Sport-based interventions’ – A tool for suburban social integration?

ABSTRACT

This article is about sport-based interventions as tools for social integration in segregated suburban areas. On the basis of a former research study of Midnight Football in a Swedish mid-size city, we discuss the potential of such activities to contribute to social integration in a broad sense. With established sociological concepts such as social capital, networks, and bonds as points of departure, we discuss the capacity of Midnight Football to contribute to social integration by being a link and a unifying force in the local community as well as a bridge-builder in relation to the surrounding society. Our main argument is that sport-based activities definitely have an important potential here. Locally, it can create fruitful relations and bonds between people belonging to sub-groups of different ethnic origin, religion, and culture, enhancing social density among citizens in a suburb. However, such a density can only be created by the help of other local actors. Further, if it is not combined with active efforts to build relations with the surrounding society at the same time it may be at risk of having effects of isolation, in terms of ‘us vs. them’ feelings towards the outer society. Therefore, a developed engagement from actors outside the suburb is pivotal. Such engagement cannot be developed by the sports movement and other voluntary organizations alone. It demands a return and re-establishment of public representatives and activities in the local community, activities aimed at working long term with building social capital among residents of the local community.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport-based interventions
• segregated areas

Introduction

In Sweden, how to defeat criminality and growing violence in segregated areas has been on top of the agenda of public debate for quite some time. The concrete results of this debate are usually initiatives by politicians concerning repressive measures (more police, more surveillance, longer sentences etc.). To this, they often add a need for long-term preventive measures for social integration and positive alternatives to criminal careers especially for youngsters growing up in these areas. However, on this point, they are far more abstract and diffuse. This calls for the need of developing the discussion about which methods and social activities that are effective. In this article, we will discuss the potential of one such type of activity – sports-based interventions.

Several authors have studied the potential of sports-based interventions as a tool for personal development, social integration, and crime prevention among youth living under problematic conditions (cf., Dahlstedt and Ekholm 2018; Ekholm 2016; Haudenhuyse, Theeboom, and Coalter 2012). This article is based on such a study. In 2019, we evaluated interventions in two suburbs of a Swedish municipality under the Midnight Football (MF) framework (Höglund 2019). MF is an example of a nation-wide, sport-based intervention in Sweden. It is organized by a non-profit foundation striving to activate local sports clubs for organizing and running sport-based interventions for youth. MF aims to promote inclusion and integration and to prevent ill-health and criminal behaviour of youth by offering sport-related activities under the supervision of leaders during weekend evenings. The MF-project in the municipality we studied is one of the first, and most established, in Sweden.

Our previous research concerned MF and crime-prevention, focusing on participants and the activities as such. In this article, we want to take the discussion further and discuss MF’s capacity to contribute to social integration and crime prevention in a broader sense, i.e. as a link and a unifying force contributing to social solidarity in the local community as well as in relation to the surrounding society. This will be done by drawing on Putnam’s (2000, 1992) approach to the development of social capital via bonding and bridging.

The article is disposed as follows. After a brief review of research about sport-based interventions, we will outline the theoretical framework used in our analysis. Following this is a methods section before we draw up some important facts about the Swedish context, and specifically about the suburb in focus. Finally, we present our results followed by a conclusive discussion.

Research on sport-based interventions

Sport-activities as a tool for social inclusion, personal development, and crime prevention for youth living under problematic conditions have been highlighted in terms of challenges and benefits (see e.g. Höglund 2019; Beutler 2008; Haudenhuyse, Theeboom, and Coalter 2012). With an aim of creating meaningful leisure activities and preventing so-called bad behaviour, sport-based projects were used in the US already in the 1980s, such as Midnight Basketball (Hartmann and Depro 2006). Other examples are Football United in Australia (Nathan et al. 2013), and the Barclays Spaces for Sports in the UK (Ramwell et al. 2008). Such initiatives have clearly expanded in later decades (e.g. Dahlstedt and Ekholm 2018; Coalter 2007). Characteristic of these interventions is that they are semi-organized. They have an organizational framework but with a non-existent requirement of participation or membership (Linde 2013). However, studies have also been concerned with limitations for sport to function as a tool for social cohesion, pointing to the need of socio-political measures (cf., Meir and Fletcher 2019).

Sport-based interventions and the way they may contribute to social inclusion of young people have been studied in a variety of ways. Some studies have examined effects through crime statistics (e.g. Hartmann and Depro 2006). Others emphasize social identity and behaviour (e.g. Nathan et al. 2013), and the relationship between leaders and youth (e.g. Coakley 2011; Hartmann 2003). Sport-based interventions have also been the subject of studies concerning social justice (Darnell 2010), social change and social inclusion (e.g. Ekholm 2013, 2018), social mobility and social capital (cf., Morgan 2018; Richardson and Fletcher 2020), discourses on place (Ekholm and Dahlstedt 2020a), and social control and discipline (cf., Kelly 2012; Ekholm and Dahlstedt 2020b). However, while many studies focus on the intervention itself and on the youth group as such, the question of how these activities can contribute to social integration in a broader sense has not received much attention.

Promoting social integration – a theoretical framework

Social integration as a concept encompasses a person’s integration into social life, but also the cohesion of a society. Generally, being integrated can be defined as having a membership in an inclusive community (Kamali 2004). Diaz (1993) defines integration as participation in social and economic fields along with access to communicative platforms in society. On a societal level, such social cohesion must concern the society as a whole. Hence, people must feel inclusion and solidarity with the surrounding society in a broad sense. This demands a reciprocal relationship between the state and the individual through the existence of equal opportunities to take part in social life and society’s resources. Integrative mechanisms might, however, work towards local group cultures, which are antagonistic vis-à-vis the surrounding society. Local groups, e.g. based on culture or ethnicity, may develop a strong inner solidarity in opposition to the surrounding society as a result of experiences of inequality and unfair conditions, or an experienced threat to values about ways of living. However, efforts to improve social bonds between individuals and the state can result in weakened bonds between individuals and groups in the local society (Kamali 2004). Successful social integration must therefore be anchored in local groups and communities.

Social capital is an important concept in relation to social integration. Putnam (2000) defines social capital as ‘social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity’ (p. 18). The value of social networks is embodied in the concept of social capital. Social capital can be both inclusive and exclusionary. Some networks stay connected and reinforce a homogeneous group, i.e. a bonding social capital. Bonding refers to the maintenance of social ties among people who share similar backgrounds, interests, and values – a ‘social superglue’. In contrast, a bridging social capital arises when individuals connect with people through more loose ties and by weaving networks together, creating heterogeneity and possibilities for individuals to obtain broader identities and resources. In cases where homogeneity grows, loyalty within the group can increase. This may lead to contradictions with other individuals and groups outside the network. Bridging on the other hand entails an openness to other actors and networks in the societal context (Putnam 2000). Our interest is whether our case may function as a door opener between institutions and networks horizontally and vertically – a force towards social integration outside the activity as such.

Putnam (2000) holds that social capital is based on four principles. The first is information. The network size and the reciprocity of the network’s relationships decide how information flows and disseminates, affecting the degree of social capital. Secondly, norms of reciprocity. Social capital is facilitated if participation in the network is built on mutual trust and relationships of giving and taking (Putnam 1992). Thirdly, social capital depends on the number and strength of social networks. Oppression of a group may be aggravated if the group lacks social networks and, thereby, also the potential for collective support. Finally, social cohesion and solidarity can be reached through social networks striving for a collective mentality rather than networks stimulating individualistic approaches (Putnam 1992). Thus, individuals with a great number of relationships and strong bonds in various social networks have the best opportunities to obtain resources. Consequently, access to social capital, in terms of, for example, connections that can provide resources, is closely linked to inequality (Cook 2014). The question of what kind of social capital as well as what sum of connections and networks exist locally, is pivotal. Simultaneously, and in prolongation, integration in the surrounding society depends on the character of those local networks, their bonding and bridging abilities vis-à-vis the larger society.

Sports can play a central role for enhancing social capital. According to Putnam (2000), ‘team sports provide good venues for social capital creation’ (p. 411) as this kind of context generally offers individuals to be part of a heterogeneous group and to ‘transcend our social and political and professional identities’ (p. 411). Regarding social capital and youth sports, possessing a low socio-economic status risks for example leading to a non-sufficient social capital to go professional (Collins 2010). However, according to Richardson and Fletcher (2020), community sports initiatives can bring opportunities for youths to increase different forms of social capital, e.g. bonding and bridging, through an expanded peer and professional network. In turn, this can transform into social mobility (ibid.).

Methods¹

This article is based on data from a qualitative evaluation study of MF in two local areas in a mid-size Swedish city. In this article, we will focus on one of these areas,² henceforth called ‘the Suburb’. The study is small scale and draws on an ethnographic approach with participant observations and interviews. An ethnographic approach is fruitful for studying contexts involving relationships and networks (cf., Davies 2002) as it can provide knowledge about behaviours in contexts that are not for the general public (Jorgensen 1989). The first author conducted participant observations in MF-activities in the Suburb during eight sessions for a total of 17.5 hours in 2019. Access was given by a gatekeeper, the MF regional project manager. An observation guide, focusing on the organization of activities, how social relations were manifested and expressed, the role of the leaders, and the physical environment in which the activities took place, was used. Field notes were written regularly during and after observation sessions, and resulted in rich descriptions of the social and physical context. In connection with the observations, low-structured interviews were conducted with leaders and participating youth aged 15 and older in secluded places in the sports facilities. In addition, eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with central actors: the regional project manager, two representatives from sport-clubs, and five public sector representatives (two outreach social workers, two police officers and a youth recreation centre manager). Informed consent was given by all participants. Interviews were used as a comparative means to observations in which respondents were asked matching questions (e.g. to describe how activities generally were organized, how a typical evening/night could look like, and the role of the leaders).

Data were analysed in a step-wise manner by initial coding and development of themes, in order to find and capture recurrent patterns as well as implicit and underlying meanings in relation to our aim and theoretical pre-understanding (cf., Braun and Clarke 2006). The analysis drew on a hermeneutical approach by interpreting and comparing patterns and themes in transcribed data, alternating between parts and wholeness as well as pre-understanding and understanding in a dialectic manner (cf., Ödman 2017). Prior to the work on the present article, both authors did a re-reading of data based on the concepts of social capital, bonding, and bridging, resulting in three overarching themes: youth and leaders, local civil society, and the public sector.

The context

Swedish public and civic resources to fight segregation

Sweden has a long tradition of interest organizations – organizing people to gain collective strength in struggling for better conditions in social life. Not only a strong unionization, a nation-wide organization for residents, workers’ organizations for education and learning, religious organizations, but also sports organizations have been driving forces in the shaping of the welfare state (c.f., Johansson 1980). The Swedish welfare model was built upon a collaboration between the state and its experts on the one hand, and the engagement of these autonomous interest organizations built on collective engagement of individual members on the other (c.f., Åmark 2005). Paradoxically, struggles for better conditions led to these being established as citizens’ rights for experts to handle. To some extent, this deprived the interest organizations of central tasks. Together with individualization and the bureaucratization of these organizations, a decreased engagement of rank-and-file members can be discerned. Most people nowadays engage in other things than solidaric struggles for social rights (c.f., SOU 2016:13; Putnam 2000). Especially in segregated suburbs with a multi-ethnic population, traditional Swedish interest organizations are relatively absent today. One explanation is that people with foreign background (other than Western European or North American) often lack experience of this type of organizations (cf., Myrberg 2007). Instead, associations here are often built on ethnic and/or religious grounds (cf., Kings 2011). Additionally, youth in socially disadvantaged suburbs with low socioeconomic status do not tend to participate in organized leisure-time activities (cf., Leversen, Torsheim, and Samdal 2012). However, sports organizations are an exception as almost all children in Sweden start in a sports club. The sport clubs uphold activities locally, are open for anybody, and have connections to regional and national sport associations. The sports movement constitutes one of the most important people’s movement in today’s society (Harding 2012).

What about the presence of the welfare state in segregated suburbs then? As a comparison, in the 70s and 80s the municipality in focus for this article had local social bureaus and outreach social workers in all larger suburbs. Youth recreation centres and local police were also active here. Today, much of this local presence is lost. There are though signs of the return of some social measures of preventive character. Nevertheless, authorities as well as established civic organizations are overall still quite absent in segregated areas.

In the absence of civic and public organizations, new types of non-governmental organizations have emerged. One example is the foundation behind the MF-project. Its aim is to create social inclusion and a meaningful leisure time for youth in local Swedish communities through organized collaboration. However, social measures via sports activities have a longer history in Sweden. An example of a precursor of today’s MF is the Swedish Sports Confederation’s initiative ‘the Sports Lift’ [Idrottslyftet], implemented in 2007. The overall goal of the Sports Lift is to increase participation in sport-clubs among children and youth aged 7–25, but also to expand the sports movement’s role as a social actor. Included in this initiative was the intervention Drive in-sports (Elvhage and Linde 2012). One of the locations where this was initiated was in the municipality in focus for this study.

The suburb

As mentioned, this article is based on a previous evaluation study of MF in two local areas. ‘The Suburb’ is an example of a bottom-up creation of the MF-project, which started over 10 years ago by idealistic individual local actors. Today it is very much rooted in the local community. In contrast, the MF in the other local areas we studied is new and based on a top-down initiative. It takes place in an activity centre closer to the city centre and was created in the framework of an established network of sports and educational organizations with financial support from the municipality. Due to the aim of this article, the latter case is of less interest as it is newly started and not rooted locally. In addition, the area is not classified as ‘especially vulnerable’.

‘The Suburb’ is a multi-ethnic, geographically isolated area some five kilometres from the city centre. In 2020, the population consisted of 7341 individuals, of which nearly 86% had a foreign background (e.g. Balkan, Middle East, Somalia and Afghanistan) (Örebro kommuns statististikdatabas 2021a). In total, 29,5% of the adults were registered as unemployed in 2020 (Örebro kommuns statististikdatabas 2021b). About 40% of the age group 20–25 had graduated senior high school (Statistics Sweden 2018). Since 2011, different municipal initiatives has been made for creating better living conditions. In spite of this the Suburb has since 2014 been classified by the police as ‘especially vulnerable’.

As mentioned, this suburb is one of the first where the MF-project was initiated by engaged local individuals around 2010. At the time for data collection, mainly two sport-clubs were involved, responsible for activities during Friday and Saturday evenings. One was in charge of basketball between 19:00 and 21:00, while the other offered football between 18:00 and 23:30. The basketball activity is mainly for youth aged 13–16, and the football activity is for those 16 years and older. Girls are mostly in majority at the basketball activity, while boys dominate the football activity. Two separate sports facilities are used for the activities, both close to each other and to the local schoolyard and youth recreation centre. The schoolyard and the youth recreation centre are central gathering points for youngsters in the local area, with only a short walking distance to the local shopping centre.

Results

Results will be presented in three subsections, focusing on youth and leaders, local civil society, and public sector. All seen from a perspective of social integration and social capital.

Bonding and bridging in the activity – social capital on group level

The two groups in focus here are participating youth and leaders. Over a hundred youths can participate in the basketball and football activities during a single evening. The participating group is quite mixed, although almost all locally rooted in the suburb. A driving force for attending is sport interest, and many are active in established sport clubs. Some seem to come on their own initiative. Some youths participate regularly while others show up more infrequent. However, social network and group affiliation is an important incentive for participation:

I have a friend who I asked if he was coming and he said no because he had football practice, so I came with another friend. He came to my house and asked if I wanted to join and I said ‘okay, let’s do it’. So, eventually I came here (Boy, aged 16).

During our research, it became obvious that the attraction of participance – besides exercising sport – is the opportunity of social interaction with friends as well as getting to know other youths one do not normally fraternize with. It is about maintaining existing relations (bonding) but also developing new ones (bridging).

Youth and leaders interact in different ways during MF-activities. Leaders state that it is a challenge to learn all the names and to get to know everyone. However, many leaders and youths already know each other or are acquainted through various kinds of pre-existing social bonds. Leaders’ role here is to go in front, open up and create an environment stimulating social integration. They create bonds encompassing youths from different groups, a broader new level of social capital. Relationships and social bonds between leaders and youths are of great importance. A participating youth expresses how important it is to have social relations with the leaders: ‘I know all those who are leaders. It’s fun to have them, to have someone who knows us’ (Boy, aged 18). The fact that leaders are recruited locally is probably vital for acting role models. Some of them have even started their engagement as attendants of the activity. Additionally, their knowledge, their relations, and anchoring in the local community help them develop and maintain social relations with attending youth also outside the sports activities. However, as homogenous groups can lead to networks with inward looking and exclusive groups and identities (Putnam 2000), the usage of local leaders may have a backside. If more leaders came from social networks outside the local community, this could stimulate bridging, creating social capital encompassing bonds outside the suburb. In order to stimulate such a development, MF sometimes arranges activities with MF-projects in other suburbs. One example of activities that goes beyond local connection is the so-called Summer Football, i.e. activities arranged during summer holidays, which creates possibilities for developing relations with youths from other areas.

MF and civil society actors in the local community

MF can be described as being part of a social landscape in the Suburb. Three types of actors are of interest here: ordinary people/adults/parents, interest groups/organizations, and public institutions. The first two will be discussed in this section, the latter in the next. As was previously argued, leaders and their sports-clubs play a central role. Leaders represent local sport-clubs, which get financial support for being active as well as opportunities to recruit new members:

We entice the sport-clubs to join, by money. And the sport-clubs have learned that ‘if we’re good at this, we will earn quite a lot of money and at the same time get education and development’ (Regional project manager)

These incentives make it important for the clubs to get involved in MF and, hopefully, also to be careful about which members they choose as leaders to represent the club and become role models. However, there is always a risk that motives for individual members to become leaders are built more on economic pressure from their club to raise money and recruit members, than genuine interest in the activity as such. The regional MF project manager here stresses the need of close follow-up.

The local leadership consists of two subnetworks, which is one around the sport club responsible for basketball, and one around the club responsible for football. Usually, they have no cooperation during activities. However, they have regular meetings together with the regional manager in order to be updated and plan upcoming activities. The representatives also keep close contact outside of these meetings, e.g. regarding material resources or lending leaders from each other: ‘We call each other if needed and the like, if they need help from us or if we need help from them. We call each other a lot’ (Sports-club representative). The degree of social capital here depends, among other things, by the information flow between the social networks and the norms for reciprocity and dependence on relationships (Putnam 2000). The role of leaders and their sport clubs opens up for bridging between locally existing sub-networks. In these relationships and cooperation between the networks, trust and confidence can grow as opportunities to increase resources and social capital exists (cf., Putnam 2000). In this way, social cohesion is facilitated within the local community.

Besides sport clubs, other civil society cornerstones are parents’ and local interest organizations (cultural or religious). However, we have not been able to identify any involvement from these. Parents sometimes communicate with leaders on the phone as to the younger children aged 15 and under but are generally absent during activities. Leaders explain that parents trust that the children are in safe hands. Parents may not know the leaders in person, but they know that there are adults present looking after their children. The social situation and living conditions in the Suburb are connected with the degree of parent involvement in activities such as the MF-project. A sports-club leader describes:

There are youths who only come home if they’re going to sleep or eat. They don’t want to go home because it’s chaos there./…/They don’t have it easy. And then one meets the mother and then she starts to cry immediately, because she doesn’t have it easy either. Sometimes it is fathers who cry. So, everyone needs help sometimes.

The manager of the youth recreation centre in the area states that:

… politicians usually talk about overcrowding but what do they do?/…/There are young people who, it’s like they don’t feel at home in their own home. If it was me who shared a room with seven people … no TV, no sofa, only mattresses.

From a youth perspective, different notions of parents’ views on the MF can be found. A girl, aged 16, describes her parent’s view on her participation in the MF-project:

My parents think it’s great as long as I’m not, like … this is pretty good instead of me being out and doing other things like, yeah, other things that are bad.

A similar, yet different, description comes from a boy, aged 16:

They think it is good because then I don’t stay at home all the time. Like for example today and yesterday so … I wasn’t at home as much as the year before last. Back then I was always at home and maybe watched some movie but this year and last year I came here and played and hung out with friends.

Youths as well as leaders testify that the social conditions of families in the local community are hindrances for adults to be involved in the MF. MF-activities seem to function as aiding parents with looking after their children. As a result, parents can withdraw.

Trust within and between social networks is vital for collaboration, as this postulates reciprocity and the practice of giving and taking, which in turn imply a high degree of social capital. Individuals with various connections in social networks have greater possibilities to obtain resources and to be productive (Putnam 1992). Although no visible collaboration or contact from parents can be found, parents seem to have trust in the MF and its leaders. The reciprocity might lie in that parents allow or encourage their children to take part in the activities. Parents seem to use the MF as a resource in order to handle difficulties in other areas, such as the home. This may have some positive effects in a family. However, that such a central group is not connected to the MF also entails an absence of relations and information flows between leaders and parents. This lack of contact hinders an expansion of social capital as parents and leaders do not receive or provide information and connections that could be useful for everybody (cf., Putnam 1992). Here lies a missed opportunity to enhance social capital and stimulate local social integration.

An exception to the lack of adult engagement is the community night patrol group, consisting of parents and other adults from the neighbourhood:

It’s fathers and mothers and most youths know that they can come. And these parents also know what families the youths come from. They know where youths live and who their parents are. So, we have parents, this night patrol group, who stand outside to make sure that all children go home. The youths aren’t supposed to gather and talk behind the sport facility because we’ve had complaints from nearby residents (Sport-club representative)

The group plays the role of safe adults preventing youth from anti-social behaviour not only by being at a specific geographical site but also by shaping social relationships. The knowledge of and/or direct personal relations with many of the families and individuals in the local community, in combination with having a purpose to promote collective support and a secure local area, makes the night patrol an important part of the local social landscape. Through their work, both bonding and bridging social capital can be enhanced as they are locally rooted and cooperate with other local organizations and actors (cf., Putnam 2000). However, they are but a few.

MF and public sector actors in the community

What roles do public actors play then? We can speak about three actors/institutions here: the police, the social services, and the youth recreation centre. The latter is pivotal for social integration both locally but also through its role as a municipal institution. The centre has incorporated the MF-activities in their programme, as one among other activity alternatives: ‘We count it as our own activity, not as a competitor. What counts is how many youths we reach, regardless of if it’s via MF or here’ (youth recreation centre manager). The cooperation between the centre and the MF is, among other things, based upon already established relations between representatives from sports clubs and centre staff. This, and the physical nearness between different youth activities provide important possibilities for bridging between different youth networks (cf., Putnam 2000). The youth recreation centre also has a close contact with both the police and the social services, i.e. the outreach social workers working in the area. Another important factor to be expected is the school, which lies close to the centre. However, nowadays, this only has pupils up to 12 years of age. Due to discipline problems and declining grades, authorities have decided that teenagers from this suburb shall go to other schools as an integrative measure. The official argument was that this would have a positive effect by building relations with youths from other parts of the municipality.

Another public institution in the local area is the social services. The suburb is the only area in the municipality that has a local social bureau. Independent from the local bureau is the municipality’s group of outreach social workers, who focus on preventive work among youth. However, this group consists of only approximately 10 people, covering large parts of the whole municipality. One main area in which they focus and spend their time is visiting schools, but they also visit the Suburb’s youth recreation centre:

Talking with the youths there, trying to build relationships. One can get a hint of what is going on in the area. If it’s been quiet in the youth recreation centre, okay, are they elsewhere then or … like ‘where do we need to be?’. (Outreach social worker)

From the perspective of the youth recreation centre manager, the outreach social work group is, or should be, important for building relationships. The contact with the youths is, however, a process over time and demands continuation in contacts..

There is a large circulation in the outreach social work group so there are many new who comes. Those who have been working a long time, they come and play card and are cheerful and that’s because they are building relationships. They are not here to check or control them./…/and then after half an hour they say, ‘now we have to go’ (Youth recreation centre manager)

The outreach social workers also cooperate with the local social bureau, the police, and with voluntary organizations, such as the local community patrol group. Although there is an established collaboration and communication between the outreach social workers and public and civil actors in the local community, the contact with the MF seems meagre:

I know that the MF takes place in *the Suburb* and that they offer different kinds of activities for youths./…/I have actually not had the time to go there yet, so I don’t know exactly how it works/…/I can’t say that I’ve heard many youths talk about it, but I have some kind of idea that those who go there might not visit the youth recreation centre (Outreach social worker)

Even if these social workers have close contact with the recreation centre and therefore gets information about the MF, they do not include it in their work. This is somewhat surprising as these sports facilities is only a few minutes walking distance from the youth recreation centre. Overall, it stands clear that the outreach social workers are not in a position to work closely and permanently with youths in the suburb building lasting relations.

The suburb is the only borough in the municipality that has its own local police station with community police officers working specifically in the area. The police use a crime prevention strategy, which include a cooperation with public actors and voluntary organizations. This happens via weekly communication in order to get information about happenings and activities so that eventual needs for interventions can be identified:

Every week we have a communication between the police, municipality, and outreach social workers. And then we see which actors that are active during the weekend, and there we have MF as an item on that list (Municipal police officer)

The police can, thus, provide or receive information about planned MF-activities. However, the responsibility for the communication lies mainly on the MF organizers if a need arises. Nevertheless, the police also have a local cooperation with other actors in the area, where, as mentioned, the youth recreation centre is one example:

The community police officers have very established relations with the youths. When the officers come in, they play table tennis and so on. When the youths see the community police officers, they don’t even see the police but instead it’s like ‘here comes *Name*’ and ‘there is *Name*’. It is a personal contact. When police officers from elsewhere in the city come here, that don’t have that contact./…/When they come to *the Suburb* like, ’now it’s hard against hard that counts’ … even the police have prejudices (Manager youth recreation centre)

There is also an ongoing work in the suburb for creating social capital for collective responsibility, building networks between local forces around crime prevention:

For example, there were problems during closing time of the local centre, and it was a concern. First, we used guards who closed but who had some trouble and then received support from the police. Then we worked with landlords and security hosts from the area who then also became employees at the real estate company. Guards and police did not have to be there after that (Municipal police officer)

In sum, local police work is expected to be both situational and long term in the suburb. The situational strategy is about identifying needs based on intern and extern communication, followed by allocating resources in order to address specific problems. Long-term work is about establishing creative bonds and building networks between different local actors but perhaps primarily with youngsters. However, similar to the outreach social workers, the police seem to underestimate the need for long-term work in relation to MF. For building bonds and mutual trust, there should be a reciprocity in the contact and police showing up not only when there are problems (cf., Putnam 2000).

Conclusive discussion

The MF-project in the suburb studied is an example of a semi-organized sport intervention with many positive connotations for youth in segregated suburban areas (Höglund 2019). In this article, the aim has been to analyse and discuss MF’s capacity to contribute to social integration in a broader sense, i.e. as a link and a unifying force in the local community as well as in relation to the surrounding society. Our point of departure has been that sport-based interventions have the potential to make such important contributions as they provide possibilities for bridging social capital in that individuals can connect with others by more loose ties than with those they normally meet, creating opportunities for different social networks to be linked (cf., Putnam 2000; Richardson and Fletcher 2020). In this way, MF can act as an important piece in the jigsaw puzzle to connect not only youth but also other actors in the local community as well as in society at large. The latter, however, requires developed engagement from both public and voluntary actors (cf., SOU 2020:46). Our results show that there is still much to do as mechanisms of both integration and segregation may be operating in local social networks, thus facilitating mainly bonding social capital rather than a combination of bonding and bridging capital (cf., Putnam 2000). To counter isolation towards the larger society, the latter must be present locally. Sports activities must be followed-up by outwardly directed activities. The MF-project has here a strength as it is based on a will to establish lasting relationships with other actors in the wider sports movement. The connection to established sport-clubs (especially via the MF leaders), match tournaments, and the tight follow-up from the regional sport association constitute positive forces here.

Another challenge is to anchor the activity among local civilians and local associations. In our case, and in line with previous research (Linde 2013), parental involvement was almost non-existent. Parents seem to withdraw when youth participate in these activities. We did not see any signs of engagement from different local associations either (except, of course, the two sport clubs). Although the MF-project is locally rooted and community led, the lack of involvement from local civilians counteracts the facilitating of social integration through horizontal bridge-building between local social networks (cf., Putnam 1992, 2000). To develop initiatives here would be an important step further for MF.

Although police, social services, and other public institutions are locally represented, there seems to be a distancing factor in their contact with the MF-project. They tend to regard these activities not as an opportunity to build relations with participating youths but rather to reduce the need of the public sector, making it possible to concentrate on other things. This is a serious mistake as it may widen the gap to society at large. Further, the strong centralization trend in later decades has meant an overall withdrawal of society and its representatives from local communities. While we see some signs of return of society in the Suburb today, this seems to be mostly about reactive and repressive measures. In this ‘vulnerable area’, social workers are still quite absent when it comes to preventive work among youth. There are no outreach social workers working solely in the area, building long-term relationships with youth (cf., Bruhn and Källström 2018). Furthermore, the local school – with adults that know and have social relations with youngsters aged 13 and up – is gone. Now, there is only the youth recreation centre. What is needed are stable and continuous efforts, public actors working locally establishing good relations and local know-how. MF cannot compensate for the lack of these vertical bonds, but it can be an important partner for building bridges.

Locally anchored leaders functioning as positive role models living and being present on a daily basis in the local area may have a tremendous impact on social relations in the local community. In our case, we saw several examples of this. During data collection, it became obvious that a few individuals have played very important roles for the local MF and that many of the activities depend on this strong commitment. These individuals are ‘driving-spirits’ (cf., Svensson, Jakobsson, and Åberg 2001), i.e. particularly committed individuals with an extra ambition. They possess special social capital, central for communication within and between social networks. However, they need contextual support (Brännberg 1996). Otherwise, there is always the danger that activities become too dependent on these people and the entire business may fall apart if a central person disappears. The need of support for these driving spirits underpins the role of MF and the different sport clubs involved, but also other actors – civil as well as public.

In close relation to social integration and social capital, there is social trust (see e.g. Rothstein 2018; Putnam 2000). Social trust encompasses confidence in the larger society but also in various sectors of society. MF can have a vital role in creating social trust by its aim of developing social relationships and connections in the field of sports between individuals, groups, and other actors, locally as well as in the surrounding society. In a society with growing class division and fear of immigrants and ‘foreigners’, this is extremely important. Opportunities for social integration to society at large, and access to a higher degree of social capital goes far beyond sport-based interventions. It calls for the need of socio-political measures (see, e.g. Meir and Fletcher 2019). The work of social workers, police officers, and other public actors is essential for supporting initiatives of different voluntary actors, such as the MF. It is important that public actors stimulate and take care of the potential of such voluntary actors as they provide a vital arena for developing social networks where mutual trust and relationships can grow and exist, and thus strengthen social bonds and cohesion in society (cf., Putnam 1992).

Even though our study is small-scale with results that cannot be regarded as representative, it highlights some central points easily recognizable in other segregated suburban areas. The sports movement have an inherent strength in binding people together and create networks of cooperation and trust. Activities such as MF can concur a true ability to increase social capital among people in the segregated areas and improve social integration in society at large. However, for unleashing the full potential of sport interventions like this one, an enhanced engagement from other actors, i.e. parents, local associations as well as social workers, police officers, schoolteachers, and other representatives of the public sector is needed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The article is based on data from a research project about Midnight Football funded by BRÅ – Brottsförebyggande RÅdet (Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention).

Notes

1. For a more developed description, see Höglund (2019).

2. See section ‘The suburb’ for a motivation of the choice of area.