Using ‘sport in the community schemes’ to tackle crime and drug use among young people: Some policy issues and problems

This is a PDF version of an article published in European physical education review © Sage, 2004. The definitive version is available at www.sagepub.com.This article discusses the effectiveness of sport in the community schemes such as the Positive Futures initative and Summer Splsh/Splash Extra in reducing crime and drug use amongst young people

Sport events and human rights: positive promotion or negative erosion?

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. In this paper, we build upon recent scholarship on sport event legacies to identify, categorise, and describe the key processes underpinning sport event interactions with human rights (HR). It develops a simple, representative model to illustrate the points where sport events bisect with HR and considers what factors can modify these impacts. The development of this model is based on a meta-review of literature and examination of case studies. It is clear from our analysis that sport events are malleable, symbolic, and political occurrences that can be positioned to provide evidence and support of benefice or harm to the cause of HR. The model also provides a nuanced approach to consider how sport event organisers may begin to think about the tactics and strategies that might be employed, and how they might leverage HR through their sport event. The model also indicates that HR, being similarly malleable political tools, are paradoxical in application in the sport event context and consequently cannot be assumed to be taken-for-granted as event outcomes or outputs

Sport, physical activity and the establishment of Health and Wellbeing Boards in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire

This paper will examine the emergence of Health and Wellbeing Boards in Nottinghamshire and the City of Nottingham and explore the implications for sport and physical activity. At the time of writing the transfer of responsibilities for Public Health and the establishment of Health and Wellbeing Boards in both the City of Nottingham and within Nottinghamshire County Council are considered to be relatively advanced by the Strategic Health Authorities, the respective local authorities and by the boards of the two Primary Care Trusts. "Shadow"� Health and Well being Board have been established in both authorities and they have been meeting regularly for s everal months. Public health and commissioning staff have also been successfully relocated and new strategies and priorities are starting to emerge. Nottingham and Nottinghamshire have traditionally acknowledged the role of sport and physical activity to the wider determinants of public health and given a relatively high priority to the contribution that sport and physical activity can make to the ir preventative health and early intervention agendas. This paper will look at the transition to Health and Wellbeing boards to assess how the role of sport and physical activity may be changing and to identify opportunities for its contribution to policy and practise in the future. It will examine both the theory and practise behind the emerging governance arr angements, the strategic objectives and priorities, and the developing evidential base for future policy and delivery within the two areas

Football and Health: Getting Strategic

Community foundations and charities operating within professional football clubs are being championed as a vehicle to deliver on the Public Health agenda. This personal commentary from the authors offers insight into the context of football for health drawing on the relevant research literature and their experiences working within the football industry in England. The football and health examples highlight under-resourced and under-evaluated interventions, whilst highlighting the importance of partnership working. The authors hope to support those in football and health in getting strategic through their interventions, evaluations and partnerships, in order to capitalize the potential of football in supporting the objectives of Public Health England

The political process of constructing a sustainable London Olympics sports development legacy

This study attempts to develop a research agenda for understanding the process of constructing a sustainable Olympic sports development legacy. The research uses a social constructivist perspective to examine the link between the 2012 London Olympic Games and sustainable sports development. The first part of the paper provides justification for the study of sport policy processes using a constructivist lens. This is followed by a section which critically unpacks sustainable sports development drawing on Mosse’s (1998) ideas of process-oriented research and Searle’s conceptualisation of the construction of social reality. Searle’s (1995) concepts of the assignment of function, collective intentionality, collective rules, and human capacity to cope with the environment are considered in relation to the events and discourses emerging from the legacy vision(s) associated with the 2012 London Olympic Games. The paper concludes by proposing a framework for engaging in process oriented research and highlights key elements, research questions, and methodological issues. The proposed constructivist approach can be used to inform policy, practice, and research on sustainable Olympic sports development legacy

Dangerous liaisons: youth sport, citizenship and intergenerational mistrust

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics on 24/3/2014, available online: DOI 10.1080/19406940.2014.896390This paper reflects on and offers a critical analysis of the relationship between youth sport and citizenship development, in practice and in the UK policy context of sports coaching and physical education. While deploying data and insights from a recently completed research project in England, which identified substantial tensions in intergenerational relationships in sport and coaching, the argument and analysis also invokes wider international concerns and more generally applicable implications for policy and practice. Drawing heuristically upon the philosophy of Dewey (2007 [1916]), it is recognised that the concept of citizenship as a form of social practice should seek to encourage the development of complementary traits and dispositions in young people. To develop socially and educationally thus entails engagement in meaningful social and cultural activity, of which one potentially significant component is participation in youth sport, both within and outside formal education. However, it is argued that any confident assumption that sporting and coaching contexts will necessarily foster positive traits and dispositions in young people should be considered dubious and misplaced. Deploying a Lacanian (1981) perspective to interpret our data, we contend that ‘liaisons’ and interactions between coaches and young people are often treated suspiciously, and regarded as potentially ‘dangerous’

Football and social inclusion: evaluating social policy

Sport, particularly football, is increasingly recognized as a means for promoting social inclusion. Yet rigorous evaluations of football-based social inclusion projects are rarely carried out. This paper explains the importance of evaluation and proposes the use of realist evaluation as a framework for developing theory, informing social policy and improving project design. It also aims to develop a workable template for small-scale project evaluation. The paper draws a series of conclusions on how rigorous evaluation of football-based social inclusion projects can benefit participants, practitioners and policy makers, as well as football clubs and the communities they serve

Primary physical education, coaches and continuing professional development

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Sport, Education and Society, 16(4), 485 - 505, 2011, copyright @ Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13573322.2011.589645.Physical education (PE) in primary schools has traditionally been taught by qualified primary teachers. More recently, some teaching of PE in primary schools has been undertaken by coaches (mostly football coaches). These coaches hold national governing body awards but do not hold teaching qualifications. Thus, coaches may not be adequately prepared to teach PE in curriculum time. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perceptions of a group of community-based football coaches working in primary schools for the impact of a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme on their ability to undertake ‘specified work’ to cover PE in primary schools. The programme focused on four areas identified as important to enable coaches to cover specified work: short- and medium-term planning, pedagogy, knowledge of the curriculum and reflection. Results showed that for the majority of coaches the CPD programme had made them more aware of the importance of these four areas and had helped to develop their knowledge and ability to put this into practice in covering planning, preparation and assessment time. However, further input is still required to develop coaches’ knowledge and understanding in all four areas, but especially their curriculum knowledge, as well as their ability to put these into practice consistently. These findings are discussed in relation to the implications of employing coaches to cover the teaching of PE in primary schools and, if employed, what CPD coaches need to develop the necessary knowledge, skill and understanding for covering specified work in schools

Reviewing research evidence and the case of participation in sport and physical recreation by black and minority ethnic communities

The paper addresses the implications of using the process of systematic review in the many areas of leisure where there is a dearth of material that would be admitted into conventional Cochrane Reviews. This raises important questions about what constitutes legitimate knowledge, questions that are of critical import not just to leisure scholars, but to the formulation of policy. The search for certainty in an area that lacks conceptual consensus results in an epistemological imperialism that takes a geocentric form. While clearly, there is a need for good research design whatever the style of research, we contend that the wholesale rejection of insightful research is profligate and foolhardy. A mechanism has to be found to capitalise on good quality research of whatever form. In that search, we draw upon our experience of conducting a review of the material available on participation in sport and physical recreation by people from Black and minority ethnic groups. The paper concludes with a proposal for a more productive review process that makes better use of the full panoply of good quality research available. © 2012 © 2012 Taylor & Francis