Critical engagement with EDI in sport management: Identifying the issues.

Description

Introduction

A core tenet of sport development and management research has focused on increasing the involvement (playing, spectating, working) of marginalised communities into sport and sport organizations.

Under the auspices of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives, work has targeted people marginalised from sport and physical activity because of their age, race/ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, economic means, beliefs, or gender.

Described as a ‘wicked issue’ for policy makers and managers, multiple barriers to sport involvement exist for specific groups and the individuals within them.

Further impacting this analysis is the need to understand how these intersections impact at macro, meso and micro levels where individuals and sport organizations exist (Cunningham, 2023).

Building on the momentum generated by EASM 2023 in Belfast and aligned to the ‘Sport Management and Social Inclusion’ theme of EASM 2024 in Paris

this workshop is for scholars interested in the management of EDI with the aim of initiating a collaboration to develop a social justice agenda for EDI

We aim to do this by identifying both the extent and the experience of these issues within the context of sport organizations.

We seek to address questions around this topic which include;

• How does sport management critically engage with Equality, Diversity and Inclusion? How should sport management critically engage with Equality, Diversity and Inclusion?
• How is the concept of EDI measured and scrutinized in sport management? What novel ways could reveal the extent and/or experience of various intersections increasing or decreasing involvement?
• How have we conceptualised inequality and exclusion within sports organizations, and is this required to change?
• How have policy makers and sport managers responded to these challenges? What balance has been struck between grassroots, community-led approaches and top-down, policy-led approaches?

Based on Simon Shibli’s (2023) Belfast keynote on the ‘outrageous inequalities’ in sport and physical activity, this workshop aims to support research that presents a nuanced view of the barriers marginalised people experience.

These experiences are commonly shared across many local and international environments, but they are not homogenous and, in this context, we welcome contributions from any locale however large or niche.

Furthermore, these perspectives should move beyond active participation into other aspects of sport involvement such as spectating, volunteering, officiating and administering or managing sport.


We seek to develop the learning from this workshop into a collaborative group with an initial goal of developing a position paper outlining the challenges and a research agenda.

Period	5 Sept 2024
Event type	Workshop
Location	Paris, FranceShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International