Coalter F, Allison M, Taylor J. (2000). The role of sport in regenerating deprived areas. Edinburgh: SECRU

download this document

 size: 286kb   pages: 104

The role of sport in regenerating deprived areas

description

This document is from the Centre for Leisure Research at Edinburgh University produced for the Scottish Executive Central Research Unit. Typical of the Centres' work, this document demonstrates strong academic content of value to academics, professionals and students:

Chapters include;

• Sports and their dimensions
• Sport and Health
• Sport and Crime
• Sport and Education
• Sport and Employment
• Community volunteering
• Sport and minority ethnic groups
• The environmental value of sport

This project had two principal components. Firstly, an extensive literature review of published and unpublished literature [2000] on the potential contribution of sports to physical and mental health, reducing crime, improving educational performance, providing employment, contributing to volunteering and community development, environmental improvements and issues relating to minority ethnic groups. Secondly, ten case studies were undertaken of a variety of sports-related initiatives in Scotland to explore the extent to which outcomes had been defined, monitored and achieved, the lessons learned, innovative ideas and best practice potential for development.

The literature review and case studies illustrated a widespread understanding of the strong theoretical arguments for the potentially positive contribution which sports can make to a range of social issues. However, it was found that there was a lack of systematic monitoring and evaluation of the outcomes of sport or physical activity-based projects (with a widespread reliance on output measures). This is explained by the complexity of defining and measuring outcomes, the short term nature of many projects, a lack of expertise and limited funding. The researchers suggest that there is need for a better understanding of the relationship between necessary conditions (ie participation in sport) and sufficient conditions (the conditions under which the potential outcomes are achieved and maintained).

related

The methodology of this study is reviewed in Brown A,. Massey J,. (2001) - extract as follows;

"The study carried out by The Scottish Executive (2000) initially conducted a literature search and then carried out ten case studies. The case studies were chosen to reflect a wide range of issues and fell into three broad categories which were:

• individual sports based initiatives which addressed specific issues within deprived areas;
• projects which aimed to use increased participation in sport for the purposes of community development; and
• initiatives which used sport as one component of a wider set of initiatives to address social deprivation.

Information was collected b y analysing relevant documents such as grant aid applications, strategies and annual reports. In-depth face-to-face interviews were carried out with the relevant personnel from projects and group discussions and individual interviews were completed with participants in the majority of the projects. In one project a telephone survey was also undertaken. The case studies were used to inform generic practice, rather than criticise specific practice."