Abstract
In the area of public health, civil society involvement in attaining government objectives on physical activity participation is often carried out by voluntary sport organizations (Agergaard & Michelsen la Cour, 2012; Österlind & Wright, 2014; Skille, 2009; Theeboom, Haudenhuyse, & De Knop, 2010). In Sweden, this responsibility has been given to the Swedish Sport Confederation (SSC), a voluntary and membership-based non-profit organization, granted government authority to govern Swedish sport towards government objectives (Bergsgard & Norberg, 2010; Bolling, 2005). Research has pointed to difficulties for sport organizations to shoulder such responsibilities due to the deeply rooted logic of competition in sport and organizational structures adapted for competitive sport (Skille, 2011; Stenling & Fahlén, 2009). This article focuses on how public health is being constructed, implemented and given meaning within the SSC. Drawing on a critical discourse approach (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012) this study explores the SSC’s role and position in public health promotion by interviewing SSC representatives and National Sport Organizations’ (NSO) general managers. Results indicate how discourses on democracy, equality and physical activity are used to legitimize the SSC’s role in public health. Also, how these discourses are compromised in practice, posing challenges for organized sport in meeting objectives of public health.
Highlights
The approach of utilizing sport with the intention of contributing to fundamental change and transformation in society has received much attention within the field of “sport for development” (Girginov, 2008) over the last decade
A common argument among the respondents is that the sport movement already delivers public health through its regular activities and that sport is entitled to government support for doing just that and that alone, without having to perform further specific actions such as, for example, those connected to the government programmes presented in the introduction, or yet other targeted efforts such as exercise on prescription, adapted activities for overweight children and activities for adults on sick leave
When scrutinizing the arguments within this line of reasoning—that sport is inherently beneficial for public health—four main discourses come to the fore: democracy, equality, recreation and physical activity
Summary
The approach of utilizing sport with the intention of contributing to fundamental change and transformation in society has received much attention within the field of “sport for development” (Girginov, 2008) over the last decade. Social Inclusion, 2015, Volume 3, Issue 3, Pages 108-117 pects but not with the interventionist approach dominating contemporary research (Hartmann & Kwauk, 2011). Instead it seeks to problematize interventions and sport for public health, in this case, by posing questions about organizations will, ability, readiness and propensity to act as a counteracting force against differences in sport participation and health between groups in society. The Swedish Sport Confederation (SSC), a voluntary and membership-based nonprofit organization, has, since receiving its first government grant in 1913 (Norberg, 2004), been granted permanent annual state subsidy for sport activities as the main provider of sport for the people. The SSC pledges in its strategy document on public health (Riksidrottsförbundet, 2007) to undertake health related development work within the frames of all of its regular sport activities and to make targeted efforts (such as for example exercise on prescription, adapted activities for overweight children, and activities for adults on long term unemployment or sick leave) to reach new groups with inclusion as the main goal
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