Questioning policy, youth participation and lifestyle sports

Young people have been identified as a key target group for whom participation in sport and physical activity could have important benefits to health and wellbeing and consequently have been the focus of several government policies to increase participation in the UK. Lifestyle sports represent one such strategy for encouraging and sustaining new engagements in sport and physical activity in youth groups, however, there is at present a lack of understanding of the use of these activities within policy contexts. This paper presents findings from a government initiative which sought to increase participation in sport for young people through provision of facilities for mountain biking in a forest in south-east England. Findings from qualitative research with 40 young people who participated in mountain biking at the case study location highlight the importance of non-traditional sports as a means to experience the natural environments through forms of consumption which are healthy, active and appeal to their identities. In addition, however, the paper raises questions over the accessibility of schemes for some individuals and social groups, and the ability to incorporate sports which are inherently participant-led into state-managed schemes. Lifestyle sports such as mountain biking involve distinct forms of participation which present a challenge for policy-makers who seek to create and maintain sustainable communities of youth participants

"Apparel Distribution:@Inter-firm Contracting and Intra-firm Organization"

Prepared for a forthcoming book on the distribution sector in Japan, this essay introduces the distribution network in the apparel industry. We note the varying patterns of cross-market contracting and intra-firm organization in the industry, and trace the economizing logic involved. More specifically, we show how the decision at the firm level of whether to integrate wholesale, retail and production depends crucially on an informational and incentive-based logic, and how that logic is in turn driven by patterns of consumer demand.

“… so what?” Attitudes of the voluntary sector towards child protection in sports clubs

There is both growing concern about ethical standards in sport and also rapid expansion in the number of local and national schemes designed to encourage youth sports development. Child abuse in youth sport has become a ‘moral panic’ in British society but there is evidence of a child protection policy vacuum between national and club level. Sport club child protection schemes are rarely informed by the work of their respective national governing bodies but there is an almost complete absence of empirical data with which to support or challenge claims about child safety in voluntary sector sports clubs. The research reported addresses this knowledge gap. It was designed to explore the extent to which one English midlands county had made provision for child protection and to assess the main issues confronting the county in its efforts to enhance child protection in voluntary sport. Voluntary sector junior sports clubs (N = 396) were sent a postal survey; 129 responded. 19 junior sports focus groups and selected county officers and staff were invited to participate in group or individual interviews during the second half of 1999 (prior to the establishment of the NSPCC/Sport England Child Protection in Sport Unit). This paper reports the survey and interview data from the voluntary clubs. Results show an extremely varied pattern of awareness of the main child protection issues in the various sports clubs. One common theme emerged, however: there was a clear misapprehension that children are safest amongst those whom they know best and most at risk from those currently outside their sports clubs. This view is firmly contradicted by research statistics on sources of child abuse. The paper argues that the unwillingness of club personnel to challenge their own assumptions is causally linked to a culture of complacency about child protection in voluntary sport

"Aye, but It Were Wasted on Thee": Cricket, British Asians, Ethnic Identities, and the 'Magical Recovery of Community'

People in sport tend to possess rather jaded perceptions of its colour-blindness and thus, they are reluctant to confront the fact that, quite often racism is endemic. Yorkshire cricket in particular, has faced frequent accusations from minority ethnic communities of inveterate and institutionalised racism and territorial defensiveness. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews conducted with amateur white and British Asian cricketers, this paper examines the construction of regional identities in Yorkshire at a time when traditional myths and invented traditions of Yorkshire and 'Yorkshireness' are being deconstructed. This is conceptualised through a reading of John Clarke's 'magical recovery of community'. Although cricket has been multiracial for decades, I argue that some people's position as insiders is more straightforward than others. I present evidence to suggest that, regardless of being committed to Yorkshire and their 'Yorkshireness', white Yorkshire people may never fully accept British Asians as 'one of us'. Ideologically and practically, white Yorkshire people are engaged in constructing British Asians as anathema to Yorkshire culture. The paper concludes by advocating that, for sports cultures to be truly egalitarian, the ideology of sport itself has to change. True equality will only ever be achieved within a de-racialised discourse that not only accepts difference, but embraces it.British Asians; Community; Cricket; Identity; Racism; Symbolic Boundaries

Children's rights in football: Welfare and work

This paper examines issues of labour and play in children's football. It asks whether global capitalism and the growth of girls' and women's football might lead to greater sexual victimization among female players

Biphobia in sport – Sexual identity and exclusionary practices

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Research in the field of bisexuality has identified that bisexuals experience a unique kind of phobia, in that phobic responses to their sexual preferences appear from both mainstream and LGBT communities. However, little research in the UK has been conducted within the arena of sport culture to cater for the particular welfare needs of bisexual athletes. As an additional consequence, there is little theorisation of bisexuality available within the context of sport sociology. This research contributes to debates in the politics of identity by exploring a fairly new landscape within sport culture using a Foucauldian analysis of power. Discourse analyses have been utilised to interpret thirteen semi-structured interviews conducted with British athletes on the topics of bi-invisibility and the general problem of homophobia. This research also contributes to discussions concerning the mobilisation of power through discourse – certain discursive practices function to legitimize normative over non-normative sexualities and queer/fluid/bisexual identities are further stigmatized and othered. The main findings suggest that exclusions are mobilised most effectively, ironically, through sport cultural practices of inclusion, in that they are almost exclusively sexual identity-based. Additionally, this study offers a theoretical explanation for the peripheralisation of bisexuality in sport culture which can shed new light on bisexual theory in mainstream culture. It makes important suggestions as to the new directions future research can take in order to advance the current knowledge bases concerning the effects of bantering. This research proposes that practices of bantering can be just as marginalising as those of bullying. In the resultant climate of covert exclusions, organizational sporting bodies could benefit from paying close attention to the disempowering effects of biphobic and homophobic language, whether humorously intended or otherwise. This is with particular respect to youth footballing academies and spectator communities.This study was funded by Brunel University

"Is social inclusion through PE, sport and PA still a rhetoric?" evaluating the relationship between physical education, sport and social inclusion

This Special Issue is part of Educational Review’s Hall of Fame, comprising the journal’s most read and highly cited papers. As part of this I will be critiquing a milestone paper within the field(s) of Sport, PE and (I will extend to) PA by Professor Richard Bailey. The paper has been amongst the most-cited in the journal and I have personally cited the paper numerous times in my own work thus far. Upon its original publication (nearly 13 years ago), the article (managed to provide a very useful distinction between PE and sport (and PA), which is important given the constant slippage between the terms in many articles since. In this response article, I will try to provide a brief summary of the paper from Bailey, but at the same time examine closely the notion of social inclusion through sport and PE by summarising work that has subsequently been conducted. I will conclude by summarising that some 13 years later spurious claims about effective inclusive practices through sport abound, and we still lack clear evidence to support the rhetoric about the ways in which sport and PE can contribute to social inclusion

'Does he look like a Paki?' an exploration of 'whiteness', positionality and reflexivity in inter-racial sports research1851)

This article reflects on fieldwork with white and British Asian cricketers which explored the construction, maintenance and contestation of racialised identities in the sport of cricket. It addresses my experiences of gaining access to and working alongside both communities, particularly as I negotiated insecurities over the suitability of my own identity(ies), the normalisation of ‘whiteness’ and the constant awareness of my insider and outsiderness within different contexts. I draw on personal experiences and fieldnotes to argue that one’s insider or outsider status is never certain; rather it is filled with dissonance and ambiguity, is an ongoing performance and is always in a state of flux. I provide evidence to show how white researchers (of sport) are, at times, culpable of reinforcing dominant racial discourses rather than challenging them. I conclude by arguing that if sociologists of sport are to establish a methodological framework for researching ‘race’ and its intersections, more scholars need to engage with the relationships between self and other and the self-as-other; more freely exploring the nature of reflexivity, and how doing reflexivity presents opportunities to connect with people across (and in spite of) cultural divides