Call for Papers | “Community sport and social inclusion: International perspectives” | Special issue of Sport in Society. Call ends October 15, 2017

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Social inclusion is a pressing issue confronting all levels of sport today, and community sport in particular. The concept of community sport originally arose out of the observation that traditional sport participation patterns were dominated by advantaged groups of the population (Hylton and Totten 2008). In several communities around the world, this has led to a variety of programmes that mainly focus on reaching groups that are not attracted by or often drop out of mainstream sport activities and are characterized by their accessibility, affordability, local focus, modest budgets and relatively informal structures (Cuskelly 2004; Doherty, Misener, and Cuskelly 2014; Theeboom, Haudenhuyse, and De Knop 2010). Community sport is also often approached as more than ‘just’ sport in the community, as it aims to address social and political dimensions of inequality (Hylton and Totten 2013). The addressed inequality is not only in relation to unequal access to sports participation, but also in relation to inclusion through sport across a range of issues including, amongst others, education and employment. Yet, the policy ideal of ‘sport for all’ is not always realized in practice and providing evidence on the complex relationship between community sport and social inclusion remains challenging for researchers. This volume therefore seeks to bring together the latest cutting-edge research related to the dynamics of inclusion/exclusion in community sport, as well as the broader outcomes and impacts that community sport programmes/events may have in promoting, or hindering, social inclusion in other areas of life, such as employment, education and migrant integration. For this volume, all scholarly papers that empirically ground, compare and assess the relationship between community sport and social inclusion across different local, national and international contexts are invited.

Themes

Papers from different disciplines and perspectives are invited, with a focus on – but not limited to – the following themes:

    • Analysis of community sport practices with a focus on specific target groups such as newly arrived migrants, refugees and people experiencing homelessness;
    • Theoretical and methodological perspectives on community sport and social inclusion;
    • Specific challenges in relation to issues of community sport and social inclusion;
    • Research focusing on the working mechanisms and facilitating conditions in community sport initiatives that relate to the promotion of social inclusion;
    • (Critical) discourse analysis of community sport in relation to social inclusion objectives.

Submission instructions

Deadline for the submission of abstracts: 15 October 2017

Files should include a title, authors and a structured abstract of no more than 250 words. These should be sent to Dr Hebe Schaillée at

Confirmation of invitations to submit full papers: 30 October 2017

Deadline for submission of full papers: 8 January 2018

Paper length: Maximum 8,000 words including abstract and references

Submission process: Full papers should be submitted through ScholarOne

Author guidelines and further information about the journal can be found at: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fcss20

Editorial information

  • Guest editor: Hebe Schaillée, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
  • Guest editor: Reinhard Haudenhuyse, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
  • Guest editor: Lieve Bradt, Ghent University, Belgium<

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