Social change through an urban sport for development initiative? Investigating critical pedagogy through the voices of young people

ABSTRACT

This article explores the pedagogy of an urban Sport for Development (SfD) initiative in Belgium through the voices of young people. We draw on the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire, and use qualitative research methods (i.e. observations, informal conversations, in-depth interviews and sharing circles) over a three-year period, to analyse the initiative’s actual pedagogical practice with key Freirean concepts (i.e. ‘banking education’, ‘dialogue’ and ‘dialogical action’) and virtues (e.g. respect for people’s knowledge, rejection of discrimination, caring for people). The findings reveal the presence of several Freirean virtues, emerging dialogue and, for some, action thought. Still, the SfD initiative remains at considerable distance from fully-fledged critical pedagogy. The young people in the SfD initiative nonetheless experience it as a space where they can be themselves, feel at home, gain respect, can learn to reflect and form opinions, and are temporarily freed from daily struggles such as discrimination. We discuss several pathways that could foster the capacity to organise and deliver a programme beyond emerging dialogue and action.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport for development
• coaching
• critical pedagogy
• Paulo Freire
• social change
• physical education
• coach education

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the editor and the reviewers for their constructive and valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. We are thankful for the enjoyable collaboration with the players of Antwerp Wolf Pack Basketball Club, head coach Ron Wolfs and the whole Antwerp Wolf Pack team. The first author would also like to thank Tine D’aes, Pieter Debognies, An Nuytiens and Jorge Knijnik for their support, kindness and inspiring feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Zeno Nols http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9758-2286

Reinhard Haudenhuyse http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4405-7992

Ramon Spaaij http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1260-3111

Marc Theeboom http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8055-3307