The social selectivity of certain sports with regard to German migrants theoretical reflections using handball as an example

Abstract

In Germany, sports like football, weightlifting and boxing, practised by many sportsmen and women with a migrant background, stand in stark contrast with sports rarely taken up by the migrant population. Among the latter is handball, undoubtedly the second most popular German team sport after football. This paper addresses the problem of social selectivity in handball with regard to migrants in Germany and aims at identifying possible causes of this lack of participation on the basis of theoretical reflections. In concrete terms, the objective is to develop a theoretical model in which all exclusion mechanisms contributing to the social barriers facing people with a migrant background in handball are collated.

Keywords:

• Exclusion
• sport-specific selectivity
• handball
• migration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We use this term in accordance with the definition of the Federal Statistical Office (Statistisches Bundesamt): ‘People’s migration status is determined by their personal characteristics with regard to immigration, naturalization and nationality, as well as to the corresponding characteristics of their parents. In attesting migration status, a distinction is made between persons with and without a migration background. Since 2005 data on the population with a migration background has been made possible by an extended list of questions in the micro-census. This involves persons who moved to Germany from 1950 onwards; or who were born in Germany with a foreign nationality; or who have at least one parent who moved to Germany from 1950 onwards; or who have at least one parent who was born in Germany with a foreign nationality’ (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2016, 219). On grounds of readability, we largely avoid the bulky phrase ‘person with a migration background’ in the following and – despite the resulting notional imprecision – mostly replace it by the term ‘migrant’.

2 According to the 2012 micro-census, the average number of children of women without a migration background born between 1957 and 1977 amounts to 1.47, while that of women with a migration background is 1.89. Among women born between 1978 and 1997, the average number of children of those without a migration background amounts to 0.34 while the figure for those with a migration background is 0.59 (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2012, 491–492.).

3 The greatest losses have occurred in the D-youth group, i.e. the 11- to 12-year-olds, amounting to 21.1% among the boys and as much as 24.3% among the girls. In certain regions, the losses are even higher: Schleswig-Holstein’s handball federation has recorded losses of almost 30% (DHB statistics published in ‘Handball Inside’ 6/2015).

4 Looking beyond these Germany-based studies at the international state of research on migrant sports participation, there are data to be found on (among other countries) the Netherlands (Elling & Claringbould, 2005; Elling & Knoppers, 2005), Great Britain (Long, Hylton, Spracklen, Ratna, & Hall, 2009; Rowe & Champion, 2000) and the USA (Harrison & Belcher, 2006; Harrison, Lee, & Belcher, 1997; McNulty, Eitle, & Eitle, 2002). In summary, these studies reveal that in the Netherlands and Great Britain, too, people with a migrant background participate less in sport on the whole and are particularly underrepresented in club sports. As in Germany, this is attributable primarily to the fact that fewer female migrants take the step of joining clubs. Looking at analyses focusing on specific sports, one comes across a similar picture in the Netherlands and Great Britain to that found in German sport: i.e. particularly in football and the martial arts there is a larger proportion of migrants. In the case of studies conducted in the United States, which on account of the country’s history focus on the differences in sports participation between white and black Americans, it is revealed that black adolescents are underrepresented in most sports, the only exceptions being American football and basketball. In the case of the latter, there is a distinct overrepresentation of black adolescents.

5 Things would be completely different, for example, with sports like golf, sailing, tennis, skiing or hockey since one may assume that few migrants in Germany would possess the necessary financial, cultural and social capital to take up these sports.

6 With regard to the term ‘exclusion by others’, we would like to emphasize that this does not refer primarily to the influence of concrete persons but to the exclusionary effect of specific communications structures.

7 We refer here directly to the referential plane of the organization since, from the point of view of differentiation theory, exclusion in modern society is only possible at the level of the organization while social functional systems are characterized by the principle of equal access for all: ‘Functional systems treat inclusion, i.e. access for all, as the norm. For organizations the opposite is true: they exclude all but the most highly selected members. This difference is itself functionally important since only with the help of internally constituted organizations can functional systems regulate their own openness for all and treat people differently although they all have the same access’ (Luhmann, 1997, 844).

8 Quite apart from making decisions for or against participating in a communication context, there is always the possibility, fourthly, that certain people are not even aware of a particular communication context, which inevitably leads to their exclusion.

9 This offers a further comparison with football, which is not suited in the same way to symbolizing belonging. For migrants, this means that joining a football club does not jeopardize their affinity to their own migrant group in the same way as joining a handball club.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carmen Borggrefe

Carmen Borggrefe (corresponding author) is the Professor of Sports Sociology at the University of Stuttgart. Her main interests concern the sociology of elite sports and sports organizations. She has pursued research projects on ‘Dual Careers’, ‘Coach-Athlete-Communication in Elite Sports’ and ‘Inclusion and Exclusion of Migrants in Sports’.

Klaus Cachay

Klaus Cachay is Professor emeritus at the University of Bielefeld. His main research interest are in the sociology of elite sports, sociological analysis of sports organizations and system theoretical approaches to sports.