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"Coalter, Fred"
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Sport-for-Change: Some Thoughts from a Sceptic
Sport’s historic attraction for policy makers has been its claims that it can offer an economy of remedies to seemingly intractable social problems—“social inclusion”, “development”. Such usually vague and ill-defined claims reflect sport’s marginal policy status and its attempts to prove its more general relevance. The dominance of evangelical beliefs and interest groups, who tend to view research in terms of affirmation of their beliefs, is restricting conceptual and methodological development of policy and practice. There is a need to de-reify “sport” and to address the issue of sufficient conditions—the mechanisms, processes and experiences which might produce positive impacts for some participants. This requires researchers and practitioners to develop approaches based on robust and systematic programme theories. However, even if systematic and robust evidence is produced for the relative effectiveness of certain types of programme, we are left with the problem of displacement of scope—the process of wrongly generalising micro level (programme) effects to the macro (social). Although programme rhetoric frequently claims to address social issues most programmes have an inevitably individualist perspective. Further, as participation in sport is closely related to socially structured inequalities, it might be that rather than sport contributing to “social inclusion”, various aspects of social inclusion may precede such participation. In this regard academics and researchers need to adopt a degree of scepticism and to reflect critically on what we and, most especially, others might already know. There is a need to theorise sport-for-change’s limitations as well as its “potential”.
Journal Article
Sport and Social Inclusion: Evidence-Based Policy and Practice
This commentary reflects on my experience of compiling the Value of Sport Monitor—an on-line resource of policy-relevant, research on the social impacts of sport—for eight years. The commentary critically evaluates the assumption of the Value of Sport Monitor that social science research in sport is cumulative and it explores sports interest groups’ varying attitudes to the nature of evidence. It illustrates that widespread conceptual and methodological inconsistencies and weaknesses in research greatly reduce the ability to identify best practice and ‘best buys’ as a basis for policy. The commentary concludes by proposing that a way forward for research to contribute to policy and practice is via theory-based evaluation.
Journal Article
Sport For Development
Sport is increasingly regarded as a powerful tool in international development. In this comprehensive introduction to the area of 'sport-for-development', leading researcher Fred Coalter critically evaluates the strengths and weaknesses and successes and failures of sport-for-development policies and programs.
Beginning with an outline of the historical development of policies of sport-for-development, this book explores the objectives that remain central to international sport-for-development initiatives, including issues of defining and measuring impacts, the development of self-efficacy and leadership skills, female empowerment, HIV/AIDS awareness and social capital. Drawing on a wealth of fieldwork experience and empirical data from the most extensive monitoring and evaluation project ever undertaken with sport-for-development organisations, this is an unparalleled and fully integrated assessment of theory, policy and practice in international sport-for-development.
Sport-for-development: What game are we playing is essential reading for any student or practitioner with an interest in sport-for-development, sports policy or international development.
eBook
London Olympics 2012: `the catalyst that inspires people to lead more active lives'?
In the London bid for the 2012 Olympics the traditional 'legacy' rationales for major events (economic regeneration, tourism development, international prestige, infrastructure and facility development) were specifically complemented by the contention that a successful bid would contribute to the government's physical activity and health agenda by acting as 'the catalyst that inspires people of all ages and all talents to lead more active lives'.1 The London 2012 bid document stated that: ... grassroots participation would be boosted.
Journal Article
Sport-for-Development
It is claimed that sport-for-development is a 'new field' in its 'formative stage' (Kay, 2009: 1177) and that there is an 'evidence gap' (Woodcock et al., 2012: 370). It is clear that at an ideological and policy level, sport-for-development has some of the characteristics of an emerging, if still disparate, new 'movement' (Kidd, 2008; Giulianotti, 2011; Darnell, 2007). However, at the level of practice and implementation - at the level of programme mechanisms, which are one of the concerns of this book - the claims to 'newness' are at least contestable. In part this is because the legitimacy of sport-for-development is derived from the fact that it is not new.
Book Chapter