Building inclusive sports communities

In Chapter 7 we considered how coaches are able to engage and build relationships with socially excluded young people within a community sport setting. In the present chapter, we consider the sporting landscape more broadly by examining how inclusive sports communities can be developed and sustained. Inclusive coaches who are capable of working in a critical way with socially excluded persons are a key aspect of such sports communities. However, we also consider the broader processes that are required to engender significant culture change within sport environments to facilitate greater social inclusion. In this chapter, we review broader policy and practice that are aimed at facilitating inclusive sports communities, and discuss some of the limitations of current approaches. Concepts from community development are then presented as a potential alternative to traditional approaches to sport development. The chapter also explores how community development principles can be operationalized in practice, and the value of doing so, via two case studies. One case study explores the engagement of young people with disabilities in sport while the other examines the integration of people with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds in sports contexts.