Sport For Development Research Research Articles

From silos to a unified field? Mapping academic production in sport for development

In the last decade, the field of sport for development (SFD) has continued its impressive growth, including as it relates to academic output. This output, however, has not come without criticism. In particular, concerns have been raised about the quality of evidence presented, the dominance of the Global North within SFD research, and the apparent lack of transdisciplinary cooperation in the field. In the following, we take a specific interest in the last two points and use a bibliometric analysis of SFD literature to identify authorship, disciplinary and thematic patterns within this work. Overall, our results show that SFD is still a highly Northern-led field and this is reinforced by several small, highly productive, self-referential authorship consortia. In light of this, we critically assess these trends and reiterate a number of recommendations to enhance disciplinary and international collaboration in SFD.

Sport for Development Programs Contributing to Sustainable Development Goal 5: A Review

In Sport for Development (SFD), sport is used as a cost-effective tool to facilitate the objectives of various organizations, not limited to increasing access to education, youth development, social cohesion, and gender equality. This review aims to systematically analyze SFD programs that contribute to gender equality and women empowerment under Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5). The PRISMA methodology was used to guide the screening and selection process. Fifteen studies were identified from the Web of Science, Scopus, and SPORTDiscus databases, the Journal of Sport for Development, forward–backward reference searches, and manual searches on four prominent sport, gender, and development researchers. The findings indicated that there was evidence of micro-level outcomes in every study and three achieved meso-level impact; however, none of these studies’ suggested changes have reached the macro-level of impact when the outcomes were reported in these articles. There was a lack of intervention studies that investigated the mechanisms and reported outcomes through a validated monitoring and evaluation process. This review provides significant insights into: (a) identifying future SFD research areas, (b) refining SFD program evaluations, (c) developing indicators of outcomes for sport programs contributing to SDG 5, and (d) reproducing sustainable development outcomes under SDG 5.

Sport for Development and Transformative Social Change: The Potential of Margaret Archer’s Morphogenetic Approach to Reconceptualize a Long-Standing Problem

Frequent calls for sport for development (SFD) to be reoriented toward transformative social change reflect the extent that policies and programs have instead focused on individualized forms of personal development. However, SFD research has yet to substantially address fundamental ontological assumptions and underlying conceptualizations of transformative social change. To addresses this gap, this article considers how Margaret Archer’s Morphogenetic Approach can help explain how transformative social change might occur through SFD activities. Three conceptual contributions are brought into focus: (a) assuming a realist social ontology; (b) making distinctions between structure, culture, and agency; and (c) identifying social change as happening across three temporal phases. The authors conclude by identifying potential benefits and implications of applying the Morphogenetic Approach to consider the potential for SFD to contribute to social change.

Sport and Incarceration: Theoretical Considerations for Sport for Development Research

Despite a rapid expansion in research on Sport for Development (SfD), there remain numerous untapped veins of exploration. This article makes a novel argument for increasing the theoretical and substantive depth of SfD research by linking it to the relatively small, yet developing, body of literature on sport and incarceration. Drawing from the emergent field of carceral geography and the literature on prison sport, this article provides critical theoretical considerations for SfD programs that occur in ‘compact’ sites of confinement, such as prisons or refugee camps, or are enmeshed in ‘diffuse’ manifestations of carcerality. Given the structures of inequality that have led to the confinement of more than 13 million people in prisons, refugee camps, and migrant detention centres across the globe, as well as the multitude of ways that groups and individuals are criminalized and stigmatized in community settings, there are compelling reasons for SfD research to more deeply engage with concerns of space and carcerality as they relate to sport. As such, this article provides an important foundation for future analyses of SfD and carcerality, and signposts some potential ways forward for a deepening of theoretical perspectives in SfD research.

Looking beyond the “intended beneficiary”: parent experiences and perspectives of child participation in sport-for-development programs at an inner-city Toronto sport facility

ABSTRACT Rationale/purpose: Although there have been studies on the impact of families and sport for development (SFD) in regard to youth participants, less is known about parent experiences of SFD. The purpose of this study is to explore parent experiences of SFD and how SFD affects family life outside of the program setting. Research methods: In this study, an interpretive qualitative approach was adopted to explore parent experiences of SFD. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were utilized for the purposes of generating grounded knowledge in a practical research setting. Findings: Data analysis revealed three themes of SFD and parents: (1) social benefits directly related to parent’s day-to-day lives; (2) the (usually) safe and family-oriented space of SFD; and (3) parent expectations of SFD as well as opportunities for family bonding outside the SFD space. Practical implications: The implications of this study call attention to the ways sport managers, SFD scholars and practitioners may seek to further involve parents and families in SFD initiatives. Research contributions: This research builds and extends on SFD research that examines parent perspectives by highlighting the ways SFD affects parents in ways that may not be immediately noticeable when examining programs.

‘Nước Việtnam là Quê Hương Của Tôi:’ historical, political and sociocultural implications of the Vietnamese-American researcher in sport for development.”

ABSTRACT Using autoethnography I draw on my experiences conducting fieldwork in Vietnam on Sport for Development (SfD) to explore the historical, political, and sociocultural vulnerabilities of the Vietnamese-American researcher in SfD. In doing so, I narrate and revisit the past of my parents and how their memories influenced my research and identity. Of central concern in this paper is how historical and biographical portrayals (Mills, 1959) of being Vietnamese-American ultimately affected the SfD research process and experience. To be clear this paper is not about SfD, per se, instead, it gives insight about research done with and in communities that are close to one’s history and biography. That is, I am a Vietnamese person born in America who ‘returned’ to the country of his family to conduct research. To that end, I write inspired by and connect to the written memoirs from the Vietnamese diaspora. I argue complicating SfD research from points of history and biography offers insight into how a researcher ‘going home’ negotiates the historical, sociocultural and political implications of their research. Thus, by illustrating the complex relationship of being a Vietnamese-American researcher in Vietnam through autoethnography, I write with the intent to speak to SfD research, while specifically speaking to a larger Vietnamese-researcher audience.

Design thinking and sport for development: enhancing organizational innovation

ABSTRACTRationale/purpose: To determine if the field of sport for development (SFD) presents opportunities for the employment of design thinking approaches toward enhancing organizational innovation.Design/methodology/approach: We undertook a scoping study to determine if and how SFD research and practice aligns with five established themes of design thinking practice.Findings: Design thinking indicators are present across the breadth of SFD research. A total of 14 SFD articles display total thematic alignment with design thinking practice, particularly in regard to five key indicators of such alignment: (a) deep user understanding, (b) diversity of perspectives, (c) testing for user feedback, (d) futuristic thinking, and (e) bias toward action.Practical implications: Five key indicators represent logical points of entry for the employment of design thinking in SFD research and practice.Research contribution: Design thinking has become popular in the broad field of management, but this is the first study of the concept in the sport management domain.

Leaving the comfort zone: utilizing institutional ethnography in sport for development and peace research

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the promise of institutional ethnography (IE) as a methodological and theoretical approach in sport for development research. Dorothy Smith, a feminist sociologist, developed IE as an alternative method of inquiry to the dominant forms practised in sociology. Research that utilizes IE is particularly focused on the underpinning processes involved in establishing ruling relations and the role of text in organizing work, and offers researchers a method that has potential to trace and explore the social relations organizing sport for development and peace (SDP) across local-global levels. We would like to propose the use of IE as a methodological approach that can add to the growing field of SDP. In this paper, we discuss how this approach offers a unique way to understand contemporary issues and debates in SDP by providing examples of how we used it in our own research and why it should be considered further by other SDP researchers. Highlighting the process and benefits of conducting research using an IE approach may open up the way that qualitative researchers within sport approach methodology and builds on new ways to analyze particular social contexts while acknowledging the broader institutional setting that research and people’s daily lives take place in.

Sport-for-development and the struggle for subaltern voices to be recognised: a response to Manley, Morgan and Atkinson

ABSTRACTIn their article entitled, ‘Mzungu!’: implications of identity, role formation and programme delivery in the sport for development movement, published in volume 8(3) of this journal, Manley, Morgan and Atkinson focus on constructions of volunteer identities using Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis of social interactions. Their empirical work is based on an international volunteering placement within the sport-for-development (SfD) sector in Zambia. The authors highlight social interactions between UK student volunteers and host country social actors as encounters that influence volunteer identity, role formation or identity disruption. We offer a response to their article with particular attention to critiquing the knowledge production and programme development approaches employed to undertake research among economically marginalised communities. We draw on postcolonial theory and Long’s actor-oriented approach to capture of alternative narratives in SfD research. To support our critical response to the limited application of the dramaturgical perspective by Manley et al., we further apply four of Goffman’s perspectives to analyse social establishments. By so doing, we bring to the fore social processes within which the agency of local social actors is neglected by Manley et al. Instead, the authors state their sampling limitations. We argue that it is the responsibility of privileged intellectuals in global North institutions to reach out to subaltern voices rather than resorting to stating limitations of sampling techniques. Such limitations simply extend the marginalisation of global South voices and exacerbate asymmetrical powers which enable those with resources to undertake SfD research to define the ‘other’.

Urban Sport-for-Development Initiatives and Young People in Socially Vulnerable Situations: Investigating the ‘Deficit Model’

Critical scholars have indicated that the assumptions underlying most sport-for-development (SFD) initiatives tend to align with a ‘deficit model’ of youth: young people from disadvantaged areas are uniformly deficient and in need of development, which can be achieved through sport (Coakley, 2011; Coalter, 2013). In this article, we investigated these assumptions within six urban SFD initiatives that work with young people in socially vulnerable situations in a ‘first’ world nation, Belgium. We conducted a survey at two moments in time amongst 14- to 25-year-old participants in order to test two assumptions: i) ‘participants are deficient and in need of development’; and ii) ‘participation in SFD initiatives leads to positive personal development’. We operationalised ‘development’ as the commonly used outcomes of perceived self-efficacy and self-esteem. These are ‘household words’ both inside and outside SFD research, practice, and policy and carry the assumption that boosting them will by itself foster positive outcomes. The findings refute the supposition that young people from disadvantaged urban areas are uniformly in need of more perceived self-efficacy and self-esteem and show that there is no simple and predictable change in participants’ ‘development’. We suggest that, in designing and researching programs, SFD stakeholders start from an open-ended bottom-up approach which is tailored to the actual life situations of young people and their individual differences and consider more interpersonal and critical conceptualisations of ‘development’.

Participatory research in sport-for-development: Complexities, experiences and (missed) opportunities

In this paper, the authors examine how participatory research can be conceptualized and fostered in sport-for-development (SfD). The authors offer a conceptualization of participatory research that centers on the interplay between three dimensions: participation, power, and reflexivity. Drawing on variegated experiences with SfD research across different geographical locations, the authors scrutinize the conceptual and empirical linkages between these dimensions, and how these linkages are influenced by structures of authority. Findings suggest that most SfD research falls short with regard to the critical challenge of embracing and delivering high degrees of participation, power shifting, and reflexivity. More specifically, SfD researchers typically fail to relinquish power and control over the research process. The SfD research community would likely benefit from greater inclusivity and collaboration when designing creative ways to improve this state of affairs. The authors conclude by reflecting on the implications and by suggesting ways to promote participatory and activist research in SfD contexts.

Sport for Development: An Integrated Literature Review

Despite the significant increase of published research in sport-for-development (SFD), to date there have been no attempts to rigorously review and synthesize scholarly contributions in this area. To address this issue, we conducted an integrative review of SFD literature to portray an overarching and holistic picture of the field. Through a comprehensive literature analysis following Whittemore and Knafl’s (2005) five-step process, we provide evidence of the status quo of current SFD research foci, authorship, geographical contexts, theoretical frameworks, sport activity, level of development, methodologies, methods, and key research findings. Our study shows an increasing trend of journal publications since 2000, with a strong focus on social and educational outcomes related to youth sport and with football (soccer) as the most common activity. A large majority of SFD research has been conducted at the community level, where qualitative approaches are dominant. The geographical contexts of authorship and study location present an interesting paradox: Although the majority of SFD projects are carried out in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, 90% of SFD authors are based in North America, Europe, and Australia. We conclude our study by providing new perspectives on key issues in SFD and by outlining current research and theoretical gaps that provide the basis for future scholarly inquiry.