Suchergebnisse

Discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation remains a critical concern across Europe, including within the sphere of youth sports. Research has shown that youth sports can be a fertile environment for discrimination and bullying and that coaches play a key role in preventing or mitigating discriminatory situations. Given the crucial role of coaches, it is therefore important to build our understanding of the experiences, perspectives, and needs of those coaches concerning discrimination in sports. Against this background, this paper presents the results of an applied survey of 174 European youth sport coaches conducted as part of the INCLUDE project. In particular, this survey focuses on the experiences of coaches when witnessing and reporting discrimination, as well as their perspectives on what needs to be done in the policy and educational areas to combat issues of discrimination. Results show that 25% of coaches witness discrimination on a monthly basis and that fans or spectators are perceived as the most common perpetrators. To combat the issues, coaches report a need for greater policy support, funding, training, and awareness raising. To conclude, we discuss the practical, policy, and research implications of these findings.

Discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation remains a pressing challenge throughout Europe, including within Ireland. Despite this, anti-discrimination education is lacking and uneven within school settings. Responding to this gap and seeking to capitalise on the perceived social potential of sport, one Irish NGO has begun delivering sport-based anti-discrimination workshops to students in primary and secondary schools nationwide. This paper presents an evaluation of these workshops, putting a specific focus on the learning outcomes generated. Data were obtained from standardised, open-ended student feedback forms and qualitatively analysed using a Framework Analysis. The results illustrate fairly consistent learning outcomes, but these outcomes generally focus on individual behaviours and attitudes. This contrasts strongly with literature on anti-discrimination education, which recognises a need to reflect on privilege and social structures while also developing clear strategies to address discrimination. To conclude, we propose recommendations and ways forward to help address both individual and structural realities within such sport-based workshops.

Purpose: Athletes are increasingly perceived as important drivers of entrepreneurship and social change. As a result, increasing research and activity has attempted to engage athletes in both entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. Against this backdrop, the authors aim to provide insights on how high-level athletes in Germany understand entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship and their perceptions of (social) entrepreneurship as a potential career pathway. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was designed for athletes to assess their social entrepreneurship-related skills and attitudes. This survey is based on Capella Peris et al. (2020) who developed and validated a social entrepreneurship questionnaire for use in the physical education sector. To deepen the authors' understanding of the initial survey results, a structured focus group was conducted with an additional set of five high-level German athletes. Findings: Both the survey results and the focus group indicate that athletes have reservations about starting businesses or social enterprises, and that formal support on the topic is limited. Research limitations/implications: This paper suggests numerous possible avenues for future research, both related to athletes and sport social entrepreneurship more generally. The authors also suggest that athlete career programmes need to provide more support for athletes who wish to venture in entrepreneurial activities. Originality/value: This study answers numerous calls within sport entrepreneurship literature to further integrate athletes into research in the area.

Abuse and interpersonal violence threaten participant safety and trust in sport. Many political and project activities have sought to promote safeguarding policies within national sporting structures. Despite this, implementation of safe sport policy measures has been lacklustre, and policy guidance is often disparate and sometimes contradictory. Against this background, the Council of Europe initiated the development of a safeguarding in sport self-assessment tool to assist national sport authorities in this crucial area. This tool addresses some of the gaps within safe sport policy guidance by summarising current good practices and offering policy guidance and legitimation. In the following Innovations article, we present our work developing the safeguarding self-assessment tool for national sport organisations in collaboration with the Council of Europe.