Sport is increasingly regarded as a powerful tool in international development. In this comprehensive introduction to the area of ‘sport-for-development’, leading researcher Fred Coalter critically evaluates the strengths and weaknesses and successes and failures of sport-for-development policies and programs.
Beginning with an outline of the historical development of policies of sport-for-development, this book explores the objectives that remain central to international sport-for-development initiatives, including issues of defining and measuring impacts, the development of self-efficacy and leadership skills, female empowerment, HIV/AIDS awareness and social capital. Drawing on a wealth of fieldwork experience and empirical data from the most extensive monitoring and evaluation project ever undertaken with sport-for-development organisations, this is an unparalleled and fully integrated assessment of theory, policy and practice in international sport-for-development.
Sport-for-development: What game are we playing is essential reading for any student or practitioner with an interest in sport-for-development, sports policy or international development.
1. Introduction 2. Sport-for-development: Limited focus programmes and broad gauge problems 3. Conceptual entrepreneurs, liberation methodologists and research as a dirty word 4. Self-efficacy beliefs: not so deficient after all? 5. Self-esteem: best taken in moderation 6. Sport-for-development, peer leaders and HIV and AIDS: a method in search of a theory? 7. ‘There is loads of relationships here’: Developing a programme theory for sport-for-change programmes 8. Social capital: a social good or for the social good? 9. Conclusions: Hope is not a plan
Biography
Fred Coalter is Professor of Sports Policy at Leeds Metropolitan University. Prior to this he was Professor of Sports Policy at the University of Stirling UK (2003-2010), Director of the Centre for Leisure Research at the University of Edinburgh (1990-2003) and Director of the Centre for Leisure and Tourism Studies at the then Polytechnic of North London (1986-1990).
