Sport development programmes for Indigenous Australians : innovation, inclusion and development, or a product of ‘white guilt’?

Under the legacy of neoliberalism, it is important to consider how the indigenous people, in this case of Australia, are to advance, develop and achieve some approximation of parity with broader societies in terms of health, educational outcomes and economic participation. In this paper, we explore the relationships between welfare dependency, individualism, responsibility, rights, liberty and the role of the state in the provision of Government-funded programmes of sport to Indigenous communities. We consider whether such programmes are a product of ‘white guilt’ and therefore encourage dependency and weaken the capacity for independence within communities and individuals, or whether programmes to increase rates of participation in sport are better viewed as good investments to bring about changes in physical activity as (albeit a small) part of a broader social policy aimed at reducing the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in health, education and employment.

The attraction, retention/transition and nurturing process of sport development : some Australian evidence

The purpose of this study was to explore and map the sport development processes in Australia. A grounded theory approach identified sport development processes by examining 74 annual reports from 35 national sporting organizations (NSOs) over a period of 4 years, before and after the Sydney Olympic Games. The 3 frameworks presented in this article representing the attraction, retention/ transition, and nurturing process illustrate the generic processes and strategies described by NSOs. The results show that each sport development process requires human and financial input from various stakeholders. These stakeholders initiate or implement sport development strategies for each process and each process has different sport development outputs. These results contribute to the extant literature of sport development by demonstrating that sport development is more complex and encompassing than previously described. It is proposed that the generic frameworks derived from this study be subject to more specific testing using other sport systems, as context and case studies could lead to tailoring the frameworks to represent specific sport development processes and systems.

Sport development, systems, policies and pathways : an introduction to the special issue

Fundamentally sport development is about participation and promoting the opportunities and benefits of participation. Participation in sport and physical activity spans a wide range of contexts including the wholesomeness associated with the freedom of children’s play to the modification of sport to allow children to be children a little longer. The cycle of participation continues to junior and youth sport, where the rules, regulations and traditions of a sport become the foundation to protecting the “institution” of sport, to participation in senior competitions and ultimately, to elite and professional sport. Sport development research and practice therefore is concerned with all these manifestations of the sport experience. It logically follows that the purview of sport development is quite large and potentially complex. Moreover, it is possible to identify at least five themes that could be used to categorise sport development research. These themes include; policy, development through sport, development of sport, future patterns of sport delivery and marketing in terms of the relationship between professional sport and participation.

Tennis Australia : a case study of financial management for sport development at the club level

There has been substantial work that examines financial management in professional sport which has assisted scholars and practitioners to better understand processes and policies to ensure teams and leagues are sustainable (Andreff & Staudohar, 2000; Howard & Crompton, 2004; Kraekel, 2007; Lewis, Sexton, & Lock, 2007; Li, Hofacre, & Mahony, 2001). However, there has been a paucity of scholarly research that examines financial management at the grass roots levels of sport, and how this integrates with national sport organisation strategic planning, with the exception of the recent work by Havaris and Danylchuk (2007). This study aims to add to this gap in knowledge by examining financial management at the club level of tennis in Australia.