Abstract
This article uses material from The Spirit Level (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009, The Spirit Level: why equal societies almost always do better. London: Allen Lane) to question Game Plan’s use of certain Scandinavian countries as comparators and as a basis for setting aspirational targets for sports participation. It illustrates the robust and consistent relationship between sports participation and social class in the UK. It questions the importance of sports clubs and provision in explaining different levels of sports participation and illustrates the substantial differences between these countries and the UK on key factors such as the distribution of wealth, income inequality, general inequality, educational access and social mobility and gender. These data are used to argue that such differences mean that such countries are not true comparators, and economic and social features in these countries, which may help to explain the higher sports participation rates, are well beyond the control of sports policy.
Published Version
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