Sport, civil society and social integration: The case of Norwegian voluntary sport organizations

Abstract

Voluntary sport organizations make up the largest part of voluntary sector in many countries. Yet, in light of the renewed social and political interest in civil society, we do not know very much about how sport organizations operate and function. Accordingly, this article addresses the question of how voluntary sport organizations contribute to social integration through differences in community structures. First a theoretical framework making it possible to distinguish between various forms of community structures—strong, weak, mediated and pragmatic communities—is developed. Then, the first empirical part describes how members in sport organizations belong to such various forms of communities. Next, the article explains differences in social integration through social background, variation in participation in sports and various recruitment channels. Finally, the article explores how differences in community structures matters for the experience of sport activity, for organizational democracy and social capital (trust and political interests).

Keywords:

• Sport
• social integration
• civil society
• voluntary organization

Notes

1. This critique is also valid for most studies of sport organizations: Heinemann and Schubert (1992, 1994) Ibsen (1992), Horch (1994), Slack (1997).

2. The largest part of voluntary sector in several Western countries.

3. There are at least three exceptions to this claim. First, Harris (1998) stresses the importance and potential of sport as part of civil society and the civil society approaches to sport, but her article mostly remains an encouragement for sport–civil society studies, and is less of such a study itself. Secondly, Allison (1998) studies sport as part of civil society in three nations—Georgia, Thailand and South Africa—in the light of their respective general civil-society structures. Thirdly, Jarvie (2003) addresses the question of sport, community and social capital. These studies are all, with respect to their topics, interesting analyses, yet have serious shortcomings when it comes to the questions posed in this article.

4. A very similar distinction seems common in social network studies (see Moody & White, 2003).

5. This number reflects two factors which are partly caused by the poor quality of the lists of members provided by the sport organizations. First, many of questionnaires were returned by the postal service (1149) and many communicated that they were not, and in some cases had never been, members of a sport club. Altogether we estimated that misdirected questionnaires amount to about 2000 respondents. Next, we did not know the age of most of our sample so we estimate that 1725 respondents in the wrong age group (below 13) received the questionnaire. This leaves us with 1660 answers from a sample of 5654 ‘valid members’, which, in turn, gives a response rate of 29.4%.

6. This number is perhaps larger in reality, because it seems reasonable—and communications connected to the data collection indicates this—to assume that those not active answer such a questionnaire more seldom than more active people; both because they identify less with the club and therefore are less inclined to answer, but also because they consider themselves to be of less interest in a study like this.

7. The question of how competitive levels affect community structures is interesting and rather complex: on the one hand one should expect high competitive level to have an exclusionary effect; on the other hand it might have an integrating effect on those staying on. Since this variable (competitive level) and level of activity which is a dimension community structures are highly correlated, the variable is not included in the subsequent analysis.

8. The numbers indicate mean values on a scale from 1 to 5.

9. In detail, the four statements are as follows: (i) information from the leaders is not good enough with regard to important issues; (ii) there are important conflicts in the organization; (iii) the leaders often take decisions on their own without consulting the members; and (iv) The distance between leaders and members is to great. The answers are ‘totally agree’, ‘partly agree’, ‘partly disagree’, ‘totally disagree’ and ‘don't know’.

10. In general, how interested are you in politics? How often do you read news in daily newspapers? How satisfied are you with the way democracy functions in Norway? Do you think that most Norwegian politicians are trustworthy, mostly trustworthy, or rarely trustworthy?