The position of Australian community sporting organisations in the third sector: membership profiles, characteristics and attitudes

Australian community sporting organisations have been relatively underresearched within the wider study of voluntary associations, yet their membership base is large and constitutes a sizable proportion of the population. This paper analyses data from the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) 2003 (Gibson et al. 2004), initially to describe characteristics ofmembers ofcommunity sporting organisations in Australia (n=948). It goes on to compare attitudinal dimensions between members of sporting and other major third-sector organisations. On the basis of these comparisons three groupings of associations are suggested: social change, individual/social progress and individual/social maintenance. Sporting organisations form part of the latter category, and the paper briefly discusses the likely nature of social capital production associated with each.<br />