Black Lives Matter in Sport…?

In this invited professional insight paper the author draws parallels between recent debates on racism, Black Lives Matters, and related research in sport and cognate domains. Drawing on Critical Race Theory (CRT) the paper contends that a) sport is a contested site, b) sport is a microcosm of society c) ‘race’ and everyday racism are central to our understanding of sport. It overlays this critique with a recognition of the dynamic and multi-dimensional nature of racisms. While the deaths of Black lives are being mourned it is argued that our attention can also become distracted by narrow manifestations of racism (overt). Such approaches leave key stakeholder efforts focused on the individual to the detriment of challenging systemic policies, practices, and dispositions that entrench racism. The colour-coded racism of past decades is still with us but in addition to this, our critiques and activism require continued surveillance of cultural, institutional, and structural arrangements in the everyday that remain nebulous, complex, and difficult to challenge. This is a viewpoint paper. The author draws on previous original empirical work and current insights to draw parallels between sport, Black Lives Matter, and broader social contexts. Due to limitations in the extant literature in regard to cycling and ethnicity, examples are drawn primarily from the US and UK. This focus on sport and leisure past times demonstrates that the Black experience of ‘race’ and racism transcends social boundaries and cannot be perceived as restricted to narrow social domains. This paper draws on the author's original published research and current insights. The paper makes a contribution to the development of critical race theorising to the sociology of sport, and broader ethnic and racial studies

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

Serious sports-related injury in England and Wales from 2012-2017: a study protocol

Background Physical activity is an important component of healthy lifestyles, with a central role in morbidity prevention. However, sporting and physical activity also involve an inherent injury risk. Some sports and activities have a higher injury risk, and may involve more severe injuries. Furthermore, injuries of a severe nature have substantial individual and societal consequences, including the burden of assessment, treatment, and potential on-going care costs. There are limited data on severe sports injury risk in England and Wales, and no national data describing risk across sports. The aims of this study are to identify the cases and incidence of: i) paediatric and ii) adult severe sports injury from 2012 to 2017; and to describe injury incidence in individual sports. Methods This study is an analysis of prospectively collected sport-related injuries, treated from January 2012 to December 2017. Incidents involving a severe injury (in-patient trauma care) in England and Wales, will be identified from the Trauma Audit Research Network registry. Data for patients who were: transfers or direct hospital admissions, with inpatient stays of ≥3 days, admissions to High Dependency areas, or in-hospital mortality after admission; and whose injury mechanism was sport, or incident description included one of 62 sporting activities, will be extracted. Data will be categorised by sport, and sports participation data will be derived from Sport England participation surveys. Descriptive statistics will be estimated for all demographic, incident, treatment and sport fields, and crude serious annual injury incidence proportions estimated. Poisson confidence intervals will be estimated for each sport and used to describe injury risk (incidence) across sporting activities. Discussion This study will be the first to describe the number of, and trends in severe sport-related injuries in England and Wales. These data are useful to monitor the number and burden of severe sports injury, and inform injury prevention efforts. The monitoring and mitigation of sports injury risk is essential for individuals, health services and policy, and to encourage physically active lifestyles and safer participation for adults and children

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

Social interactions and the demand for sport: an economic analysis

‘The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.com '. Copyright Blackwell Publishing DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-7287.2007.00071.xThis paper explores the decision to participate in sports activities in the UK and the subsequent frequency of participation. The paper draws links between economic and other theories of social interaction to motivate the discussion and links these theories to assessing policy initiatives in the UK. Cluster analysis is combined with a Heckman analysis to examine the empirical evidence provided by the General Household Survey in 2002. The results suggest that social and personal capital are of paramount importance in determining sports participation and consequently it is these features that policy should focus upon.Peer reviewe

From the boardroom to tee: understanding golf club volunteers during an era of change

This paper examines volunteers in English golf clubs and considers how they interpret their roles. Hitherto, typologies of sports club volunteering have coalesced around organisational context or the time commitment of volunteers. However, these typologies are limited in capturing intra-organisational complexity, recognising the diverse activities that volunteers perform and reflecting changes in the operating and public policy environments. A grounded theory study was therefore undertaken to explore how sports club volunteers interpret their roles. Golf club volunteering was chosen as the substantive case since golf is a globally significant sport that is facing participation and sustainability challenges. Data was collected and analysed from documents and twenty-one semi-structured interviews. The study found that golf club volunteers tend to interpret their roles in two main ways: with a business management approach that is orientated towards business-like management, customer satisfaction and competing in the contemporary marketplace; and, with a sporting perspective that is orientated towards organising play. Some volunteers combined both aspects, although such hybridity presented significant challenges. The study concludes with a discussion of how the influence of sport policy may be limited by volunteers’ subjective interpretations of their role and club context

Differences in formal and informal sports participation at regional level in England

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to provide a regional approach to analyse sports participation in two different contexts: organised/formal versus non-organised/informal participation, using the England's Active People Survey (APS) national dataset. Method: We have estimated two models: first, a general model to explain differences in regional informal and formal participation rates; second, an econometric model dealing with formal participation at a regular frequency. Results: The results emphasise the different roles played by some correlates depending on the context of sports participation under study. Only economic and cultural variables seem to have a general influence throughout all the sports participation contexts. The results reinforce the role played by sport supply and sport funding in some sports participation levels, offering interesting implications for sport policy. The urban environment, for example, appears to be positively related to the transition from informal to formal sport participation. Conclusions: The distinct analysis of the sports participation contexts provides the opportunity to evaluate ways of boosting that participation as well as to suggest some interesting policy implications towards this aim. For example, sporting infrastructure is only influential for the transition from non-participation to formal participation, implying that in general the key question about sport funding and supply is not the amount of funds but rather the direction and aims of sport policy. Finally, the paper offers some explanations about the gender inequality detected in some forms of sports participation. Keywords: sports participation, formal and informal participation, sports infrastructure, Dirichlet model

Great Expectations: Voluntary Sports Clubs and Their Role in Delivering National Policy for English Sport

“The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com”. Copyright International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University. DOI: 10.1007/s11266-009-9095-yVoluntary sports clubs (VSCs) account for about a quarter of all volunteering in England. The volunteers work in a mutual aid, self-production, self-consumption system whose main purpose is identifying and nurturing high-level performers. But the new HMG/Sport England strategies leading to London 2012 expects volunteers to make a major contribution to sustaining and extending participation. The study utilized six focus group sessions with a total of 36 officials and members of 36 clubs across the six counties of Eastern England to assess whether and to what extent government policy objectives can be delivered through the voluntary sector. The study focused on the perceptions and attitudes of club members about being expected to serve public policy and the current pressures they and their clubs face. The results lead the authors to question the appropriateness, sensitivity, and feasibility of current sport policy, particularly the emphasis on VSCs as policy implementers.Peer reviewe

Modernisation and governance in UK national governing bodies of sport: how modernisation influences the way board members perceive and enact their roles

Modernisation has been a key objective of many national governments for at least the last two decades. A significant element of the modernisation agenda has been the focus on improving the governance of public sector and, more recently, voluntary sector organisations. In the UK voluntary sport sector, this has involved policy statements, governance monitoring systems linked to public funding and a number of ‘good governance’ guides, aimed primarily at the boards of national governing bodies of sport (NGBs). Previous research has critically analysed modernisation and explored its effects, most often at a macro level. Very little research, to date, however, has looked at the influence of modernisation on the boards of NGBs. This article seeks to do just that, drawing on the first national survey of board-level governance in the UK and an in-depth, longitudinal case study of one UK-based NGB. It empirically examines which board roles NGBs consider most important and statistically compares large and small NGBs. It then draws on direct observation of board and committee meetings, in-depth interviews and analysis of key organisational documents to examine how modernisation influences the way board members perceive and enact their roles. In so doing, this article draws together the political science research on modernisation and the sport governance research on board roles and seeks to promote closer integration between these complementary streams of research

The identification of salient beliefs concerning university students’ decision to participate in sport

The aim of this study was to identify salient beliefs toward university-provided recreational sport in first-year undergraduate students. A purposive sample of 76 students (36 males, 40 females; mean age: 19.2 ± 1.7 years) undertaking various degree subjects at a higher education institution in the North of England, United Kingdom, was used in the study. The instrument was a theory-based open-ended questionnaire informed by the Theory of Planned Behavior, addressing behavioral, normative, and control beliefs. Thematic content analysis and coding was conducted on 30 randomly selected questionnaires followed by a frequency count to identify the modal salient beliefs. The modal set revealed 17 beliefs from a possible 53: six behavioral, five normative, and six control. These beliefs were related to health benefits, enjoyment, friendships, time constraints, study workloads, awareness, and the perception of family, friends, and academics. The results highlight the factors that should be targeted for intervention and provide data to be utilized for a second main quantitative study which will identify more specific belief targets. Due to equivocal intervention success, this formative research can serve to help increase the number of students participating in university recreational spor