“Leading community roles in the “worldwide experiences
and trends in sport for all,”  

Lamartine DaCosta & Ana Miragaya, Position paper, University
Gama Filho, Rio de janeiro, 2024.

INTRODUCTION

The provided text discusses a Position Paper that reproduces anarticle by L. DaCosta and A. Miragaya, originally published in theICSSPE (International Council of Sport Science and PhysicalEducation) Bulletin in 2002. The article focuses on the functioningof the Data Bank Sport for All, an international repository of data.
This repertoire was organized between 1998 and 2002, collecting
data from 36 countries across five continents. It also established aframework for analyzing the organized data. In 2024, the article isrepublished to document pioneering work in data management andto consider strategies for collecting and analyzing useful data in thepresent context.
Lamartine DaCosta & Ana Miragaya, 2024

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ARTICLE

The book “Worldwide Experiences and Trends in Sport for All"
(DaCosta & Miragaya - Eds) has recently been launched by its
publisher: Meyer & Meyer Sport. This new source of information
focuses on physical activities, leisure, health promotion, and sport
development in 36 countries from five continents. This publication
is simultaneously a Data Bank and the largest international
comparative investigation ever done in the sports area.

The book also represents a breakthrough project of researchdevelopment promoted by Trim and Fitness International Sport for
All Association – TAFISA – with the support of IOC, UNESCO andEditora Gama Filho (Brazil). With the aim of providing data fromnational cases on history, management, culture, marketing,sponsorship, finance, target groups, settings for activities, strategyof promotion and social changes as related to Sport for All (SFA),
87 authors (46 PhDs and 16 Ms included) raised information fromtheir countries, which account for 47% of the world’s population.

The SFA Data Bank was primarily planned to offer researchers andstudents not only general trends by continents but also trends incontext, putting together point-specific collected data from just one
country or group of countries. Selected features of SFA-like
activities may be reviewed by cross-analytical searches applied firstto general trends and then to idiosyncrasies identified in particularcontexts. 

The category “community” represents a typical demand to be madein terms of SFA general assumptions in cross-continental reviews,
presupposing the key role of communal gatherings in sports forleisure and/or health promotion. In this concern, a significant
approach to community roles is met in several categories andsections of the data bank. The first one appears in the category"History and Culture" (pp. 758 - 765) of the various chapters of thedata bank: "local communities" rank second only to "government"

Lamartine DaCosta & Ana Miragaya, 20242

among five alternatives of SFA management during the1970 - 2000period. 

In the section "Institutions" of the same source (pp. 765 - 767), thevariable "non specialized institutions" emerges as dominant from1945 onwards, referring to institutional insertions of SFA initiatives
with 35 occurrences in 5 continents. Other institutions identified
from information delivered by respondent countries were "multilayered sport system" with 30 occurrences; "Sport for All roof
organizations" (16 occurrences) and "leisure and recreation
institutions" (15 occurrences). In other words, the SFA approach tocommunity has been basically the preferred focus of sport
development for the local government and for the local private
initiative. According to DaCosta & Miragaya (2002), theinterpretation to this detected fact is that "there is some articulation
between a macro perspective (government and business) and a
micro perspective (local management and volunteers)" ( p. 762 ).

Furthermore, the target group approach taken by the Data Bank also
focuses on communities at large when listing preferred options
from respondent countries regarding the 1970 - 2000 period. Table
1 depicts "poor people" with the lowest degree in targeting as
compared to the six other groups despite the high index of thisvariable detected in Africa and Latin America. In short, theaccumulative experience of SFA worldwide has been revealing a
local community accomplishment in the last three decades;
however, the development of activities and programs is today atargeting enterprise. Moreover, in underprivileged regions,communal development and targeting seem to overlap when they
face specific social needs.

When this conclusion is matched with the data from the category"Settings and Activities", it is possible to observe that the role
played by the community in SFA has become clearer in its
evolution since 1970. By far, the options "sport facilities","schools", "workplaces" and "nature & parks" are more frequently

Lamartine DaCosta & Ana Miragaya, 2024

3Table 1 - SFA Data Bank – Target Groups Preferred Options from Respondent Countries – 1970s/1990s*

Frequency = (total of occurrences of variables in all countriesof the continent)**

CONTINENTS/ VARIABLESELDERLY

CHILDREN & YOUTHFAMILYWOMEN (*)

PEOPLE WITH
SPECIAL
NEEDS

WORKERSPOOR
PEOPLE

ASIA

(8)

(4)

(4)

(6)

(4)

(5)(2)AFRICA

(1)

(2)

(1)

(1)

(1)

(2)

(2)

EUROPE

(15)

(13)

(4)

(12)

(11)

(11)

(1)

L. AMERICA

(6)

(6)

(3)

(0)

(3)

(2)

(5)

N.AMERICA

(2)

(1)

(2)

(1)

(1)

(1)

(1)

TOTAL

(32)

(26)

(14)

(20)

(20)

(21)

(11)

* N=36: Asia - 8; Africa - 2; Europe - 17; Latin America - 7 and North America - 2** Variables occurrences per country: 0, 1 or > 1

found in continental comparisons, except for Africa and Latin
America, where "streets & roads" are important as SFA settings (p.
773). Actually, today's local focus of SFA is the natural result ofavailability and opportunity of facilities near the participants'
residential places. Unsurprisingly, the growing concern for "socialinclusion", as ascertained in the Data Bank section " Strategy " (p.
775), represents the confirmation of the community's leading role in
the SFA process of development. In summary, "social inclusion"
stands for a synthesis of local management as it refers toappropriate targeting and facilities made available to people whoneed to share an active lifestyle. 

In addition to the intervention rationales of local SFA, "socialinclusion" is a matter of communal belonging as Table 2 is taken
Lamartine DaCosta & Ana Miragaya, 20244

into account. This last exhibition was collected from the section"Social Changes" of the Data Bank, aiming to provide positive
perceived repercussions of SFA in the year 2000 (p. 777).
Themost detected variables in this comparative arrangement haveapproximately the same quantitative value (20 to 18 occurrences ineach continent ) and are all related to a new lifestyle commitment.
While "healthy life" and "positive attitudes" are linked to the"diffusion of SFA", the variable "changes in participation profile"
has the meaning of reshaping SFA from "national to local, mass toindividuals, leisure to health and target groups to non-compliers"(p. 782). 

Table 2 - SFA Data Bank - Social Changes  Positive Perceived Repercussions from SFA – 2000*

Frequency = (total of occurrences of variables in all countriesof the continent) **CONTINENTS/ VARIABLESCHANGES INPARTICIPATIONPROFILEMORE CONCERN WITHHEALTHY LIFEPOSITIVE ATTITUDESTOWARDS SFAPENETRATION ANDDIFFUSION OF SFA

ASIA

(5)

(7 )

(6 )

(4)

AFRICA

(0)

(0)

(1)

(0)

EUROPE

(10)

(8)

(7 )

(7 )

L. AMERICA

(3)

(2)

(2)

(5)

N.AMERICA

(2)

(2)

(1)

(2)

TOTAL

(20)

(19)

(17)

(18)

* N=36: Asia - 8; Africa - 2; Europe - 17; Latin America - 7 and North America - 2** Variables occurrences per country: 0, 1 or > 1

Summarizing, these trends can be understood as community
development on account of a typical link between them: fromLamartine DaCosta & Ana Miragaya, 2024

5general participation to specific inclusion. Thus, should"inclusion" be submitted to an updated review, it might rather standas the core meaning of communal belonging, at least concerning
participation in sport.

Of course, these continental trends reveal different formats andapproaches when we examine the different categories ofcomparative analysis, which has put together the 36 participating
countries of the research. For instance, the financial appreciation of
SFA interventions concluded that local activities have had a strong
support from the participants themselves, which reinforces theinterpretation of communal belonging attributed to sport for healthand/or leisure (pp. 769 - 771). For a final assessment of this finding,here follows a transcription of the Data Bank as found in the section"Sponsorship and Finance" (p. 770):"Although the state has controlled the direction and, sometimes, themanagement of SFA in all continents, the financing of these
activities has been done through various sources, including theimportant participation of non-governmental institutions. In both
North America and Europe the financial commitments of nongovernmental institutions have been practically the same to theones that come from multiple sources. However, the financial
support to SFA at the local level – generally governmental – isbecoming more like that of the other alternatives or even taking up
the most part in the cases of North America and of Asia. The
participation of sponsors in the activities of SFA in the period that
goes from the 1970s to the 1990s was registered in all continents as
being equivalent to those done at the local level, except for Latin
America, which mobilized more resources from sponsors and forAsia, which used fewer sponsors. The appreciation of the variables
identified by this section all together reinforces the hypothesis thatmost of the expenditures of SFA are covered by the participants of
the activities once only the variable that refers to local government
investments is explicitly committed to the State".

Lamartine DaCosta & Ana Miragaya, 2024

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