Sport for Social Cohesion: Linking Practice and Theory

The development of theories specific to sport for development has increased over the last decade, with numerous general theories being put forth by scholars. Despite this, there is a lack of "bespoke" theories exploring connections to specific outcomes. Likewise, there have been calls for theories to engage with related fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology and more. This lack of theoretical engagement is especially striking regarding the vaunted connections between sport and social cohesion. Social cohesion has become a crucial focus in policy and practice, and sport has been prominently positioned as a vehicle to promote social cohesion. Yet the connections between sport and social cohesion have not been explored in a robust fashion. Literature and programmes have been criticised for failing to adequately define their understanding of social cohesion. At a practical level, there remains a lack of knowledge concerning practices, activities, and mechanisms within sport for social cohesion programmes. Put together, this creates a rather vexing problem: we neither have a clear picture of the goals being addressed nor the mechanisms supporting those goals. The following paper seeks to address these gaps by presenting a conceptual map connecting common practices within programmes with existing theories and specific social cohesion outcomes. To do so, findings from extensive previous work on sport and social cohesion are contextualised against existing theories. In turn, this will help generate a better understanding of the potential mechanisms in sport for social cohesion, provide guidance to implementers, and identify areas for future development.