Sport policy practice and outcome: theoretical and empirical approaches

Abstract

Active participation in sport is a leisure-time physical activity. People are free to decide for themselves whether to practice sport and what type of sport to get involved in. Sport participation has been relatively stable over the past decades, despite ambitions of governments on a European, national and local level to raise sport participation levels (European Commission, 2018;Rowe, 2015;. Although people manage their own leisure time, we must recognise that governments do seek to influence individuals' leisure activities (Bramham et al., 1993). For instance, states across Europe stimulate sport as a worthwhile active pastime, as reflected in the Sport for All Charter of the Council of Europe (2001). Herein, EU member states present a common policy agenda on sport, in particular the active involvement in sport. Raising levels of sport participation, especially among disadvantaged groups that are less likely to take part in sport, is a specific sport policy objective (Hoekman et al., 2011). Furthermore, governments have long taken an active role in providing sport facilities, where these are not offered by commercial parties. As such, ensuring access to sport facilities is considered a central element of effective sport participation policy (Nicholson et al., 2011).Government policy to stimulate sport and ensuring access to sport facilities relies on a socio-ecological rationale (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) in which the broader environment influences individual behaviour. The socioecological rationale to understand individual behaviour could also be utilised to understand sport policy-making (Hoekman et al., 2019). Regarding the policy-making process, Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) identified the field of sport as a configuration of positions comprising agents. Different stakeholders and environments play a role in the constitution of sport policy and sport practices. Policy is so to say a process with different actors and not a single decision isolated in time and context (Ham & Hill, 1993). To fully understand sport policy and its outcomes sport policy needs to be analysed within its broader, socio-cultural and socio-economic environment, similar to individual behaviour, and with an eye for the

Sport club dropout under COVID-19 in the Netherlands: do characteristics of the neighbourhood matter?

“…This local and neighbourhood-oriented approach fits well within a socioecological contextual theoretical rationale ( 28 , 29 ). More specifically, this presumes that individual behaviour is impacted by various environments, such as family, peer group, school, and neighbourhood.…”

From Sport Policy to National Federation Sport Policy: An Integrative Literature Review and Conceptualisation Attempt

“…Hoekman and Scheerder claimed that: "to pursue structural social change, more will be needed than merely publishing special issue and launching a debate concerning sport policy topics from an academic perspective" [11] (p. 104). We believe that this contribution may help to structure the debates on the definition of an NSF sport policy.…”

“…In other words, sport contributes to wide-ranging development outcomes, which are cross-cutting issues [56]. Hoekman et al, state that "sport is positioned more and more as an instrument with health and social effectivity to help achieve non-sport policy goals" [11] (p. 89). Jaccard et al [57] do not forget the educational, cultural, tourism and sustainable development issues associated with a sport policy, using the case of a municipality as an example.…”

“…This suggests a need to be clear on what we talk about when referring to sport policy, i.e., the problem definition for it. Hoekman and Scheerder echoed the argument and pointed out that "the fundamental difficulty of articulating an adequate problem definition for sport policy" remains [11] (p. 105). Therefore, this paper attempts to address this issue by highlighting the difference between governmental sport policy and NSF sport policy and, thus, providing clarity to the problem definition of the latter.…”

Socioeconomic disparities and inequality of mass sports participation: Analysis from Chinese General Social Survey 2010–2018

“…Giddens ( 33 ) once stated that the liberation of the individual is the freedom obtained by breaking free from the constraints of inequality. Inequality theory has become a direction that public sociologists and scholars engaged in a social policy called on government authorities to promote public participation in sports ( 17 , 34 – 36 ). Sports have become a powerful weapon for reform in project promotion and sports facility construction.…”