Community sport programmes and social inclusion: what role for positive psychological capital?

(Re-)Engagement with education and employment is a common objective within interventions designed to enhance social inclusion through sport participation. Consequently, the acquisition of capital to expedite the (re)engagement process has become a familiar theme. Literature has examined how various forms of capital may be accumulated through participation in sport. However, competing literature has explored how participation may enable positive psychological capital-which comprises personal qualities such as resilience, hope, optimism and self-efficacy-to be developed. This article adds to this work, by providing insights from a sports-based project which aimed to develop social inclusion among marginalized youth in three regions of the UK. Utilizing data from semi-structured interviews, we highlight how participation enabled young people to enhance the components of positive psychological capital, and offer a further theoretical vantage point from which to understand and debate the relationship between participation in sport and social inclusion.