Sports Development and Sports Policy in Society: An Introduction

• Who makes sport policy and why do we need it?
• What is the purpose of sport development programmes?

Sport Policy and Development answers these questions and more by closely examining the complex relationships between modern sport, sport policy and development and other aspects of the wider society. These important issues are explored via detailed case studies of key aspects of sport policy and sport development activity, including:

• school sport and physical education
• social inclusion
• health
• elite sport
• sporting mega-events.

Each case study demonstrates the ways in which the sport policy and development fields have changed, and are continually changing in response to the increasing political, social and cultural significance of sport. The book helps the reader to understand the complexities of the sport policy-making process, the increasing intervention of government in the sport policy and development fields, and how the short-term, ever-changing and frequently contradictory political priorities of government come to impact on the practice of sport policy and development.

Accessible and engaging, this textbook is an invaluable introduction to sport policy and sport development for students, practitioners and policy-makers alike.

Daniel Bloyce is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport and Exercise and Co-Director of the Chester Centre for Research into Sport and Society at the University of Chester, UK. He is a co-editor of the International Journal of Sport Policy.

Andy Smith is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport and Exercise at the University of Chester, UK. He is a co-editor of the International Journal of Sport Policy, and co-author of Disability, Sport and Society and An Introduction to Drugs in Sport. Both books are published by Routledge (2009).