drawn from the authors’ international personal experiences as sports coaches, physical educators, researchers and evaluators in two sports education contexts – school sports education and sport for development (SfD) – the paper aims to reveal pedagogies that foster creative participants who can enjoy, read and write their own games. The authors conclude that while dialogic sports education is not without conflict, it enables sports educators to create spaces in which continuous dialogue can occur. These pedagogies are not simply a tool for inquiry-based educational possibilities; they are the actual dialogic education.

In this article we aimed to describe and analyze the extent and nature of deaths related to the football spectacle in Brazil. So, we used and crossed data from different sources – field journals, academic books, reports from the Ministry of Justice and websites of security associations and of major Brazilian magazines and newspapers. We conclude that the geographic distribution of these deaths are directly related to the“weight” of each Brazilian region. We also observed that most of these deaths are originated in clashes between fans and in conflicts with the police, caused by the adoption of reactive and repressive strategies by the police. Furthermore, we point out that many of the deaths occurred outside stadiums and involved the use of firearms, as a result of the easy access to these weapons and possibly by a change of attitude ofthe most violent groups about their use.

Playing sports has long been a taboo for women in Colombia, yet new spaces for female participation have emerged in recent decades. This article explores the gendered nature of sport in Colombia through the lived experiences of female participants involved in a local Sport for Development and Peace organization. Building on ethnographic fieldwork and a decolonial feminist perspective, the authors examine how cultural experiences of physicality are gendered but are potentially changing in the context of leisure practices and how this may shape power relations. Although more girls and women are participating in masculine leisure pursuits, there are critical limitations to social change and female participants demonstrate the coloniality of gender in action.

Established in 2012, ‘the Seekers’ are a football club in Melbourne, Australia. Initially set up to provide social recreation for various refugees and asylum seekers, the Seekers have more recently entered a team in the mainstream league competition. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper considers how football facilitates forms of social inclusion for team members, both in relation to the action of the sport and the political and social context of Australian society more broadly. In many ways the field of sport is highly contested as players engage with the mainstream; however the solidarity forged through playing creates the possibility for moments of social inclusion in other ways. The capacity of sporting interactions to facilitate social inclusion for male team members is vexed, though there is evidence to suggest that, in the correct conditions, sport can contribute to an individual’s capacity to access employment and educational opportunities.

Sport for development research increasingly seeks to move beyond a focus on evidence of sport for development outcomes to better understand the mechanisms and contexts that underpin these outcomes. Building on recent innovations in micro-sociology, which highlight the role of emotions and bodily entrainment in face-to-face interactions, this paper critically examines, and aims to progress, efforts to open the ‘black box’ of sport for development outcomes and impacts. The authors argue that the theoretical and methodological merits of radical micro-sociology, and interaction ritual theory in particular, enable important advances in the field of sport for development. The paper proposes micro-sociological questions and practical directions for sport for development research but also outlines the limitations of this approach.

This chapter explores the intersection between global forced displacement, refugee (re)settlement and sport. The authors critically examine the current state of academic knowledge on the relationship between sport, development and refugee settlement, focusing on dominant and submerged themes in scholarship. The analysis identifies a number of shortcomings and knowledge gaps, for example with regard to the way refugees are conceptualised and the room that remains for conceptual and methodological innovation in this fields of research. This is followed by a discussion and illustration of the authors’ distinctive research approach to the topic, which incorporates intersectionality and (participatory) action research. The chapter concludes by outlining directions and critical challenges for future research on refugees and sport.

In recent decades, practices have emerged that combine sport-based and social work strategies with the objective to tackle social problems through the use of sport as a tool. This article focuses on community sport as a particular practice due to its unique structural potential in combatting social inequality. However, it is still unknown how this potential translates into the daily approaches of community sport practitioners. In order to bridge this empirical gap, an analytical framework of two distinctive strategies of structural work (inside-out and outside-in) is constructed as a lens to investigate the structural approaches of community sport practitioners. Drawing upon a qualitative case study in Flanders, Belgium, the findings highlight the need for developing holistic approaches to structural work within sport-based social interventions in general and in the practice of community sport in particular. The authors reflect on the impact of the emergence of sport-based social interventions with regard to the core business of social work of promoting social justice.

Research question: This paper aims to provide new insights into why community sports volunteers engage with intellectual disability as a form of diversity, and how these drivers impact on the opportunities and activities provided for athletes with intellectual disabilities.Research methods: The authors use a critical diversity management framework, combined with theoretical tenets of ableism, to explore volunteers’ engagement with disability. The paper draws on a ten-month ethnographic study undertaken in a community sports club in Melbourne, Australia, that had recently introduced two specialist teams for individuals with intellectual disabilities.Results and findings: The findings indicate the business case for diversity as a driver for the club to engage with sport for people with intellectual disabilities; this, in turn, created tension and conflict amongst volunteers, resulting in a separation of the disability team from the main club activity.Implications: Ableist discourses underpinned the business case for diversity held by some club volunteers, resulting in the disability team not being integrated into the club as part of its core business. Policy makers and advocates of diversity must critically consider the drivers of clubs for engaging in the different areas of diversity, and how this might impact on provision.

Current literature suggests that community sport contributes to social cohesion. Yet, empirical research is still scant, and existing conceptualizations of social cohesion in the context of community sport are dominated by a social capital approach emphasizing the individual over the structural conditions that need to be addressed if social cohesion is to be achieved. This article aims to provide more insight into how social cohesion is operationalized in community sport practices. Qualitative research on the practical understandings of community sport practitioners was undertaken across three cities in Flanders, Belgium. The findings suggest that practitioners adopt both individual and structural understandings of social cohesion. Moreover, they experience that their efforts to develop a structural approach are pressured by a dominant individualized approach. These findings reveal a disjuncture between academic constructs of social cohesion and the practical understandings of community sport practitioners. The article proposes ways to address the need for the empirical and conceptual development of social cohesion in the context of community sport and the broader community development field.

Este artigo analisou os jovens membros das torcidas organizadas de futebol e sua relação com o álcool. Essa relação foi investigada com base em um survey por meio do qual foram entrevistados 804 torcedores do estado de São Paulo, Brasil. Os resultados do survey indicaram que o percentual de jovens que se envolve com o uso abusivo de álcool é consideravelmente mais alto que a média da faixa etária no Brasil. Comparando com jovens de outros países, argumentamos que essa taxa alta é relacionada às práticas culturais que envolvem os jovens torcedores, nas quais beber “perigosamente” é um elemento constituinte da masculinidade no contexto do futebol. This article examines young members of football fan formations known as torcidas organizadas and their relationship with alcohol. This relationship is investigated drawing on a survey undertaken with 804 young football fans in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. The survey results indicate that the percentage of young fans who engage in heavy drinking is considerably higher than that for young Brazilians of the same age in general. Through comparison with young football fans from other countries, it is argued that this high rate is related to the cultural practices of young torcedores, in which drinking ‘dangerously’ is a constitutive element in their construction of masculinity in the football context.

Interventions aimed at increasing the participation of young people with disabilities in recreational sport have had mixed success. The authors draw on in-depth interviews with representatives from State Sporting Associations, local government officers and volunteers within community sports clubs in Victoria, Australia, to examine why some sports clubs are unable or unwilling to translate policy ambitions into practice. The findings indicate how by framing disability provision as ‘too difficult’, ‘not core business’ and antithetical to competitive success, community sports clubs are able to resist policy ambitions to modify existing structures and develop more inclusive practice. Greater priority needs to be given to transformational inclusion objectives and challenging ableism if clubs are to structurally progress the development of participation opportunities for young people with disabilities.

While the female activewear market is growing rapidly, research on activewear consumption and female consumers is lagging. Existing researchers have failed to produce an in-depth understanding of female consumers’ perceptions of activewear, thereby providing limited insights for the activewear industry. Drawing upon brand association theory and the functional, expressive, and aesthetic model, the authors identify important attributes of activewear brands and how attributes lead to benefits pursued by female activewear consumers. Focus groups were conducted with 72 female activewear consumers in Australia. Findings reveal three product-related attributes (functional design, colour, and size and fit) and two non-product-related attributes (price and model imagery) influence the fulfillment of four benefits (mood enhancement, exercise facilitation, healthy and active lifestyle, and physical fit body image). This research contributes theoretical and empirical knowledge about activewear consumption and the vertical structure of brand associations. Findings of this research can help activewear brands deliver benefits to female consumers through improved product designs and marketing strategies.

Diversity is a key term used in a range of public and private organizations to describe institutional goals, values and practices. Sport is a prominent social institution where the language of diversity is frequently and positively used; yet, this rhetoric does not necessarily translate into actual practice within sport organizations. This paper critically examines diversity work in community sports clubs. Drawing upon qualitative research at 31 amateur sports clubs in Australia, the findings show that diversity work in community sport organizations is often haphazard and accidental, rather than a strategic response or adaptation to policy. This paper concludes that while individual champions are critical to the promotion of diversity, persistent tensions and resistance arise when they seek to translate the language of diversity into institutional practice and culture change.

This paper uses the concept of aesthetic formation to examine the practices through which diasporic imaginations become tangible and experienced as ‘real’. The authors interpret sport as an embodied aesthetic practice through which diasporas materialise, with important implications for identification and belonging. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on a transnational community-based sports event, the Amsterdam Futsal Tournament, the paper discusses how articulations of Somali diasporism become tangible and embodied in subjects who participate in this event. The authors conclude that these materialisation practices can simultaneously elicit multiple forms and levels of belonging that also foster a sense of integration and belonging to the nation.

The last two decades within Australia have witnessed a range of policies and strategies seeking to promote the inclusion of young people with disabilities within mainstream community sport clubs. Whilst research at an institutional level has highlighted the problems with mainstreaming agendas, few studies have examined how grassroots clubs, as key components of the supply side of inclusive provision seek to respond to such policy imperatives. In this paper, therefore, the authors provide a critical analysis of the ways in which clubs engage with inclusion policies in practice. Theoretically, the authors draw on the concept of policy enactment and educational inclusivity. Through analysis of semi-structured interviews with club volunteers, the findings illustrate three key areas. Firstly, the importance of individual volunteers in establishing and developing provision within clubs; secondly, the largely separatist nature of disability provision within clubs; and thirdly, that policies tend to encourage club to focus on narrow forms of participation that lead to competitive pathways and mirror the structure of mainstream sport. In the conclusion, the authors problematize the notion of inclusion presented in policy and practice, suggesting such imperatives do not encourage a holistic approach.

In July 2015, IBM announced its collaboration with the large US pharmacy chain CVS Health. In this collaboration, IBM’s supercomputer Watson plays a central role. Using data from the 7800 drugstore...

Policy and research portray sport volunteering as a means by which young people can develop skills and perform active citizenship. This paper draws on qualitative research with participants in a UK sport volunteering programme to critically examine young people’s volunteering journeys and how these are shaped by their formation and mobilisation of capital. The results show how programme structures and practices, such as selection criteria, privilege young people with higher levels of cultural and physical capital, and afford these youth additional opportunities to accumulate and mobilise cultural and social capital. The paper argues for a more critical understanding of youth sport volunteering; one that recognises that sport volunteering can reserve the practice of active citizenship for privileged youth.

Recent research highlights promise and limits of critical pedagogy within Sport for Development and Peace (SDP). Drawing on ethnographic research with an SDP organisation in Colombia, this paper analyses how critical pedagogy implicitly transpires in daily practice and how SDP employees and participants understand and respond to these practices. We specifically examine how donor-non-governmental organisation relations affect the experience of SDP practitioners and participants in ways that do not support the successes of critical pedagogy and may potentially undermine it. The findings raise critical questions such as what SDP organisations can accomplish within these ‘normative’ power relations and potential reconfigurations.

Theory development around sport for social change agendas has received greater attention from scholars over the past 10 years. Yet, it remains underdeveloped when compared with theoretical advancements and innovations in other aspects of the sport industry. In this special issue, we bring to light some of the most recent conceptual and empirical work exploring the theory–practice connection in the field of sport for social change.

Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners increasingly pay attention to sport and physical activity as a means and context for refugee wellbeing and integration, influenced by wider political and policy concerns about forced migration. Considering this growing scholarly and policy attention, it is timely to take stock of, and critically reflect on, recent developments in this field of research. This paper offers an integrative, critical review of the scientific literature on the topic. It critically synthesizes what is known about the sport and physical activity experiences of people with refugee and forced migrant backgrounds, and identifies key issues and directions for future research in this field. This review of contemporary academic literature comprises 83 publications derived from fourteen languages published between 1996 and 2019. It shows a substantial increase in the volume of published research on the topic in recent years (2017–2019). Published research is concentrated primarily in Western countries around the themes of health promotion, integration and social inclusion, and barriers and facilitators to participation in sport and physical activity. The findings foreground the use of policy categories, deficit approaches, and intersectionalities as three pressing challenges in this area of research. Based on this synthesis, the authors identify four research gaps that require attention in future research: the experiential (embodied emotional) dimensions of sport and physical activity, the need to decolonize research, the space for innovative methodologies, and research ethics.

The belief that participation in sport and physical activity assists the integration of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) migrants is prominent within sport policy and programming. Integration outcomes may be enhanced when the migrant develops facets of cultural capital that are valued by both the migrant and the destination country. This paper systematically examines the cultural capital of CALD migrants in the context of participation in sport and physical activity. Databases were searched for papers published in peer-reviewed journals between 1990 and 2016. A total of 3040 articles were identified and screened, and 45 papers were included in this review. Findings show that migrants’ cultural capital can be both an asset to, and a source of exclusion from, sport participation. Sport and physical activity are sites where migrant-specific cultural capital is (re)produced, where new forms of cultural capital that are valued in the destination society are generated, and where cultural capital is negotiated in relation to the dominant culture. The authors conclude that the analytical lens of cultural capital enables an in-depth understanding of the interplay between migrant agency and structural constraints, and of integration as a two-way process of change and adaptation, in the context of sport and physical activity.

In this article we aimed to describe and analyze the extent and nature of deaths related to the football spectacle in Brazil. So, we used and crossed data from different sources – field journals, academic books, reports from the Ministry of Justice and websites of security associations and of major Brazilian magazines and newspapers. We conclude that the geographic distribution of these deaths are directly related to the“weight” of each Brazilian region. We also observed that most of these deaths are originated in clashes between fans and in conflicts with the police, caused by the adoption of reactive and repressive strategies by the police. Furthermore, we point out that many of the deaths occurred outside stadiums and involved the use of firearms, as a result of the easy access to these weapons and possibly by a change of attitude ofthe most violent groups about their use.

In German (junior) elite football, there are a comparatively large number of highly talented players with a migrant background. These players were born in Germany and joined the Talent Development Programme of the German Football Association (DFB). Many of these players can decide for which national association they want to play in international games. In media and public discourse, this decision is usually explained by the degree of self-identification with a specific ethnic group. However, this assumption is not empirically evident. Using the example of junior elite players with a Turkish background, this article focuses therefore on the question, which role ethnic identity plays in this decision. Based on social identity theory, we conducted semistructured interviews with 10 adolescent elite football players with Turkish background who played for the German and/or the Turkish Football Association. Our findings suggest that – in contrast to media narratives – ethnic identity only plays amarginal role in the decision to play for a national football association.

Sport participation has been shown to be associated with health and social benefits. However, there are persisting inequities and barriers to sport participation that can prevent children and young people with diverse backgrounds and abilities from accessing these benefits. This mixed methods study investigated how diversity is understood, experienced and managed in junior sport. The study combined in-depth interviews (n = 101), surveys (n = 450) and observations over a three-year period. The results revealed that a focus on performance and competitiveness negatively affected junior sports clubs' commitment to diversity and inclusive participation. Gender and a range of attitudes about diversity were also strongly related. On average, we found that those who identified as men were more likely to support a pro-performance stance, be homophobic, endorse stricter gender roles, and endorse violence as a natural masculine trait. In addition, those who identified as men were less likely to hold pro-disability attitudes. These findings suggest that the participation-performance tension and gender affect to what extent, and how, sports clubs engage children and young people with diverse backgrounds and abilities.

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.

The value of sport as a vehicle for social development and progressive social change has been much debated, yet what tends to get missed in this debate is the way education may foster, enable or impede the transformative action that underpins the social outcomes to which the ‘sport for development and peace’ (SDP) sector aspires. This article draws on the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire and his contemporaries to examine the nature of transformative action and how it may be fostered within SDP programs. Insights from critical pedagogy are applied to, and illustrated through, qualitative research undertaken with SDP programs located in Cameroon and Kenya. The findings show the complexities of designing and implementing critical pedagogy in a SDP context and, in particular, the challenges of creating and mobilizing for transformative action. Opportunities and lessons for embedding critical pedagogy within SDP programs are also presented.

Participation in sport can act as a means or context for enhancing the social inclusion of migrants and refugees. Research has examined if and how mainstream sport organizations’ practices of engaging newly arrived migrants and refugees are effective in supporting participation in sustainable and culturally appropriate ways. Little is known, however, about the impact of community-driven sports events on sustainable participation by migrants and refugees. This paper examines this question with an analytical focus on community sustainability and the role of culture in sport event sustainability practices. The authors draw on ethnographic fieldwork with the Amsterdam Futsal Tournament (AFT), a sports event organized by Somali diaspora community members, to consider how event organizers and participants seek to promote cultural sustainability in a diaspora sport context. The fieldwork comprised 49 semi-structured interviews, participant observation before, during and after the event, and digital ethnography of event-related social media. The findings show the importance of cultural sustainability as a driver of community-driven sport sustainability practices, but also indicate how this driver is closely linked to addressing organizational and individual sustainability. The analysis demonstrates how the AFT can serve as a catalyst for the expansion of sport and community events among Somali diaspora communities.

Purpose This chapter draws on qualitative data and observations from a range of projects seeking to use football to support mental health recovery. The authors conceptualize recovery as a fluid ongoing process that while supporting individuals to manage and deal with mental illness, may not result in the reduction or remission of clinical symptoms.Methodology The research discussed in the chapter is drawn from interviews with male participants aged 18–40 years, who participated in four different football and mental health projects.Findings The chapter outlines three key ways in which participants perceived that football contributes positively to their recovery. Participants discuss football as providing a “safe space,” free from stigma, and as a setting where they can develop productive and engaging social relationships with medical professionals, support staff, coaches, and peers. Finally, they perceive football as a context in which they can begin to rework and redefine their identities, to move away from identities constructed around illness and vulnerability.Research Limitations/Implications The chapter concludes by considering both the value and limitations of football as a mechanism for supporting recovery.