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"This review examines the influence of 'family' on sports participation. The review is one of nine commissioned by Sport England in 2003 to inform the development of a new 'Framework for Community Sport in England'. Together the reviews aim to explore the changing social, cultural and economic trends that will impact on sport in the next 10-15 years, and identify the implications of these for the drive to increase and widen sports participation.
The focus on 'the family' in this review is the first time that family influences on sport have been addressed in detail in relation to mass participation. Although many aspects of 'family' have been investigated by sports researchers over the years, little of the work undertaken to date has been specifically concerned with the implications for participation policy. This partly reflects the disciplinary origins of this research. Much of it has originated from sports psychology, and although the importance of structural changes in families has sometimes been acknowledged as the context for such research, individual studies have not been primarily concerned with making links to broader social trends. In the sociology of sport, where more attention would usually be paid to social context, 'family' as a whole simply has not featured very prominently. Something similar can be said of sports policy analysis, where social policy material relevant to sport has not attracted the attention of sports researchers.
Sports research into 'family' carried out to date has therefore made a substantial contribution to understanding of how family and sport interact as part of the social process, but has been less helpful in providing specific guidelines for how policy and practice might address the changing nature of contemporary family life.
This review addresses this issue, focussing primarily on the impact of family on the participation of children, but highlighting where appropriate other aspects of family influence." Tess Kay
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