First Take: Sport For Development

While I've gained some preliminary knowledge on the concept of sport as an agent of change through my work with the Ball State Sport for Social Change project, this past week has been my first chance to dive into literature on the research area of Sport for Development (S4D).   While there have been some similarities in research methodology, S4D is clearly separate and is becoming an area with growing interest within sport management.

After reviewing the NASSM Conference abstracts of the presentations on S4D that Dr. G attended, I collected 34 various articles that were not already part of the database that Dr. G had started earlier this year.  One tell-tale sign for me that S4D research is becoming more and more sought after within the sport management field is the presence of S4D articles in some of the more noteworthy journals in the field (i.e. Journal of Sport Management, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Journal of Sport and Social Issues).  This appears to be the case only recently as the research area has just seemed to gain some more prestige in the last five to seven years.  Similar to other research areas, a few "experts" appear to have emerged in the field such as Fred Coalter, Richard Lerner, Nico Schulenkorf, and Jon Welty Peachey.

As I was gathering articles there were a few common themes, theories, and similar research areas that stood out to me:

- Positive Youth Development: This is understandable as the development of youth (especially adolescents) is crucial for overall well-being of society.  The focus of the studies on Positive Youth Development (referred to as PYD in some literature) was primarily on the overall effectiveness of programs and not on youth perceptions which seems logical as research on children is less common due to IRB approval etc.

- Social Capital: There were several articles that incorporated social capital theories and analyzed the presence of social capital within S4D situations.  I also noticed a common thread between social capital and community development within the S4D literature, primarily focusing on whether S4D programs took the entire community into consideration and whether communities seemed more peaceful following S4D implementation.

- The Three Models of Sport Development: These three models (which is further detailed in the Newland and Phillips NASSM abstract) are the Long Term Athlete Development model (Canadian Sport for Life, 2012), Pyramid Model of Sport Development (Green, 2005), and Sport Development Pyramid/Continuum (Eady, 1993).  When looking specifically at the development of an athlete throughout an entire lifespan, these three models popped up often within the literature.

-  Focus on Disadvantaged Groups: Many of the single case studies or in-depth qualitative studies looked at how certain disadvantaged groups within a society or community were impacted by a S4D initiative.  There were two studies in particular (Sherry, 2010; Welty Peachey, Lyras, Borland, & Cohen, 2011) that studied soccer programs intended for the homeless which I found to be very interesting and unique.

Aside from the S4D literature, I am continuing to learn more and more about the research database program Mendeley and I am excited to share some of the nuances of the program with Dr. G upon his return from Greece!