Sport for Development: Research trends, theories and evidence

1. Sport for Development: Research trends, theories and evidence Lecture 4(11 July 2019): Tsukuba Summer Institute Dr Daniel Bloyce • @BloyceD • E: d.bloyce@chester.ac.uk

2. Objectives • What is the issue? • Define what is meant by Sport-for-development (or Sport, Development and Peace – SDP) • Understand how, and why ‘sport’ has been used as a tool for development in the developing world • Examine the level of organizations involved • Provide an overview of theories that have been used/proposed • Examine research topics and trends • Examine the evidence of the effectiveness of sport-for-development policies • Critical analysis of sport-for-development

3. Global Poverty: The Issue! • “Poverty … exists worldwide and while governments and policies change, the needs of the world’s poor invariably remain the same” • Worlds powers spent (in 2004) • $900 billion on defence • $350 billion on agriculture • $60 billion on aid (of which about half gets there in cash) • Oxfam recently noted that it would cost £3.2 billion to send all the world’s children to school. • (Jarvie, 2016, p. 413)

4. The ‘terms’ of reference • Developing/Developed world? • First world/Third world? • Global South/Global North? • Sport for Development? • Sport in Development? • Sport for Development and Peace? • GROUP TASK: • What do YOU think Sport for Development is about? • What are the AIMS of YOUR organization?

5. What is ‘sport for development’? The ‘official’ view • Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) “refers to the intentional use of sport, physical activity and play to attain specific development and peace objectives” (SDPIWG, 2008, p. 1) • “The use of sport to exert a positive influence on • public health • the socialisation of children, youths and adults • the social inclusion of the disadvantaged • the economic development of regions and states • and on fostering intercultural exchange and conflict resolution” (Lyras & Welty Peachey, 2011, p. 311) • “Sport for development (SFD) has emerged as an umbrella term that captures some of the many roles that sport can play in addressing social issues in different societies” (Harris & Adams, 2015, p. 98)

6. What is sport for development? • “Traditional forms of provision for sport, with an implicit assumption or explicit affirmation that such sport has inherent developmental properties for participants” • Sport plus, in which sports are adapted and often augmented with parallel programmes in order to maximize their potential to achieve developmental objectives” • “Plus sport, in which sport’s popularity is used as a type of ‘fly paper’ to attract young people to programmes of education and training (a widespread approach for HIV/AIDS prevention programmes), with the systematic development of sport rarely a strategic aim” • (Coalter, 2010, p. 298)

7. Assumptions about the ‘power’ of sport • SFD “is rooted in the recognition that sport possesses unique attributes that enable it to contribute to development and peace processes. • Sport’s universal popularity, • its capacity as one of the most powerful global communications platforms, • and its profound ability to connect people and to build their capacities make it one of the most cross-cutting of all development and peace tools. • These attributes also make sport an effective, low-cost means of preventing and addressing a broad range of social and economic challenges” (SDPIWG, 2008, p. 2)

8. Key dates in emergence of SFD • 1959 – Inclusion of play and recreation in the UN Declaration the Rights of the Child • 1978 – International Charter of Physical Education and Sport, adopted by UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) • 1979 – Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women recognized women’s right to sport and physical education • 1989 – Adoption by the UN of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, which reinforced every child’s right to play • “From the late 1990s an increasingly vociferous loose coalition of sport-for-development organizations sought to convince the United Nations and other agencies about the contribution that sport could make to their aid agendas” (Coalter, 2010, p. 301) • 2001 – United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP) established and Special Advisor on Sport for Development and Peace role created by UN

9. Increasing SFD initiatives • The concept was given “major impetus and greater coherence by the HIV/AIDS pandemic” (Coalter, 2007, p. 69) • Hundreds of schemes across the Global South: 93% formed from 2000 onwards (Levermore, 2011) • “International development is a long-established policy area, in which the richer nations of the global community provide support to low-income countries to help address acute social and economic problems” (Kay, 2011, p. 281) • “The potential contribution of sport to development within the Global South has recently gained prominence in terms of policy, practice and as a subject of academic interest” (Lindsey & Grattan, 2012, p. 91)

10. Myriad organizations involved • “There has been a rapid increase in the number of organizations associated with, and involved in, the ‘sport-for-development’ movement” (Lindsey, & Banda, 2010, p. 91) • International non-government organizations (UN) • “Governmental agencies, sporting organizations, charities and private sector organizations from the Global North” (Lindsey, & Banda, 2010, p. 91) • Locally based non-governmental organizations and national governments from the Global South • Sheer complexity of the policy processes • Initiativitis?

11. Millennium Development Goals • Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): • Address global poverty • Health issues, inc. HIV/AIDS • Universal primary education • Promoting gender equality • Environmental sustainability • Commitment to achieving these goals by 2015! • Sport considered to have many contributions for the MDGs “especially in policy areas where young people are a primary target” (Kay, 2011, p. 281)

12. UN: Sustainable Development Goals • Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) replaced the MDGs in 2015 • “They seek to build on the Millennium Development Goals and complete what they did not achieve” (UN, 2015, p. 4) • Targets are to be achieved by 2030!

13. Group Task • Where does your organisation EVIDENCE these ‘goals’?

14. UN: Sustainable Development Goals • “Sport is also an important enabler of sustainable development. • We recognize the growing contribution of sport to the realization of development and peace in its promotion of tolerance and respect and the contributions it makes to the empowerment of women and of young people, individuals and communities as well as to health, education and social inclusion objectives” (UNOSDP, 2015, p. 13) • “While doing so, it however discerns between the SDGs where greater evidence and practice with regard to the contributions of sport were identified …and those SDGs where sport has a more limited or indirect potential” (UNOSDP, 2015, p. 1)

15. UN: Sustainable Development Goals? • In April 2017, United Nations Secretary-General AntónioGuterres announced the closure of the UNOSDPand a new partnership between the UN and the International Olympic Committee • “This will strengthen the position of sport even more in society and will help sport to fulfil its role as ‘an important enabler of sustainable development’, as outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals”(Thomas Bach, President of the IOC, 2017) • “Whether the IOC can encourage policy development for SDP may be more doubtful, given that their key relationships are with sporting bodies rather than governments” (Lindsey, 2017)

16. IOC and SFD • London 2012 announced “The International Inspiration program was launched in 2008 with a view to extending the notion of a participation legacy in a range of developing and emerging countries … • The principle behind the campaign was … to “reach young people all around the world and connect them to the inspirational power of the Games so they are inspired to choose sport” (quoted in UK Sport 2014)” (Bloyce, 2019, p. 343) • “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity” (Olympic Charter) • “Sport is not just physical activity; it promotes health and helps prevent, or even cure, the diseases of modern civilization. • It also is an educational tool which fosters cognitive development; teaches social behaviour; and helps to integrate communities” (Bach, 2017)

17. Bottom-up-development also • “Many bottom-up sport-in-development initiatives existed prior to the recent United Nations interest” (Coalter, 2009, p. 57) • “Many in-country partners, from governmental to community level, have recognized the opportunity to obtain funding through sport-related programmes and have become experienced and skilled in doing so” (Kay, 2012, p. 890) • “Complexity of the community and organizational context as well as the diversity of sport-for-development aims and approaches” (Lindsey, & Grattan, 2012, p. 107) • Too many cooks spoil the broth? • Where is the EVIDENCE? • Partners in YOUR organisations?

18. GROUP TASK • Where is the EVIDENCE? • How do your organizations claim to use evidence? • Where does this evidence ‘come’ from?

19. Problems with the methods • “While many SFD programmes claim significant impact on society, • in many cases, the sport programmes are poorly planned • and do not provide scientific evidence about their effectiveness” (Lyras & Welty Peachey, 2011, p. 311) • “It would appear that some funders commission SFD projects merely to demonstrate evidence of action • without really showing much interest in the outcomes and impacts of the programmes they sponsor” (Harris & Adams, 2015, p. 99) – good illustration of take-offs not landings

20. Problems with the methods • “As a result of over-ambitious aspirations and a lack of attention to how change is realised, performance indicators (PIs) are often • badly designed • lack validity and reliability (Taylor, 2009) • and saddle programme implementers with a need to demonstrate successful programme outcomes on the basis of slim evidence” (Harris & Adams, 2015, p. 99) • “When development is reduced to fitting things on blue squares, then we create more problems than we claim to solve. • When these tools begin to imprison and consume all our energies, where will we get the extra energy to do real work?” (Win, 2004, cited in Kay, 2012, p. 900)

21. Group task • How are the ‘goals’ for YOUR organisation measured? • What type of goals do they set? • Do they set any?

22. Problems with the researchers • “92% of researchers were from North America, Europe, and Australia” (Schulenkorf, Sherry & Rowe, 2016, p. 34) • “Reliance on Global North researchers to undertake research in Global South countries therefore greatly restricts the scope, intensity and duration of empirical research” (Kay, 2012, p. 892) • “Global North development policies and organisations have propensities to universalise issues faced by certain groups or communities • resulting in overly simplified one-size-fits-all recommendations on how to make sense and thus resolve such issues” (Mwaanga & Prince, 2016, p. 589) • What do you think is the problem of treating ALL SPD ‘issues’ in the same way?

23. Problems with the researchers • “The central issue is that we do not know if sport ‘works’; the assumed corollaries are that (i) we need to know and (ii) that we can know” (Kay, 2012, p. 890) • “The dominance of evangelical beliefs and interest groups, who tend to view research in terms of affirmation of their beliefs, is restricting conceptual and methodological development of policy and practice” (Coalter, 2015, p. 19) • “Such lack of systematic evidence is ignored in the rather mythopoeic world of the sports evangelists, often fuelled by elite sports people who clearly have benefitted from sport, but who are unrealistic role models for the vast majority of participants in sport-for-development programmes” (Coalter, 2010, p. 309)

24. Why sport? True Believers • “The supposed efficacy of sport has been strengthened by being regarded as a ‘neutral’ social space where all citizens, or so-called ‘sports people’, met as equals” (Coalter, 2010, p. 296) • “Some perceive sport as a ‘pure’, non-political vehicle; it has the ability to send out messages in a value-neutral manner …[also] a belief that mainstream development strategies have failed and alternative vehicles are required” (Levermore, 2011, p.287) • “Among a range of social, moral and sports evangelists, sport had (and retains) a mythopoeic status” (Coalter, 2010, p. 296)

25. Neo-colonialism? • RUGBY in certain ASIAN countries? WHY? What are the objectives? • Concerns that some SDP programmes have “colonizing tendencies in SDP initiatives” (Darnell, & Hayhurst, 2011, p. 183) • Negative consequences resulting from such a “helicopter approach” can be significant, particularly regarding community support, empowerment, and ownership, as well as the wider sustainability of projects” (Schulenkorf, Sherry & Rowe, 2016, p. 34) • David Lammy (British MP) critique of the ‘white saviour’ charitable approach • OXFAM problems in Haiti

26. Motivations? • Some concern “that the motives of those who engage in sport for development are not always as altruistic as the publicity surrounding their stated aims suggest” (Levermore, 2011, p.302) • Secure ‘votes’e.g…. • Blatter’s Presidency of FIFA (Levermore, 2011) • London’s 2012 Olympic bid (Coalter, 2013) • ‘Brand’ development, e.g…. • food, soft drinks companies and sports-goods companies • Tobacco – British American Tobacco gave free cigarettes away at sport event in Nigeria (Levermore, 2011)

27. Money in good hands? • Other concerns that “are untrustworthy, unaccountable and fail to undertake objective and transparent evaluation of the schemes” (Levermore, 2011, p. 303) • “Understandable that aid-dependent, often marginally viable and volunteer-based NGOs make inflated promises … to obtain funding” (Coalter, 2010, p. 308) • Examine the focus ONLY on positive evidence within YOUR organisations!

28. Reductionist view of SFD • “SFD researchers and practitioners should avoid being ignorant and reductionist by overlooking the complexity of social challenges such as conflict, homelessness and poverty, • since such challenges are constructed and reproduced by social, societal, political, institutional and societal factors and conditions” (Lyras & Welty Peachey, 2011, p. 324) – importance of understanding CONTEXT in your organizations • “Coakley (1998, p. 2) argues that we need to regard “sports as sites for socialisation experiences, not causes of socialisation outcomes” • and Hartmann (2003, p. 134) argues that “the success of any sports-based social intervention program is largely determined by the strength of its non-sport components” (Coalter, 2015, p. 20)

29. De-reifying sport • “If sport-for-development is to make a contribution to wider processes of development there is a need to ‘de-reify’ the rhetoric of sport-for-development and its implicit view of sport” (Coalter, 2010, p. 295) • “It is clear that participation in certain types of sport may have an impact on some participants’ self-efficacy, self-esteem or broader social skills” (Coalter, 2010, p. 309) • “Even at the level of the individual, the extent to which this will lead to changed behaviour (e.g. safer sex; improved educational performance) and improved real life chances is very difficult to assess, and the limited evidence that exists is not wholly optimistic” (Coalter, 2010, p. 309)

30. Sport can….? • Sport can bond marginalized individuals together, but if they are not linked to community and other resources, sustainable change cannot take place (Coalter, 2007; Sherry, 2010). • In addition, a strong focus on competition in certain settings with highly disenfranchised individuals lacking self-confidence and trust (e.g., individuals suffering from homelessness) can undermine SDP program goals and actually result in harmful effects for participants” (Welty Peachey & Burton, 2017, p. 127)

31. Sports PLUS • “One response to this might be to admit that it is not simple ‘sports participation’ that can hope to achieve such outcomes, but sports plus; • it is not sport that is likely to achieve many of these outcomes, but sporting organizations; • it is not sport that produces and sustains social capital, enters into partnerships and mobilizes resources, but certain types of social organization” (Coalter, 2010, p. 310) • “Rather than seeking simply to assert sport’s almost magical properties, or commission ‘research’ that proves ‘success’ (however defined), what is required is a developmental approach based on the de-reification of ‘sport’, and a concentration on understanding the social processes and mechanisms that might lead to desired outcomes for some participants or some organizations in certain circumstances” (Coalter, 2010, p. 311)

32. Conclusion • “We mount limited-focus programs to cope with broad-gauge problems. • We devote limited resources to long-standing and stubborn problems. • Above all we concentrate attention on changing the attitudes and behaviour of target groups without concomitant attention to the institutional structures and social arrangements that tend to keep them “target groups”” (Weiss, 1993, p. 105) • “It is not so much the inherent qualities of sport that may contribute to potential positive outcomes, but rather, it is the relationships that are built between leaders and program participants that are vital to program efficacy (Coalter, 2013). • Lyrasand Welty Peachey (2011) called this bottom-up programming, where the most effective SDP programs will involve local stakeholders and participants in the design and implementation of the intervention, and that all of this bottom-up work is predicated on establishing trust and a high degree of care between leaders and participants” (Welty Peachey & Burton, 2017, p. 127-8) • Any QUESTIONS?

33. Final Group task • Work on your group presentations • But, now give particular thought to what EVIDENCE could be collected and how • Why would you do this? • Can you find this type of evidence or not?