Sport Development and Community Development

Lindsey, I.; Adams, A.

Abstract

The potential of sport to contribute to community development has increasingly gained global prominence in recent years. This alignment of sport with community development can be attributed to the general view of sport as morally benign (Coalter, 2007) and its increasing salience to both international bodies and national governments as a mechanism to achieve particular local policy objectives (Houlihan and Green, 2009). The United Nations (2003, p5), for example, states its belief that “sports programmes are also a cost-effective way to contribute significantly to health, education, development and peace and a powerful medium through which to mobilize societies”. Similarly Houlihan and Groeneveld (2011, p1) recognise the growing number of national governments seeking to utilise sport “in the pursuit of a range of pro-social policy objectives such as social inclusion, health improvement and community integration and safety”. While these authors highlight governments in the Global North, it is also the case that governments in the Global South are in increasing numbers recognising the potential contribution that sport can make to individual and community development, as Banda (2010) identifies is the case in Zambia for example.

Citation

Lindsey, I., & Adams, A. (2013). Sport Development and Community Development. In L. Henry, & L. Ko (Eds.), Routledge handbook of sport policy (264-274). Routledge

• Publication Date: Jul 23, 2013
• Deposit Date: Aug 14, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 20, 2014
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 264-274
• Series Title: Routledge international handbooks
• Book Title: Routledge handbook of sport policy.
• Chapter Number: 21
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1672658
• Publisher URL: http://www.routledge.com/9780415666619