Around the kitchen-table with Bourdieu: understanding the lack of formalization or professionalization of community sports clubs in New Zealand

Abstract

Community sports clubs are one of the dominant sports delivery mechanisms around the world, yet they have received relatively little attention in the academic literature. This study specifically aims to contribute to the understanding of barriers and resistance to formalization through examining the workings of four small sports clubs in New Zealand. Drawing on a case study approach, we found that the clubs had been reasonably successful, yet still used a traditional ‘kitchen-table’ approach with no or little evidence of formalization and professionalization, which we argue can be explained by Bourdieu’s theory of cultural reproduction. Specifically, we show how the club committee incumbents reproduced a habitus that prized social and symbolic capital over economic and cultural capital. Further, we note that, despite the government agency’s production and dissemination of ‘how to’ materials, there were few incentives or resources for the small clubs to formalize and professionalize within New Zealand.

Keywords:

• Cultural reproduction
• capital
• sports clubs
• formalization
• professionalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We use ‘small sports clubs’ to denote sport organisations that are not-for-profit, volunteer-run, community-based and participation-focussed. It is meant to differentiate from larger sport organisations such as NSOs and RSOs as well as large sports clubs that are capable of hiring professional or paid staff and therefore able to separate the ‘governance’ and ‘management’ roles (authors).