The paradox of English sport development policy and practice: Examining the mass participation agenda during an era of austerity and continued change.
This PhD by published work critically synthesises eight papers using a meta-ethnographic methodology in the field of community sport development. In particular, it provides an overarching critical analysis of mass participation sport development policy and practice in England using research with national governing bodies, county sport partnerships, local government and school-based sport development officers. Latterly, the synthesis centres upon the communities themselves that have been the focus of policy in the lead up to the London 2012 Olympics with its associated participation legacy. Research was undertaken using a predominantly qualitative research methodology, with varied methods including 58 in-depth interviews, 10 focus groups, five video diaries, observational and field note accounts. The meta-ethnographical methodology developed by Noblitt and Hare (1988) was utilised to provide the framework and conceptual approach to developing a critical meta-synthesis across the eight individual papers. The PhD offers a rare analytical insight across organisational boundaries, industry sub-fields (teaching, local government, County Sport Partnerships, National Governing Bodies) and professional-community binary oppositions. Findings from this study highlight key drivers limiting the mass participation agenda. These themes include the increased diversity and fragility of the delivery platform provision under austerity, challenge the industry assumptions of pathways of progression and question existing behaviour change assumptions. Further future explanatory themes that emerged from the meta-ethnography included divergence and widening in sport development delivery (“the haves and have not’s”), sport development workforce challenges in an era of modernisation (emerging skills, knowledge and expectations in the field) and finally what was termed in this study ‘the policy rhetoric gap’.
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