‘We’d like to eat bread too, not grass’: Exploring the structural approaches of community sport practitioners in Flanders

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, practices have emerged that combine sport-based and social work strategies with the objective to tackle social problems through the use of sport as a tool. This article focuses on community sport as a particular practice due to its unique structural potential in combatting social inequality. However, it is still unknown how this potential translates into the daily approaches of community sport practitioners. In order to bridge this empirical gap, an analytical framework of two distinctive strategies of structural work (inside-out and outside-in) is constructed as a lens to investigate the structural approaches of community sport practitioners. Drawing upon a qualitative case study in Flanders, Belgium, the findings highlight the need for developing holistic approaches to structural work within sport-based social interventions in general and in the practice of community sport in particular. The authors reflect on the impact of the emergence of sport-based social interventions with regard to the core business of social work of promoting social justice.

ABSTRACT

De voorbije decennia hebben zich sociaal-sportieve praktijken ontwikkeld die sport- en sociaal werk-strategieën combineren met als doel het bestrijden van sociale problemen door het gebruik van sport als een instrument. Dit artikel focust op buurtsport als een specifieke praktijk omwille van het unieke structureel potentieel van deze praktijk in het bestrijden van sociale ongelijkheid. Niettegenstaande dit schijnbaar structureel potentieel is er nog maar weinig geweten over hoe dit potentieel zich vertaalt in het alledaagse handelen van buurtsportwerkers. Om tegemoet te komen aan deze lacune, construeren we een analytisch referentiekader waarbinnen we twee strategieën van structureel werk onderscheiden (‘van binnen naar buiten’ en ‘van buiten naar binnen’) en dat als lens dient om het structureel handelen van buursportwerkers te onderzoeken. Vetrekkende van een kwalitatieve case studie in Vlaanderen, benadrukken de bevindingen de nood aan het ontwikkelen van een geïntegreerde benadering van structureel werken binnen sociaal-sportieve praktijken in het algemeen en meer specifiek binnen buurtsport. Verder reflecteren de auteurs op de impact van de opkomst van dergelijke praktijken op de kernopdracht van het sociaal werk in termen van het promoten van sociale rechtvaardigheid.

KEYWORDS:

• Community sport
• sport-based social interventions
• structural work
• social justice

KERNWOORDEN:

• Buurtsport
• sociaal-sportieve praktijken
• structureel werk
• sociale rechtvaardigheid

Acknowledgements

This article is part of the SBO-IWT project ‘CATCH’ (Community sport for AT-risk youth: innovative strategies for promoting personal development, health and social CoHesion), carried out by Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) research group Sport and Society, and the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care and the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, Ghent University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by VLAIO, the Flemish Government Agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship [project no. IWT 150060].

Notes on contributors

Shana Sabbe

Shana Sabbe is a PhD student at the Department of Social Work as Social Pedagogy at Ghent University (Belgium). She is a researcher on the SBO-IWT project CATCH (Community Sport for AT-risk youth: innovative strategies for promoting personal development, health and social CoHesion).

Lieve Bradt

Lieve Bradt is professor of Social Pedagogy at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University. She is coordinator of the Youth Research Platform, an interuniversity and interdisciplinary policy research centre subsidised by the Flemish government. She is co-supervisor of the SBO-IWT project CATCH.

Ramón Spaaij

Ramón Spaaij is professor in the Institute for Health and Sport at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He also holds a Special Chair of Sociology of Sport in the Department of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. His books include the Palgrave International Handbook of Football and Politics (2018), Sport and Social Exclusion in Global Society (2014) and Sport and Social Mobility: Crossing Boundaries (2011).

Rudi Roose

Rudi Roose is professor of Social Work at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University (Belgium). He is chairman of The International Social Work & Society Academy. He is associate editor of the European Journal of Social Work and member of the editorial board of Child & Family Social Work. He is supervisor of the SBO-IWT project CATCH.