ABSTRACT
This chapter is circumspect in its approach to the exploration of social integration through sport. Social integration is a transnational agenda and as such its significance for sports development is traced through policy endorsements from the United Nations, through the European Union, the UK Government and its national sport agencies. While social integration is considered in relation to its possible advancement using sport as a tool, the interconnection between sport and social integration is also considered in relation to fundamental cultural and structural inequalities in society. The concept of social integration is used to refer to a number of related policy discourses and, 10 years after the 1999 Macpherson Report (Macpherson 1999), its potential for success is framed using a critical ‘race’ lens as a proxy for many other intersecting social factors requiring consideration in sports development. In 1994 at the level of the United Nations the UK Government signed up to a set of proposals,
later ratified as the Copenhagen Declaration, which involved a focus on social integration as one of the three key objectives of development (UN 1994; UN 2007: 19). For most policymakers the two objectives relating to reductions in poverty and unemployment were less elusory than the objective of social integration, which remained in need of further elaboration. The UN, which emphasised a process of participatory dialogue to support the complex policy focus on social integration that underpinned most of the UK Government’s social policies through the mid-1990s and 2000s, took on this challenge. Participatory dialogue is presented as one piece of a complex jigsaw that includes equality policies, systems of justice and educational interventions that contribute to social integration. Since the mid-1990s sport has been consistently and visibly part of policy implementation strategies for active citizenship, active communities, social inclusion, social cohesion, neighbourhood renewal and regeneration. Social integration is used here as an umbrella term to draw together these policy discourses. Tony McNulty MP (speaking when Parliamentary Under Secretary in the Office of
the Deputy Prime Minister) encapsulated a common view of sport’s place on the social agenda as a vehicle to mend a dysfunctional society or community. He stated (Smith Institute 2003: 11) that,
Having nowhere to go and nothing constructive to do is as much a part of living in a distressed community as poor housing or high crime levels. Sports and active recreation
provide a good part of the answer to rebuilding a decent quality of life. Getting involved can be good for health, it can lead to people learning new skills, making new friends and to a strengthened community spirit.
