Sport for Development’s Impact on Cultural Adaptability: A Process and Outcome-Based Analysis

in Journal of Sport Management
Carrie W. LeCrom * , 1 and Tiesha Martin * , 1
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  • 1 Virginia Commonwealth University
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.2017-0302
Keywords:
cultural understanding; empowerment; social change
In Print:
Volume 33: Issue 1
Pages:
12–24
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Sport for development (SFD) has gained traction over the past several decades, establishing itself as a subdiscipline within sport management research. As such, it has moved from simple program evaluation to a diverse array of theory development and testing, capacity building, impact measurement, and beyond. Scholars have suggested that the success of SFD programs relies on them being well directed, locally grounded, and clearly focused. This points to the necessity of focusing on the development and management of SFD programs over program evaluation, as the process-based focus is under-researched and highly critical. In this paper, Intergroup Contact Theory is applied to an SFD program focusing on cultural adaptability. The five components of Intergroup Contact Theory are built into the program’s design, then assessed via qualitative analysis to test the theory’s applicability in SFD research.

LeCrom and Martin are with the Center for Sport Leadership, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

Address author correspondence to Carrie W. LeCrom at cwlecrom@vcu.edu.

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