Kim Wickman

Resisting self-regulation: an analysis of sport policy programme making and implementation in Sweden

Political programming of sport has become the new orthodoxy in many countries where the strive for a more healthy and civically engaged population is intertwined with an ambition to encourage and make responsible individuals and organizations for meeting societal goals. Although much effort has been put into studying this phenomenon, there is still a shortage of understanding of how, why and with what results sport policy programmes are made and implemented. To address this shortage this article reports on a study of the largest government intervention in sport in Sweden with the purpose of exploring processes of responsibilization and self-regulation at play in the relationship between the government and sport as well as between sport organizations on different levels. Results show how sport has received a more salient position on the government agenda, where more instrumental goals have been accompanied by increased resources to aid in their attainment. This process has assisted in the ambitions to modernize sports organizations by encouraging development through self-regulation. The sports organizations involved have embraced the new goals and resources. However, instead of self-regulating in the desired direction, each organizational level in the sports system has forwarded the responsibility for development to the next level below. This process has left the sports clubs with the full responsibility of meeting the government goals, a responsibility they have not accepted. Understandings of these phenomena and processes are discussed by pointing to the specific institutional landscape and tradition of Swedish sport.

The governance of sport, gender and (dis)ability

Drawing on the Foucauldian concept of governmentality and with a discourse analytic approach, the purpose of this study was to describe and analyse how wheelchair basketball (WCB) players governed themselves in relation to the dominant discourses of sport, gender and disability. This study was based on semi-structured interviews with 12 men and 6 women with and without classified impairment. The findings illustrated how governing operates in the micro-context of WCB and how the athletes were constituted at the intersection between technologies of power and technologies of the self. On the one hand, they were categorized according to a classification system by which the athletes were organized into competitive classes based upon sport-specific tests. On the other, they were taking up and rehearsing narratives about themselves in terms of normality. Finally, the results have shown how male and female WCB athletes take up and resist predominant sport, gender and disability discourses and how they govern themselves in relation to such discourses. The results of the study also illustrate how the workings of power were differentiated within the WCB context and how the sport and gender discourses provided instructions on how to become the desired ideal.

I do not compete in disability : How wheelchair athletes challenge the discourse of able-ism through action and resistance

Abstract Drawing on data from face-to-face semi-structured interviews with five male and four female wheelchair athletes and inspired by poststructuralism, this study illuminates the meaning-making processes through which athletes construct and manage their identities. It deals with the interaction of gender, disability and sport and illustrates how the discourse of able-ism operates among Swedish wheelchair racers. The main finding is that the discourse of able-ism has considerable impact on the way the athletes understand themselves and the world, and, thus, on their identity construction. They strive to gain access to the discursive world of able-bodied people and, to that end, they reproduce sports and gender discourses. They strongly resist being positioned as disabled, but in doing so they sometimes reproduce the discourse of able-ism by positioning other disabled people as deviant. Overall, the investigation contributes to a further understanding of how social notions and expectations in contemporary society are reproduced, resisted and deconstructed.

The relationship between physical activity and self-efficacy in children with disabilities

Abstract The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether self-efficacy in children with disabilities could be strengthened through targeted and adapted physical activities led by specially educated leaders. Children and Youth Physical Self-Perception Profile (CY-PSPP) scale were used. The study includes 45 children of 8–14 years of age with different types of impairments. The children participated in training sessions twice a week and tried out 13 different physical activities during eight months. The median in this study of total self-efficacy was 104 points, which can be compared to median points varying between 100 and 107 in previous studies based on children without disabilities. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant increase of the means in four out of six different domains of self-efficacy before and after the study was carried out. Key findings indicated that this model is successful in strengthening the children’s self-efficacy and that their perceived self-efficacy was equal to that of children without disabilities.

Developing sports with a children’s rights perspective? Intentions, methods, and priorities of development projects in local Swedish sports clubs

Abstract The purpose of this study is to analyze the planned development of sport practice regarding children’s rights through project applications from Swedish sports clubs within the Lift for Sport programme. The study on which this paper reports uses data from a large-scale research project that evaluated this sport-for-all programme and is based on an analysis of 2563 applications within five different national sports organizations. Theoretically, the evaluation study draws on programme theories and analyses financially funded development applications made by the sports clubs. The proportion of applications concerning aspects of children’s rights was 2.4% within the following categories: children’s safety in sports, young people’s views, ethics of children’s sports, and prevention of exclusion and dropout from sport. Those applications were further examined regarding which intentions, methods, and priorities sports clubs were aiming to develop children’s sport to be in line with a children’s rights perspective. The methods used to reach the goals were sometimes the same regardless of intention, and, despite the good intentions and some creative methods used for development, applicants seemed to be uncertain about and searching for which relevant methods to use. The findings can be used to inform the discussion on the design of development programmes, policies, and practices to change children’s sport in the framework of children’s rights.