The Challenges of Promoting Social Inclusion through Sport: The Experience of a Sport-Based Initiative in Italy

Abstract

Social inclusion is broadly recognized as a priority to accomplish at an international level. While the influence of sport toward this social mission has been largely debated, literature lacks contributions capturing the challenges of sport when promoting social inclusion. Based in case study methodology, the investigation explores the impact of a multi-stakeholder sport initiative developing social inclusion for socially vulnerable youth and the related challenges of the intervention through in-depth interviews with diverse program stakeholders. The main findings indicated the emergence of four challenges: limited transferability of program outcomes for youth in living conditions of severe vulnerability; drop-out of youth in living conditions of severe vulnerability; limited sustainability of program social workers; lack of sports club management skills. The work highlights some limits of sport-based programs for social inclusion and discusses some implications for practice to maximize the societal impact of such interventions.

Sustaining Equality and Equity. A Scoping Review of Interventions Directed towards Promoting Access to Leisure Time Physical Activity for Children and Youth

“…The specific target groups in the studies were young people not engaged in sport [51], unassociated youth in deprived residential areas [52], migrant and refugee children and youth [53,54], minority youth [55], migrant youth in socially disadvantaged areas [56], underprivileged youth [57,58], children and youth in socially disadvantaged areas [59,60], and young people experiencing psychological and/or social problems [61]. Five out of 10 interventions aimed to engage the target groups in LTPA activities as an alternative to criminal or "rowdy behavior" during weekends or holidays [52,[55][56][57][58][59].…”

“…The element of close proximity was key in nine out of 10 interventions in this category in order to establish a connection to local youth perceived as needing help to establish healthy relationships to both adults and other youth [52,[54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61].…”

“…If interventions are developed locally they can benefit from local knowledge about children and youth living in the specific context-where they meet, what they do, and how-or who-to best approach/recruit them. Six out of 11 [54,55,[58][59][60][61] studies described how community leaders or outreach workers were used in developing connections to the target groups at the intervention sites. These elements of having close proximity to the target groups and utilizing adults with a local connection represented two strategies to increase accessibility to activities for the specific target group.…”

“…Equity through sport interventions are local in the sense that they are designed to meet a local need for alternate activities and alternate arenas of LTPA where local youth can become included into the communities. Four out of 10 interventions directly arose from local initiatives to engage youth in LTPA [59][60][61], while six out of 10 were a part of a regional or national initiative [51][52][53][54][56][57][58]. However, all 10 interventions were embedded locally, and target groups were defined by their connection to a specific neighborhood/housing area/local community.…”

“Even Though We Have Different Colors, We Are All Equal Here”: Immigrants building a sense of community and wellbeing through sport participation

“…Several studies have reported that sport can promote a wide range of nonsporting outcomes for people living in conditions of vulnerability, including subjective well-being and psychological SOC (D'Angelo et al, 2019(D'Angelo et al, , 2020(D'Angelo et al, , 2021Kumar et al, 2018;Nathan et al, 2010;Woodhouse & Conricode, 2017). In the case of immigrants, sport can strengthen ethnic identity, reduce stress and negative thoughts, and increase self-efficacy (Dukic et al, 2017;Marzana, Martinez Damia et al, 2020).…”