The Potential of Community Sport for Social Inclusion: Exploring Cases Across the Globe

Social inclusion is a pressing issue confronting all levels of sport today, and community sport in particular. Sport is being promoted as an inclusive environment in which people of all backgrounds and abilities can participate and access a range of social and health benefits. Moreover, sport is often heralded as a vehicle for promoting social inclusion in other societal domains. Yet, the policy ideal of ‘sport for all’ is not always realised in practice, and community sport continues to be plagued by various forms of discrimination and social exclusion. This book brings together a team of scholars from across the globe whose research addresses the complex relationship between community sport and social inclusion. Their contributions critically examine the dynamics of inclusion/exclusion in community sport, as well as the broader outcomes and impacts that sports programmes may have in promoting, or hindering, social inclusion in other areas of life, such as employment, education and migrant integration.

This book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and advanced students of sport, sociology, politics, social work and public policy.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

Hebe Schaillée is Assistant Professor and Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Movement and Sport Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. Her research contributes to the role of sport in promoting social inclusion of young people in vulnerable positions and advancing gender equality.

Reinhard Haudenhuyse attained his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2013. His expertise revolves around (community) sport, leisure, poverty, pedagogy and processes of social in-/exclusion.

Lieve Bradt is Associate Professor of Social Pedagogy at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University, Belgium and Coordinator of the Flemish Youth Research Platform. Her research interests include processes of inclusion and exclusion in relation to the social integration of young people.