The relevance of migration background for volunteer engagement in organised sport

Abstract

The article deals with the question of whether and in what respect the migration background is a relevant variable on voluntary engagement as well as the access to leadership positions in organised sport. The database used for the analysis is the ‘4th wave of the German Voluntary Survey 2014’. For the analysis, a sub-sample was generated, which performs voluntary work in sport (n = 4,419). In addition, the group of migrants within this sub-sample was divided into four more specific groups, using `immigration experiencè and `German citizenship´ as the distinguishing characteristics. Bivariate analyses show that people with a migration background have a lower rate of voluntary engagement and that they are also less likely to have a leadership function in voluntary sports clubs (VSCs). However, a more differentiated analysis reveals that the group of migrants is by no means homogeneous: Migrants who were born in Germany and have German citizenship show the highest level of voluntary engagement in sports among migrants in general. Multiple regression analyses indicate that the differences between the migrant groups with regard to volunteering in organised sport remain largely stable even if other individual resources are considered. Subsequently, migration-specific characteristics such as immigration experience and German citizenship contribute to the forecast of volunteering in sports.

Keywords:

• Volunteering
• organised sports
• leadership function
• migration background

Notes

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Esser (2009) fundamentally distinguished four dimensions of integration: culturation, placement, interaction, and identification. Culturation implies the acquisition of knowledge and cultural techniques that are necessary for meaningful actions within the society. Placement includes access to and adoption of positions and rights within certain societal structures. Interaction describes the embeddedness in functioning (interethnic) social relations in the private realm, participation in public and political life, and the development of social acceptance. Identification refers to the subjectively perceived sense of belonging and emotional attachment to the receiving society.

2 At the same time, it should be noted that volunteering cannot be considered as the sole yardstick for integration into sports. Even people who do not volunteer can be well integrated, regardless of whether or not they have a migration background (Adler-Zwahlen et al., 2018).

3 Existing findings reveal there are differences in VSC participation. Migrants from Western and Northern Europe are more frequently members of a VSC than migrants from the Balkans/Turkey/Eastern Europe (Lamprecht et al., 2014), however gender specific differences have to be regarded (Mutz & Burrmann, 2015).

4 Acculturation refers to processes of cultural adaptation triggered by continual contact with a previously unknown culture (in general Redfield et al., 1936). Acculturation is thus directly connected to the integration dimension of culture.

5 Even though the survey has been repeated regularly since 1999, it is not designed as a panel survey. Since only pooled cross sectional data is available, longitudinal analyses are not feasible (only cohort comparisons).

6 1 = Primary education and lower secondary education, 2 = Upper secondary education – general, upper secondary education – vocational, and post-secondary non-tertiary education – general, 3 = First stage of tertiary education – general, first stage of tertiary education – vocational and second stage of tertiary education (Kausmann et al., 2016; UNESCO, 1997).

7 Since none of the interaction terms is significant, they are only included in the blockwise model (see appendix).

8 Nevertheless, they are indicated in the models to ensure completeness.

9 Bivariate analyses of the distribution values show a difference between males and females of just 1.7% in the case of persons with migration background, while for persons without a migration background this figure stands at 12.9%.