WOMEN IN SPORT FOR ALL FROM MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
Miragaya, A. & DaCosta, L.
For the conference From Greece to China: West meets East through Sport
Beijing, China, 2007

Abstract: Sport for All (SFA) is an early Pierre de Coubertin’s proposal (1919) in the context of
the Olympic Movement. Since then, women have been one of the target groups usually
addressed by SFA inclusive actions which explicitly aim at universalism. In this concern, theobjectives of this article are: (i) to present data related to the participation of women in SFA
national initiatives in five continents and (ii) to compare and analyze these data quantitatively
and qualitatively focusing on similarities and differences (the source of the data is the book SFA
databank, 2002). Moreover, this basic comparative analysis has been proposed to observe
whether the influences of cultural diversity on women’s participation in sport really mean
multicultural respect towards universalism, a current theoretical interrogation among Cultural
Studies researchers.

“In the past, the practice of sports was an occasional pastime of the rich and idle youth. I worked
thirty years for that practice to become a habitual pleasure of the petit bourgeoisie. Now it isnecessary that this pleasure become part of the life of the young workers. All sports foreverybody – this is without doubt a formula that will be labeled of crazily utopian; I have thought
and scrutinized a great deal; I have it exact and precise ” (Coubertin, P. Lettres Olympiques (XI),
Gazette de Lausanne, janvier 13, 1919, Numero 12, p.1. The original text in French follows:“Jadis la practique des sport était le passe-temps occasionel de la jeunesse riche et oisive. J’ai
travaillé trente ans à en faire le plaisir habituel de la petite bourgeoisie. Il faut maintenant que ce
plaisir-lá pénétre l’existence de l’adolescence prolétaire. Tous les sports pour tous – voilà sans
doute une formule qu’on va taxer de follement utopique; je l’ai largement pensée et scrutée; je
la sais exacte et possible”).
The question that comes out of the definition of ‘sport for all’ (SFA) today, 88 years after
Coubertin’s statement is what he meant by ‘tous les sports pour tous’, in other words, what
would the definition be? At the very beginning of the 21st century it is possible to observe thatthe expression ‘sport for all’ may have two distinct meanings. The first one, more related
perhaps to Coubertin’s conception of sports during his time, has a sense of universalism as
everybody could have access to sport. Sport would be free to all. However, there is a second
sense, which is directly related to the word ‘everybody’. Who would be in fact ‘everybody’?
The second meaning of ‘sport for all’ is related to inclusion as it refers to each and every
human being who participates in sport, in the so many nations and ethnic groups around theworld, including not only social groups such as workers or students, or the rich and the poor, butalso target groups such as women, the elderly, children, the handicapped, and so forth. In thissense, it is necessary to evaluate if ‘everybody’ is in fact participating in sports and physical1

activities. This research question may also refer to the SFA universality with the meaning thatthe participation is present in all places and all times.
Having this in mind, the objective of this research was to analyze the participation of
women as a target group in SFA programs in the countries surveyed by the book “Worldwide
Experiences and Trends in Sport for All” (DaCosta & Miragya, 2002), published by Meyer & Meyer
Sport, in their corresponding and so much varied cultural approaches. As a result, this paper
presents data related to the participation of women in SFA national initiatives in 35 countries ofthe five continents and compares and analyzes these data quantitatively and qualitatively
focusing on similarities and differences.
The relevance of this study lies on the fact that it is the first time that data related to theparticipation of women in SFA initiatives around the world are examined and analyzed. The
databank carries essential information that needs to be studied so that evaluations can be
carried out on the participation of women in sporting activities in not so often continental
diversity.
The questions that guided this investigation were: (i) How did the surveyed countries ofthe five continents deal with the inclusion of women in physical activities and sports? (ii) Were
there programs specially developed by women and for women? (iii) How were women invited toparticipate? (iv) Were women as a group a target of public policies concerning their participationin sports and physical activities?
This paper is organized by continents, according to the criteria used in the databank, andthe data are presented by countries. The method used in this research includes (i) location of all
information related to women in each chapter of the databank, which is transcribed here in theform of a summary; (ii) analysis of all information with concentration on the feature Target
Groups and Activities and (iii) analysis of the resulting information. It is important to mention
that the quantity and quality of information varies from country to country. As a result, somecountries will carry more data than others, which will imply analyses with more or less content.
The title of each paper that makes up the databank and its authors head the data for eachcountry.

ASIA + AUSTRALIA
1. Australia: Building on a Sport for All Culture (Bob Stewart & Matthew Nicholson /Consultants: Brian Dixon and Jane Shelton)
In Australia, women started participating in sport through the beach culture as swimming
became a favorite recreation in the first half of the 20th century. Women were invited toparticipate in beach carnivals and, according to the authors, by the 1930s, the beach became theplace where men, women, and young children enjoyed sun and surf. Australians consequently
started using the beach as a primary recreational resource. The beach provided a good exampleof how Australians had been able to create a recreational culture that valued simple, low costpleasures built around public space. It was mainly an inclusive space which attracted not only a2variety of local and immigrant family groups, but also older people who sought the regenerative
qualities of the salt water and the sea air.
Both older men and women participate in healthy lifestyles through athletics, swimmingand tennis events, besides traditional interests such as lawn bowls, the first organized sporting
activity in Australia. Both men and women over 40 years of age have always been attracted bythis sport. There are more than 2,000 lawn bowls clubs in Australia, and the game is supported
by around 130,000 women members and nearly 200,000 men.
Australia has also developed unique local games. Australian Vigoro, based on an old
English game similar to cricket, was modified to meet the needs of girls. It was played with apear shaped bat, and involved the use of two balls, one colored red and the other white. Unlike
cricket, the batters had to run whenever the ball was hit in front of the wicket. Another peculiarly
Australian game is trugo, a mixture of elements of lawn bowls and croquet. It was traditionallyplayed by older men and women.
In terms of target groups, while a majority of Australians participate in regular physicalactivity, the participation rates vary markedly between different demographic groups. Teenage
boys have the highest participation rate at over 85%, while the lowest participation rate of 33%
is amongst females aged 65 years and over. The male participation rate of 63% is on average
higher than the female rate of 56%. Surprisingly, the differences in participation between males
and females aged 18-24 is only marginal. The female rate is 79% while the male rate is only
slightly higher at 82%. The most striking result is that people participate in sport and physicalactivity far less as they get older. The participation rate for people aged 35-44 is 61%, but falls
to 37% when they reach 65 years of age and over.
In relation to older people as a target group, it is important to say that a number ofattempts have been made to encourage older men and women to become more active. Programsof the 1970s and 1980s were relatively successful at raising older people’s consciousness about
the need to be physically active, but as the 1990s unfolded it was found that the participation
rate was still low. In 1992, the ASC and the CAS conducted a joint study on the physical activity
behavior of older people. It was found that there were many factors that acted as barriers toolder people playing sport. They included a belief that exercise for older people wasinappropriate, a fear that too much activity would lead to injury, a general lack of confidence thatthey could develop a sufficient level of skill, and a fear that they would embarrass themselves.
Women as a target group itself have historically had a lower sport participation rate thanmen. Women are also generally less fit than men, and tend not to return to physical activity asmuch as men. Some of the reasons for this lower rate include a restricted choice of activities, alack of confidence, the likelihood of harassment, and fewer women coaches and role models. A
concerted effort had been made to get more women playing sport, and the results have been
fairly successful. ‘Women in Sport Unit’ has instigated a number of promotional campaigns, andthere is evidence that young women in particular have become more active. For example, thesingle most popular sport activity in 1999 was walking, and the female participation rate of 30%
was higher than the male rate of 23%. Similarly more women swim for exercise than men.

3

Finally, aerobics, which is mainly a women’s activity, is now the third most popular form ofphysical activity behind walking and swimming. Nearly 60% of women between 18 and 54 yearsof age now engage in some form of regular physical activity. It is then significant to observe thatthe participation of Australian women in sports and physical activities has been increasing andbecoming closer to the Australian men’s numbers.

2. Israel: Sport for all as History, Culture and Society (Hillel Ruskin)According to Ruskin, in a research done in 1970, the participation in sport was found to belinked to level of education and age, rising as the level of education rose and falling with the risein age. The percentage of women was lower than that of men in all age groups (group aged 1824: 25% of women and 68% of men!).

With the rise in age, the gap between the sexes

dwindled.
Another research was done in 1974, from a representative sample, as part of an ongoingsurvey of public opinion which was held by the Communications Institute of the Hebrew
University and the Institute for Applied Social Research, at the initiative of the Authority for Sportand Physical Education at the Ministry of Education and Culture and Tzabar. Questions were
included regarding patterns of physical activity in Israel, the range of such activities, andopinions about physical activity. The 553 interviewees were a representative sample of the urban
adult Jewish population in Israel’s four largest cities. This time, 33% of the interviewees reported
participation in some kind of leisure physical activity, especially walking, marching and swimming(men and women alike), and a little less in exercise and movement (especially among women)
and group ball games (in particular among men). In all other areas of sport, the rate of activity
was found to be very low.

Women reported more participation in sport, and more frequently

than men. Participation tended to decrease with age and rise with education and income. Most of
the participants did so individually and generally at home or its environments. Women were
found to participate in organized groups more than men, and men in non-organized team sports.
Table 1 shows the results of two surveys; the one done in 1974 and the other one done in 1979
about types of sports played by adults.
It is observed that in 5 years (1974-1979), there was a decrease of women’s participation
not only in walking activities but also in team ball games although more women were interviewed
in 1979. Adult participation in sports activities was surveyed again in 1980 by the Central Bureau
for Statistics. Among men, activity was more common (39%) than women (23%). Table 2 sums
up in percentages “occasional” participation in sports activity according to a 1980 survey ofadults (age 25 and over).
In 1980 a survey was made of the factors pertaining to participation in physical activity
during leisure time by Ruskin and Shamir (1981) on a sample of 482 reserve duty soldiers andthe wives of those who were married (191). Factors that could influence the standard andfrequency of physical activity were examined, such as cultural, social and economic background;processes of education and socialization; knowledge and skill; personal traits, motivation and
expectations; other work and leisure activities; opportunities and limitations, social and family

4climate. The following factors were found to have the most influence: among men - positive
motivation such as improving physical fitness and health, challenge and excitement, relaxation
and recreation.

Negative motivation dimension included “physical activity leads to negative

results” such as fatigue, boredom and a bad feeling or disturbance to family life and work.
Among the women, motivation included the main improvement of fitness and health, relaxation
and recreation, and also esthetic reasons. It is then observed that although women constitute atarget group there are not much data available.

Table 1: Types of sport practiced by adults in 1974 and 1979 according to gender (inpercentages)
Type

of

Sport

Men

Women

1974

1979

1974

1979

62

54

88

80

ball

21

28

5

3

Couples ball

5

8

2

6

Other

12

10

5

11

Total %

100

100

100

100

N

91

214

85

167

Walking,marching,
swimming,
gymnastics
Team
games

games

Table 2: Participation in physical activity among adults, 1980 (percentages)
Total Participation

Percentage
30.6*

Men

39.2

Women

22.6

Native-born Israelis

47.7

Asia-African origin

21.2

American-European

26.8

Education up to 8 years

13.0

Education 9-12 years

31.0

Education 13 plus years

52.4* 17.5% in two forms or more of sport; 9.6% in an organized framework; 23% in the previous
month

5

3. Japan: Sport for all in Lifelong Perspectives of Health and Fitness (Masaru Ikeda,
Yasuo Yamaguchi & Makoto Chogahara)
The traditional martial arts of Japan such as judo, kendo or Japanese fencing, archery,naginata or halberd, which used to be a martial art for women of samurai families, hold a special
position in Japanese sports. The samurai fighting techniques, which developed during the
Sengoku Era (Period of Civil War) in the 16th century, were organized into several different
schools during the Edo Era in the 18th century, and then modernized at the end of the 19th
century.
Sasakawa Sports Foundation (SSF) conducts the national sports life survey every otheryear to find the situation of sports and related problems. The level of participation in sports andphysical activities was analyzed in terms of frequency, duration, and intensity. An “active sports
participant” is someone who exercises more than twice a week for over 30 minutes at a time tomaintain and improve health. The survey found that 13.0% (13.1% men and 13.0% women) of
the respondents were active sports participants. This result shows a continuous increase since
1992, when the SSF National Sport-Life Survey started (1992-6.5%, 1994-7.6%, 1996-9.6%).
The sports participation rate for those who exercised more than once over the last twelve months
was 65.7% (72.2% men and 59.2 women), similarly to a previous survey conducted in 1996,
which proved that sports participation in Japan has improved in quality.
In terms of target groups, women are not addressed as a target group, but rather aspart of other target groups such as the following, in terms of priorities: (1st) children andadolescents; (2nd) Older adults; and (3rd) disabled people.
The authors also mention that most sports and exercise programs in Japan are being
offered at the following four settings: 1) schools; 2) workplaces; 3) private sport clubs; and 4)
community sport clubs. SFA campaigns and programs have recently become more organized incommunity settings. The number of sports facilities per individual in Japan is not inferior to thatof other advanced countries. However, sports facilities in Japan are restricted to the limited
variety of sports and to the physical training facilities of schools which occupy a large share ofsports facilities and are not completely open to the public. This problem could be solved bymaintaining the facilities deliberately open so that the needs of the users may be fulfilled to the
maximum extent, allowing effective facility management. As a result, it is possible to conclude
that although women are not a target group they participate in physical activities as part of thecommunity.

4. South Korea: The Various Roles of Sport for All in Society (Ju-Ho Chang)
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the understanding of the health in Korea has beenchanging. Originally, the concept of ‘health’ has always meant a state in which a person is not
suffering from any illness, but now, in addition to that, health means, for men, a powerfulphysique and well-developed muscle and, for women, a slender and glamorous figure. As

6exercises turned out to be good for one’s health and figure, increasingly many people have tried
to keep their figure by taking to exercises (e.g. aerobics, weight training). The reason for the
popularity of aerobics among women since the 1990s is that aerobics is both enjoyable andeffective in weight loss. Weight training has won popularity among men since the 1990s because
weight training improves men’s physique and therefore a man who does weight training cancause good impression on women.
There are 8 sports programs funded by the local government - physical exercise courses
for children, training program for the youth, Sport for All courses for women, sports courses forthe elderly, family camp for Sport for All, sports competitions by youth clubs, sports instructor
course for the office workers, and recreation course.
Although in Korea Sport for All has been usually involved around adult men, womenstarted to participate in greater numbers in the late 1980s. It is important to mention that up
until the mid-1980s, the government had focused on elite sports, but did not support
organizations of Sport for All. There were not enough sports facilities for Sport for All and neither
were there any sports equipment. In the late 1980s, the situation totally changed: the number ofparticipants in sports rapidly increased, and in particular, the number of adult men. As a result,the government heavily invested on sports programs, building sports facilities for Sport for All
especially for adult men.
In the 1990s, the high growth of the economy brought about shorter working hours andincrease in leisure time and disposable income. Henceforth, people who were well off became
more interested in health and the quality of life, and more and more people became interested in
sports. According to the 1997 Survey, the number of participants in Sport for All shows that the
number of men engaged in Sport for All was much higher than that of women, which was 38.8%.
If the total population of 1997 was set at 45.9 million, 11.8 million people participated in Sport
for All. But only 3.3 million people joined the sports clubs, accounting for only 7.2% of the
population. In other words, most of the Koreans enjoyed sports without joining any sports club.
In other words, even though the economy developed and the attitude toward sports changed,
still only a relatively small number of people of middle and upper class could afford sports. The
ordinary people were not rich enough to enjoy sports on a regular basis.
In the past, the social activities for Korean women were limited not only because of
Confucianism as the religion and the conventional idea that men are superior to women, but also
because of a fixed gender role. In advanced countries, prejudice against women had prevailed
until the latter half of the 20th century. With the introduction of feminism in the late 1960s,
prejudice against women began to decline.

As conventional thought about women’s rolechanged and women were given equal opportunity, the number of women who became working
members in society increased rapidly. Due to family planning, women gave birth to only one or
two children, and they spent less time bringing up their children. As a result, they could havemore opportunities to enjoy leisure time, and growing numbers of women have participated in
sports activities in order to enhance the quality of their life and stay healthy.

7

Korea followed the same process of developed nations. For example, in the 1990s, thenumber of women participating in Sport for All increased. It was, of course, because of thechange in the social perception toward women, the elevated women’s status in society and theincrease in the family income because of the economic growth. Women got their own income
since they got a paid job in society. Another reason was that they got more leisure time as they
could spend less time bringing up their children compared to the past. As many people thoughtthat working out was good for staying in shape and for reducing weight, there were a growing
number of women participating in Sport for All. These women wanted definitely to keep in shape.
According to the 1997 Survey, 30.0% of women participated in Sport for All, 16.7% less than the
46.7% that corresponded to the number of men. This figure shows that there were still many
limitations that prevented women from engaging in Sport for All. However, there is also muchroom for improvement.
Hiking is most favored by women, especially older women. According to the 1997 Survey,
25.5% of women enjoyed hiking for the following reasons; (i) there are many mountains in
Korea; (ii) there is no need of special equipment to go out hiking; (iii) it is not a competitive
sport and (iv) it is less dangerous because hikers can control the amount of their own physicalexercise.
Stretching and rope jumping are the second most popular exercise. The reason for this isthat they can do stretching and rope jumping in their backyard or alley, and it takes only 10 to
20 minutes so that there is relatively no burden for women who are busy taking care of theirchildren. Women who have difficulty in carrying out activities of daily living and do not like sports
prefer to do stretching and rope jumping in order to relax their muscles and to watch theirweight.
Badminton ranked third. Even though badminton is a competitive sport, it is easy to learn
and requires less physical strength and power because the racket is light and the court is small.
Besides that, there are many badminton courts in most of the neighborhoods.
Swimming, aerobics, and bowling are also popular with women. With the growing numberof sports centers and town sports facilities funded by the government and local government,
swimming, aerobic and bowling became the most popular sports with women. These sports areappealing to women because of many reasons. As indoor sports, women are not exposed to thesun; they can enjoy sports in a modern-style building and pleasant atmosphere. Now they canenjoy the sports that were once considered only for the rich. With advanced marketingstrategies, the sports centers provide specialized sports programs for women, thus a growing
number of women participate in sports activities.

Compared to Table 3, the percentage ofwomen taking aerobics is 45 times higher, swimming three times higher and bowling is twice
higher than that of men, respectively.
Golf has recently become very popular among women. According to the 1997 Survey, thenumber of respondents who said they wanted to play golf increased from meager 2.7% in 1994
to 7.1% in 1997. Compared to other sports, this figure is very high. Due to the economic growthof the country, a growing number of middle class women have been playing golf. Until the mid-8

90s golf had been considered a luxury sport since only rich people could afford it. Another reason
for this is that Korean golfers like Park Seri and Kim Mihyun have won several famousinternational golf games like LPGA. As a result, golf is now considered as a goose laying golden
eggs.

Table 3: Rankings of Sports Favored by Women
Ranking - Sports1stPercentage

Ranking - Sportsth- Basketball

Percentage- Hiking

25.5%

8

2.1%

2nd - Stretching/

18.7%

9th - Golf

7.1%

- Badminton

11.2%

10th - Tennis

1.6%

4th - Swimming

10.6%

11th - Bicycle Riding

1.2%

Rope jumping
3

rd

5

th

6

th

7

th

- Aerobics

9.1%

12

th

13

th

- Soccer

0.3%

14

th

- Others

4.5%- Weight

0.5%

Training- Bowling- Athletics/Jogging

8.3%
4.6%

Source: The Ministry of Culture and Tourism (1998)

Sport for All has played a vital role in improving physical strength of the people since
1980s. According to the report on physical strength of people, the height of males in the agegroup of 19 to 24 increased 2.8cm from 170cm in 1988 to 172cm in 1995, and the weightincreased 7kg from 61kg in 1988 to 69kg. In case of women in the same age group, the heightincreased 2cm from 157cm in 1988 to 160cm in 1995, and the weight increased 1kg from 52kg
in 1988 to 53kg. The weight of women did not increase much despite the improved nourishment.
It is because women desire to stay fit.
Women in the age group from 19 to 24 recorded 166cm in the long jump in 1988 and in
1995 they jumped 6cm more to 172cm. In terms of push-ups, they pushed up 23.3 in 1988, andin 1995 they pushed up 0.5 less to 22.8. In the 800 meters, they raced with 7:35.02 in 1988,
but in 1995 the record increased by 5.4 seconds to 7:40.06. And in case of sit-ups, they sat-up
21.4 in 1988, and in 1995 they sat-up 9.6 more to 31.0. According to statistics, in the case of
the women, the leg and abdominal muscles became stronger, but the arm muscles, the heart
and lungs, and endurance became weak. This is probably due to the fact that women like sports
exercising such as long-term sports and leg exercises.
However, as Sport for All developed, physical features and physical strength of men andwomen also developed. Of course, Sport for All could not get all the credit for it, but it sure did agreat deal to improve the health and physical strength of the people. It is possible to conclude
that SFA South Korea considered women as a major target group, at least for analytic concernsand especially because of the quantity of data offered in the text.

5. Malaysia: Sport for All in Cultural Diversity (Sarjit Singh & Selina Khoo)9According to Singh & Khoo, the official religion in Malaysia is Islam, although otherreligions are practiced. There is the misconception that Islam prohibits women from taking partin sports. The fact is that Islam encourages women to be healthy, but it does not encourage
excessively free interaction between men and women. However, there are ways to overcome
this. The International Islamic University of Malaysia has separate programs for males andfemales. Other ways of encouraging participation is to have sports facilities which are womenfriendly.
Other segments of the population that have associations to cater to their needs are thesenior citizens and women. The National Council of Senior Citizens Organization Malaysia(NACSCOM) was set up in July 1990. The council’s mission is to improve the quality of life ofsenior citizens.
Although women are not considered as a target group, the Women’s Sports and Fitness
Foundation Malaysia (WSFFM) was set up in September 1996. Some of the activities mentioned
in the foundation’s 1996 annual report include the Lecture Series on Sports and Fitness, a
Women and Sports Convention and free aerobics sessions for women.

6. Singapore: Towards a Sporting Nation with Sport for All (Soon Min Yan)
To keep its programs and marketing strategies relevant and effective, the Singapore
Sports Council (SSC) conducts the National Survey on Sports Participation in Singapore every 5
years. The 1992 survey revealed that the least active segments of the population were seniorcitizens, housewives and working adults - only 12% of senior citizens, 11% of housewives and
22% of working adults participate regularly in sports.
These findings were the catalyst for the launching of the Sports For Life program in 1996,
which aimed to arrest this disturbing trend by making it easier for Singaporeans to enjoy thebenefits and fun of playing sports and keeping fit. The main target groups of Sports For Life aresenior citizens, housewives and working adults, the least active segments of the population. The
needs of the other main segments of the population, students and national servicemen, aretaken care of by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of the Defence and the Ministry of Home
Affairs respectively.
To achieve these targets, Sports For Life is implemented at the national, community andconstituency levels through several programs including the Sports For Women program.
At the constituency level, the promotion of sports to residents is carried out by the 83
Constituency Sports Clubs (CSCs), which are the SSC’s Sport For All implementing arms in theconstituencies.

The main objectives of CSCs are (i) to promote and organize sports andrecreational activities to the residents of the constituency; (ii) to select and train sportsmen andsportswomen from the constituency for participation in the Inter-Constituency Games; (iii) toprovide feedback to the SSC on the sporting needs and aspirations of its constituents and (iv) tokeep the residents informed of Government action and policy on all matters pertaining to sports.
In Singapore, women make up an indirect target group. Surveys have shown that women
are generally less physically active than men. Sports For Life aims to address this problem

10through a variety of sports activities targeted at women, especially housewives. These include
the annual National Sports Carnival for Women and the International Folk and Recreation DanceNight. Learn-To-Play schemes like Aerobics and Yoga have also proved to be especially popularamong women. The SSC organized the first ever Women and Sport Conference in March 1999 todiscuss issues pertaining to women and sports. The Brighton Declaration on Women and Sport
was adopted during the conference and a Women and Sport Working Group was formed to draw
up action plans to promote the increased participation among women in sports.

7. People’s Republic of China: Folk, Sport, Mass Sport, Sport for All (Yuan Zhongyi &Zhou Jingiang)
As the title of the article, SFA in China is in reality mass sport. Women are included as they
are part of the population. The tendency of the development of the Chinese mass sport and its
sport pattern has as the basis of analysis the following key interpretation: the population in
urban areas will be 35.50% and 49.90% in the rural areas by 2010. Half of the population will
still be in the rural areas, which indicates that the binary social structure in terms of the
distribution of the population will remain the same comparing with that of the present rate.
Accordingly, the lifestyle and attitudes towards sport activities in the different regions will not be
too much different. As such, both urban and rural approaches to the so-called Sport for All in the
future may be submitted to the following synthesis:
A. Mass sport in cities - with the development of the cities and the rapidly growing numberof elderly citizens, more attention is being paid to the sport activities in the community(community-based sport in the 21st century will be a basic paradigm of Mass Sport / Sport
for All for people in the urban areas in China. It is normally reliant upon the natural
resources and some facilities within the communities. The primary purpose of thecommunity-based sport is to promote people’s health, together with its convenience,
which will attract more people, especially the elderly).
B. Mass Sport in the countryside - between the year of 2000 and 2010, people in the
countryside will still be at the stage of “Wenmao” (seeking to dress warmly and to eat
their fill) although some have already entered the stage of “Xiaokang” (comparatively
well-to-do). The quality of life and its environment will be still unbalanced compared withthat of the cities, and the different regions. For instance, in the eastern areas, the levelsof the technology used in agriculture are higher, and the gap between cities andcountryside is becoming shorter. At the same time in some areas of the western andnorthwestern regions, the productive force is still under-developed, and farmers have towork more hours and pursue nothing but work for their own food.
The tendency of the development of Mass Sport and its contents has health as a basis, whichmakes it coincidentally a Sport for All proposition. In fact, the former pattern of Mass Sport was
created with the purpose of promoting people’s health. So were the contents corresponding tosuch needs. The major activities, limited to collective form, were broadcast exercise, sportmeetings, and some popular athletic events. With the development of the economy, more and11more people have started to realize the value of sport, and have been seeking it in order to makethemselves utterly and freely developed as individuals. Consequently, the multi-dimensions ofsport activities will have advanced. Activities like fitness, athletics, and sport entertainment,
Qigong, Taichi, and some other folk sports will be performed in various forms at diverse levels,
which will be continually developed and become the major contents of Mass Sport within the nextten years (2000-2010).
The tendency of the development of Mass Sport and its participant groups is the ultimate
perspective which projects the future from past experiences. As such, “sport population” can be
defined by those groups as those who often participate in sport activities. According to a study
conducted by Lu (1998), sport population in China was defined as those who take part in sport
activities twice or three time a week, and with more than half an hour each time, and proper
exercise intensity. Presently, there are about 33.26% of individuals who can be regarded as
sport population in China. The rate of participation is still low comparing with that of developed
countries. The sport population is expected to continue to increase continually, with thetransformation of the mechanism of the Mass Sport, the development of the economy, theimprovement of physical education, and the pursuit of the value of aesthetics of the humanbeing.
Although women were not directly mentioned in the research as a target group it is possible
to expect that they are included in mass sport, which will continue to increase for the next years.

EUROPE
1. Austria: Sport for All as a Social Change and Fitness Development (Friederich
Holzweber)
Although Austria does not include women as a target group, the author mentions that a ‘FitPhilosophy’ was developed in a special conference attended by the Austrian President and otherleading representatives of politics, the economy and the public opinion in 1971. One of themeasures taken was that the special program being created was aimed at ‘the general public,
first and foremost at families and women’. As a result, 1971 became a year especially dedicatedto sport for women with a Sportiva-certificate. Besides, the program encouraged self-conducted
physical activity in the outdoors. As a result, some social changes occurred, including the factthat women increased their participation in physical activities. Holzweber points out that the
male-female ratio in sports clubs amounted 7:1 in 1969, e.g. in Vienna even 36:1 in highperformance sports, women are now becoming the dominant force in many fit-groups and totally
reversed the ratio to 1:3. The author concludes that today, it is possible to observe that theAustrian citizen, man or woman, of any age and income, has many more chances of participating
freely in non-formal and independent physical activities. This step forward was made keeping thelongstanding traditions from associative sports, which is a reason for both sportsmen andsportswomen to be proud. This accomplishment is especially more important now when we go
through times of increasing individualism in sport competition.

12

Although women were not considered a target group, it is important to mention thatorganizations as diverse as unions, public health care organizations, insurance companies, target
group organizations, ideological and political organizations, youth movements, senior citizens
organizations, women’s organizations, workers’ organizations, banks and multinationals haveadopted Sport for All ideas in their strategies and policies. School sport organizations also
showed a change from a competitive profile for a minority of athletes to a Sport for All profile
with inclusion of students as the main target.

2. Bulgaria: Sport for All from a Way of Life to a Matter of Choice (Vassil Girginov &Peter Bankov)
According to the authors, a national Aerobics Commission was created in 1984 with themission to propagate an active way of life by influencing individuals, and women in particular, totake up aerobics and enjoy the health and well-being benefits associated with it. For the firsttime a Sport for All activity was introduced in such a co-ordinated manner using various powerfulchannels - television, mass displays, literature, training and services. Despite all odds, aerobics
took off very quickly, predominantly on a pay-as-you-play basis, but its economic and marketing
impact was never assessed, and subsequently managerial decisions were not based on suchinformation.
Although the promoters of Sport for All have always aimed involve as many people aspossible, the implementation of general strategies was designed to appeal to specific target
groups. The key target groups as identified by Sport for All programs between 1970s and 1990s
were the pre-school children, students, workers, farmers, elderly, and people with disabilities.
Women, ethnic minorities, or the family (except for short spell in 1982-86) were never identified
as specific groups for targeting. The main rationales for selecting these groups were occupational(people’s place of work/study) and organizational (controllable groups) because of the easy
access they offered to large contingents of people.
From a marketing point of view, people aged 50 and over were first identified as a specifictarget group in 1982. The big concern about this category of people was the fact that Bulgaria
was experiencing an ageing population. A representative survey in 291 cities and villages where
63.2% of the country population was concentrated, showed that 16.2% of men and 6.8% of
women (a 70% : 30% male ratio) were practicing some sport. Quite rightly, sport was seen as
an essential factor contributing to maintaining good health and fitness. Organizational structures
were put in place and by 1986 there were 544 groups for basic physical activity (so-called‘Groups for health’) with 10,500 participants and some 1,300 sports groups with over 15,600
participants. However, the scale of the issue of physical activity for this target group neverreceived an adequate solution due to the lack of subsidies, co-ordination and personal interest ofadministrators.
The conclusion is that women were not aimed as a specific target group but they were
thought of as participants.

13

3. Cyprus: in Search of the Right Measure for Sport for All (Nicos Kartakoullis)
The industrialization and urbanization of the island led to certain changes in the Cypriot
society. First of all, the benefits brought about were not equally shared. As it can be realized,
this gave rise to the emergence of distinctive classes – the workers and the capitalists, who had
the capital, the resources and the power. Women from the ruling and powerful class had thechance to leave the island for studies and training abroad. Upon their return, they would bringnew traditions and changes to the conservative, traditional customs of the island. The economic
growth was even greater during the 1980s and 1990s, and more opportunities have become
available to both men and women. Labor shortage has led to more women getting out of thehouse for paid employment, helping with the costs of running the household.
According to the authors, women are included with men in a second target group (the firstone includes children and the third the elderly and the handicapped). The program for ‘men andwomen’ covers both urban and rural areas, and offers organized activities for adults in aerobics,
basketball, swimming and tennis as shown in Table 4.

Table 4- Participation numbers for men and women in SFA for the years
1993 – 1999
Year

Women

SFA Centers

Men

SFA Centers

1993 - 1994

664

29

72

7

1994 – 1995

635

35

50

7

1995 – 1996

760

34

300

19

1996 – 1997

1056

37

214

18

1997 – 1998

1000

40

180

14

1998 – 1999

1100

38

200

22

Although there is no separate policy concerning only women, it is possible to observe that there
were more SFA centers for women and more women participating in physical activities than men
between 1993 and 1999, which could show a tendency.

4. Denmark: The Cultural and Voluntary Development of Sport for All (Bjame Ibsen &Per Jorgensen)
According to the authors, Denmark is a very homogeneous society culturally speaking,ethnically as well as religiously, but also a very secularized society. Compared to other countries,
there are relatively small differences in relation to real wages and the relative position of men
and women in society. For example, Denmark is the country with the highest proportion of
women in the labor force and, regarding sport, just as many women as men are active. Generally

14

speaking,Denmarkhas

beencharacterized,

to

a

great

extent,byliberalattitudes,

decentralization and opposition to regulation. As a result, sport is done in sports clubs, company
sports clubs, evening schools and in other kinds of clubs. An investigation done in 1998 showedthat 46% of the sports-active adults in Denmark and 3/4 of the sports-active children participate
in a traditional sports club.
Although SFA in Denmark does not focus on women as a target group, women are
included directly and indirectly in the following target groups: Danish School Sport, Danish
Workers Sport, Danish Sport Federation for the Disabled, Evening Schools, the Danish TRIM
Committee, The Danish Heart Foundation and the Association for the Promotion of Exercise andSport during Daytime. Women’s participation in sporting activities can be observed in Tables 3,
4, 5 and 6.
According to Table 5, women tend to do their physical activities more in evening schools
and private centers than men. As a matter of fact, a 1998 survey revealed that evening school
was one of the places that 15% of all women, compared to only 3% of all men, were actively
involved in sport or exercise (Table 3). More active women (907) than active men (784) took
part in this survey, which indicated that the most active age brackets were 20-29 and 30-39,
with 55% of the total number of people who answered the survey.
Table 6 shows that the percentage of women participating in sports increased from 11%
in 1964 to 51% in 1998, leveling with that of men. The percentages show that there is atendency to decrease the practice of physical activities as individuals get older: from 67% at the
16-19 age group to 37% at the 70-74 age group.

15

Table 5: Proportion of the actively involved in sport who do so under different
organizational forms, divided up according to gender and age (%)

Organizational form

Club

All

Evening

PrivateAt work or

Other

IndependeN=schoolcentre,college/sch

organizat

ntly(100 %)

etc.

ool.

ion

46

10

22

17

7

84

1691

Men

55

3

16

20

7

84

784

Women

39

15

26

14

7

84

907

P<

.001

.001

.001

.002

.7

.5

16-19

69

7

15

27

10

80

83

20-29

51

6

31

14

5

85

525

30-39

47

7

19

23

6

82

402

40-44

40

9

20

19

7

87

256

50-59

42

24

15

15

9

84

237

60-79

37

10

14

6

12

84

147

70-75

36

20

12

2

10

68

41

p<

.001

.001

.001

.001

.07

.08

GenderAge

16

Table 6: The proportion of the Danish population -16 – 75 years – who are actively
involved in sport or exercise (%) in 1964, 1975, 1987, 1993 and 1998

Groups

Years

1964

1975

1987

1993

1998

All

15

29

42

47

51

Men

21

31

43

47

51

Women

11

27

42

47

51

16-19

53

52

61

67

67

20–29

27

41

48

56

59

30-39

17

41

46

49

51

40-49

10

25

44

49

51

50-59

5

21

31

42

46

60-69

3

11

30

36

47

70-74

2

13

24

30

37

Source: Fridberg, Torben (2000): –Kultur-og fritidsaktiviteter 1975-1998

Table 7 shows the reasons why men and women adhere to the practice of physicalactivities. It is possible to observe that most of the people, men and women, of the various age
groups, who participated in the survey pointed out that they do sporting activities for health andwellbeing reasons.
Table 8 shows the most popular sporting activities for men and women. Women
preferred hiking, gymnastics, cycling and swimming. In terms of age groups, both men andwomen who were older preferred hiking.

17

Table 7: Reasons why active sportsmen and women are involved: Proportion that
respond that they agree with the statements below – according to age (%)
Age of the sportsman/womanp<

Health and wellbeing reasons
16-39

40-59

60-75

I do sport to use my body

92

90

92

.7

I am an active sportsman/woman to keep healthy

83

82

92

.06

I am an active sportsman/woman because it is nice/fun

84

82

85

.02

I am an active sportsman/woman to relax

70

71

69

.2

I am an active sportsman/woman to avoid getting fat

54

52

66

.02

I am an active sportsman/woman because it gives

57

61

65

.2

24

27

43

.002

24

22

40

.001

30

18

35

.001

new

28

13

18

.001

I am an active sportsman/woman to push myself to the

25

10

16

.001

26

16

17

.001

17

13

16

.001

surplus energy to the rest of daily life

Solidarity reasons

I am an active sportsman/woman for the sake of thesolidarity

I am an active sportsman/woman because it creates
friendships

Sporting reasons

I am an active sportsman/woman to keep improving myskillsI

amanactivesportsman/woman

to

meet

challenges

limitsI am an active sportsman/woman to compete against
myself (improve my times etc.)

I am an active sportsman/woman to compete against
others18

I am an active sportsman/woman to be good/the best

9

4

11

.001

at my sport

Table 8: The proportion of those actively involved in sport who are involved in the mostpopular sports, according to gender and age (%)

Sport orAll

GenderAge

exercise
Men

Wom

p<

16-39

40-59

60-75

p<

en

Hiking

50

39

59

.001

43

58

65

.001

Cycling

42

38

36

.4

35

41

40

.05

Jogging

36

43

30

.001

45

28

12

.001

Gymnastics, etc.

31

11

49

.001

30

31

35

.5

Swimming

28

21

33

.001

27

29

28

.7

19

21

18

.3

24

14

6

.001

Skiing

17

17

16

.7

20

14

3

.001

Badminton

16

22

11

.001

18

17

7

.001

Football

15

27

4

.001

20

8

3

.001

Roller skating

10

8

11

.005

15

4

0

.001

Weighttraining,

etc.

Repeated surveys of the Danish people’s leisure and cultural life show that the proportionof the adult population who participate in sport or exercise has tripled since the mid-1960s, i.e.
since the point when leisure began to be included in deliberations about the strategy of the19welfare state (Table 6). There has been a growth in participation in sport and exercise among allsocial groups, but the increase is largest among women and the elderly.
According to the authors, the surveys conducted in Denmark, reveal that theinequalities which traditionally plagued participation in sport - on the basis of gender, age andeducation/occupation - are much less prevalent now than they were 35 years ago when “Sport
for All” was formulated as the Council of Europe’s most important policy goal for sport. Firstly, as
far as participation is concerned, there are no significant gender differences among adults orchildren. Secondly, the differences between levels of participation by young people and seniorcitizens are relatively minor. The highest level of participation is around the age of 12, after
which levels of participation fall with age, but the difference between participation levels foryounger adults (20 - 29 year) and older people (70 - 75 year) is only on approximately 20%, andas far as women are concerned, participation falls only slightly between the ages of 20 and 70.
Thirdly, the differences between the levels of participation of the various occupational andeducational groups are relatively minor. As expected, participation levels are highest for thosewith a higher education and lowest for skilled and unskilled blue-collar workers, and this is not
due only to the fact that unskilled workers are predominantly older. In fact, the biggest
difference between the levels of participation of those with a higher education and those withouta lower education was found in the younger section of the population (16- 39). Fourthly, theextent to which an area is urbanized makes significant difference at participation levels. Thisdevelopment is due - as far as we know today – to a complicated interaction between a numberof social changes on both the individual level and society level.
It ought to be mentioned as well that the working week - as defined by collective
bargaining agreements - has been gradually reduced to 37 hours. However, surveys show that
31% of men and 1% of women work 39 or more hours per week, not counting travel time. The
greatest change in the family is without doubt the shift from breadwinner/housewife to the dualprovider family. In 1974, 43% of women were housewives, a figure that fell to 8% in 1985 andto only 6% in 1995, where 78% of men and 65% of women had jobs. The number of women in
part-time jobs has also fallen sharply from 50% in 1970 to 20% in 1995. The number of people
working overtime and the growing proportion of women on the labor market has led to a fall in
the average weekly amount of leisure time. As more women work outside the home, men have
had to take over some of the housework although women still do most of the household chores.
So the growing participation in sport cannot be explained away with the increasing amount of
spare time. On the contrary, participation has grown mostly among women, who haveexperienced the largest reduction in their “free time”.
However, the analysis questions the importance of the sport policy for the development ofSport for All in Denmark. Firstly, participation levels in Denmark are lower than in a number ofother countries where public sector funding is less generous and widespread and is notchanneled to club sports. Secondly, the comparative analysis of participation levels in different
areas of Denmark reveal that there is no clear correlation between public-sector funding and theavailability of sports facilities on the one hand and participation levels on the other. Thirdly, the20

analysis shows that the increased and more equal participation in sport in Denmark can be
attributed to a great extent to increased participation in sport organized under organizational
auspices that do not receive public-sector funding (commercial institutes, sport at work,
independently organized sport, etc.) and that this is particularly the case for those groups(women and older citizens) who used to be less active in sport.
To conclude, according to the authors, it is important to mention that three social and culturalcharacteristics of Danish society have been beneficial to the development of Sport for All. First,
Danish culture has been characterized for many years by strong ideals of equality and antielitism, ideals that correspond to the ideals of Sport for All. Furthermore, these ideals have fitted
in well with the Danish welfare model with its large public sector, universal and egalitarian
welfare programs and relatively large degree of wealth redistribution. Finally, in a number ofcultural and social areas, Denmark got modernized relatively early, which e.g. can be seen a by(i) a relatively large proportion of the population having a higher education; (ii) modern gender
patterns that among other things have seen just as many women active on the labor market as
men and (iii) the development of a strongly secularized society. All of this has had a positive
influence on participation in sport. To a great extent, the objective of Sport for All has beenreached in Denmark, even though participation is not on the same high level as it is in the other
Scandinavian countries. Since the 1960s, the number of Danes actively involved in sport has
grown extremely quickly and more than half of the population now does some kind of sport orphysical exercise. In addition, women are just as active as men and participation levels among
the elderly are approaching the high levels of the young. The analysis reveals, however, that thisdevelopment is not solely due to the political and organizational initiatives (large-scale public
sector subsidies, more sports facilities and a wider range of options within the voluntary sector)
that have been taken to encourage the population to become involved in sport. The growing andmore equally distributed participation in sport in Denmark can also be explained by the generalsocial and cultural modernization of Danish society.

5. England: Sport for All as a Multifaceted Product of Domestic and International
Influences (Michael F. Collins)
In a section entitled ‘Sport is not yet for All,’ the report issued by the Sports Council in
1982 said “men greatly outnumber women, and the young outnumber the over-thirties in mostactivities…. Other inequalities remain undiminished or only barely reduced during the growthphase of 1973-90. The non-participants comprise the housewives, the semi and unskilled, thenon-car owner, the lower income groups. There are other groups in society which we have goodreason to believe are low participant but for whom we have little data: those newly moved to an
area, especially from overseas, the unemployed and the disabled, especially the mentallyhandicapped. Each has different barriers to overcome to play any sport they may choose.”
As the Sports Council felt there were too many needs to be met by available resources,
they decided to concentrate on some limited targets for the next ten years, which included (i)the increase in the number of mass participation facilities (200 refurbished and 50 new21

swimming pools; 800 new sports halls; 682 low-cost basic structures, and 1977 conversions;
3,000 new playing pitches and improved pavilions/changing rooms besides increased access toland, air and water resources for outdoor sports; (ii) investment on performance (improved
coaching and administration in 20 sports and £20m worth of new national facilities) and (iii)increase participation numbers (increase in indoor sports participation of 1million women and
200,000 men; increase in outdoor sports of 900,000 women and 300,000 men; focus on target
groups of 13-24 and 45-59 years in the belief that these were times of transition when there
were opportunities to establish active lifestyles for the family and retirement phases of life).
Although women were not treated as a particular group, they were included in government
policies as it is observed by the target numbers aimed by the government.
In 1982, Sport in the Community: the Next 10 Years set targets for participation for thefive and ten-year period. It also introduced the concept of target groups, and proposeddemonstration projects to meet their needs. Building on the concept of Action Sport in the cities,
National Demonstration Projects were developed and monitored in the 1980s by the Sports
Council to provide models of promoting participation amongst low-participant and deprived
groups (women, older people, ethnic minorities, people obese and with poor fitness).
In the first five years of this strategy, a million more women had taken part in indoor
sport, partly it has to be said, as a result of the secular growth in popularity of aerobics andother fitness programs for which the sports movement could claim no responsibility. But it did
provide a base on which commercial and public providers capitalized in the following 10 years.
Women’s participation in outdoor sports fell, perhaps as a result of increasing participation, fulland part time in the labor market. Male participation increased in both indoor and outdoor sport.
Its targets for the next five years were set at extra 1.25m women and 0.75m men. In 1987-90
the increase was in fact 1.23m and 0.77m for Britain (1.00m and 0.59m for England –SC, 1992).
The target groups were, in Coghlan’s (1990:224) phrase, “trimmed back” to young people andwomen.
Contrary to what had been aimed at by the Sports Council, as the years went by more
and more people gave up playing sports or doing physical activities for a variety of reasons, themain one being unemployment.
From 1992 to 1997, priorities were shifted from participation to performance andexcellence. The tendencies for target groups and priorities in relation to Sport for All in England
are represented in Table 9.
The concern over gender inequities was focused in 1994, when Brighton hosted aninternational conference on ‘Women, Sport and the Challenge of Change’ leading to what has
become called ‘The Brighton Declaration,’ and a program of action through a Women’s Sport
Foundation. Soon after this, the Council developed programs for equity of opportunity: policy
documents being produced for sport for youth, women, ethnic groups and disability. Officers
claimed that the approach of target groups was ‘stigmatizing,’ though no evidence to that effect
was produced. In 1982 it was introduced as a management/marketing tool to deal with priorities
with constrained resources. As a result, the summary of changing priorities and targets for SFA

22

in England is shown in Table 9, where it can be observed that the target group ‘women’ is notconsidered a priority as the efforts made do not indicate that they continue onwards.

Table 9:Target groups/priorities for Sport for all in England

PriorityYear

Youth/school leavers

1982, 1987, 1989, 1993 onwards

Older people

1975

Women

1976, 1982, 1987, 1989, 1993

Disabled people

1980, 1989, 1994 onwards

Ethnic minorities

1982, 1984 onwards

Joint provision with schools

1968, 1982, 1987, 1989

Inner cities/areas of special need

1978, 1987

Exercise and Health

1977, 1981

It is also important to remember that the growth of women’s role as workers andindependent earners has left them with much less free time (explaining their decreased
participation in outdoor activities and take up of urban, keep fit and sports that can beundertaken in short spells) to do sports and physical activities.

6. Spain: In Search of an Institutional and Local Model of Sport for All (Eduardo Blanco
Pereira)The participation of women in sport between 1968 and 1995 had a remarkable increase of
317 % due to the low basis of comparison, that is, 12.3% in 1968. At the end of 1990 decade, theindex of 39% of sports participants in relation to total population came close to European levels. In
this concern, the increase in the female group is the most significant reason of the surge of sports
participation in Spain: in 1968, women were 37.1% of the total sports participants in the country
while in 1995 they totaled 66.6%. Table 10 displays these numbers.

Table 10: Sport Participation in Spain, 1968 /1995 - % of ParticipantsYears

196 197 198 198 199 199
8

Total

%

4

12.3 17.7

0

5

0

5

25

34

35

39

23

Sex

Men

18.3 22.7

33

46

42

48

Women

6.8

17

23

26

32

12.8

Source: Superior Council of Sports, 1999

7. Finland: The Country where Sport is for All (Jorma Savola)
Sports club activities have built up the foundation of Sport For All movement in Finland.
The oldest sport organizations in this country date back to the turn of the 20th century and one ofthem is the Finnish Women's Physical Education Association, established in 1898, when womenstarted taking care of their own physical education. In 1996 it became the Finnish Gymnastics
and Fitness Association (FGFA) and has ever since significantly promoted women and girls’
participation in physical activity, mainly in the fields of gymnastics and dance. Today the
Association consists of 386 sports clubs with 110,000 members. It has traditionally been a youth
and Sport for All association, but now its activities also include competitions in such fields asrhythmic sport gymnastics, group gymnastics and aerobics.
According to Savola, the largest associations today in Finland are the Finnish Swimming
Association (FSA) and the FGFA, which conduct activities for the general population, but it is thelatter that has put forward different products for women such as the popular health product ‘The
Slim & Trim’. This program is the result of collaboration in which the expertise of twoorganizations has been combined. On the one hand, the Finnish Sport for All Association set up anutrition and physical activity Program and, on the other hand, the former Finnish Women’s
Physical Education Association qualified instructors with motivation in a broad network of sports
clubs. As a result of the combination of these two institutions, another program was developed:‘The Shapely Woman’ program, which is a weight-reducing program for women desiring fitness,health and a firm body. The program helps overweight women find a pleasant way to participate
in physical activity and ‘lighten’ their dietary habits so that their weight is reduced permanently.
The course lasts 15 weeks and has no more than 20 participants. Each meeting lasts about 2hours and includes an exercise program and group discussion about dietary habits, physicalactivity and self-control. The participants receive the ‘The Shapely Woman’ material, a notebook
and a fitness program. Progress is followed through periodically measuring weight, firmness,muscular performance, and endurance. A dietary and activity diary is kept and the participants
are helped to adjust to the program with the aid of other home assignments. The group is led bya pair of instructors who have received instruction on how to direct the Slim & Trim program. An
instructor's guidebook on the contents of the course has been developed for this purpose. The
target group of this project includes women who are slightly or moderately overweight and haveno contra-indications to physical activity are accepted as participants. Middle-aged (25-57
years), educated, working women with families (1-3 children) and a relatively good income
applied for the course in the pilot project. The results of the pilot project indicated that 280
women participated in 14 groups. The project indicated that the program brought results. The

24

participants’ weight decreased an average of 6 kg, and they became ‘firmer’ by 26 cm whenmeasured at the waist, hips, leg and upper arm. The nutritional program also met its goal.
According to the diary, energy intake was only about 1120-1490 kcal a day. The participants’physical activity increased notably, and they showed clear improvement in their level of physicalfitness, their vigor, and their perceived health status. After the successful pilot project, theprogram has spread throughout the country. Thus far some 5,000 women have finished thecourse.
The next program to be launched was related to fitness gymnastics, with its target groupof men and women who have not shown an interest in aerobics. The product would have thefollowing three main goals: to increase physical fitness, to make physical activity enjoyable andto provide useful information on physical activity. Fitness will be increased with the use of neckshoulder exercises, trunk build-up, an aerobics program, flexibility and relaxation exercises andbeach fitness. The activities will be made enjoyable by providing a means for success and selfexpression, working together and music. Finally the participants will receive informative material
on physical activity.
Although women are not referred to as a target group, the author’s report points out that
FGFA has been conducting some successful programs in order to cater for women’s needs.

8. France: Developing Sport for All with Diversity of Approaches and Local

Autonomy(Joel Raynaud)
In 1945, the Secretariats of State Ministries in Charge of Sports took responsibility of
programs of physical activities for the population. Since then, non-formal sports for leisure andfor health have been renamed several times just because their supportive institutions have notbeen directly concerned with the practice of physical or sport activity. The French Federation of
Physical Education and Voluntary Gymnastics (FFEPGV), mostly managed in national scope andlocally developed by women, successfully reached the number of 5 million participants, bringing
the French Sport for All to the desired approach of the Council of Europe.
According to the author, despite the historical diversity of approaches, the French Sport for All,as an activity identified by several conceptions, embodies in present times some rationales oreven principles developed by trial and error. In sum, these general directions include: (i) actions
aiming at regarding the sporting practice as factor of inclusion; (ii) programs of promotion
directed to women, the handicapped and the labor force; (iii) support to the young people at risk
to allow them to adhere to sports and (iv) advertising campaigns to encourage clubs to use
projects taking into account the above principles.
The concept of Sport for All, in its multiple aspects, can be identified today when we observe
the French lifestyle. Each social actor/actress in his/her sports life shows some aspect ofintegration with either leisure sports or health improvement. This phenomenon has become moreevident along the 1990s according to the following evidence: (i) multiple opportunities ofpractices for the handicapped, the unemployed, the elderly, women of different ages, young25

people in risk situations, etc; (ii) rediscovery of traditional sports and games; (iii) expansion ofhealth and fitness programs; (iii) practice of physical activities adjusted to the naturalenvironment/great outdoors; (iv) emphasis on the value of living together and mutual respectamong members of local and communitarian sports entities.
In terms of target groups in France, women are not considered a main target group as it was
not addressed explicitly so by the author. It is important to mention that one of its main
characteristics is the existence of courses of specialization in target groups, aiming at thetraining of monitors, teachers and instructors. This program, which started in 1984, emphasizes
the identification and selection of activities for the various target groups, such as children,
adolescents, women, the elderly, people with physical disabilities, etc. This particularity reveals
the importance of targeting for SFA and, above all, it indicates that it is a task of highcompetence and knowledge. However, there are situations in which priorities have been
established for certain target groups according to governmental policies. For example, theMinistry of Youth and Sport has lately chosen as priorities the following target groups for SFA
events: (i) youth at risk or put aside by their own social group; (ii) women; (iii) the unemployed
regardless of age and sex; (iv) the physically disabled and (v) companies’ employees andworkers.
Based on the author’s report, it is possible to observe that women make up one target
group among others, but policies and procedures are fulfilled at local levels.

9. Romania: Sport for All as a Change of Mentality and a New Lifestyle (Aurelia Suciu,
Ines Balota & Ovidiu Oana)
According to the authors, women started practicing sports during the second decade of the
20th

century through the demonstrations of gymnastics competitions. Women’s participation in

sport started its timid affirmation at certain sport disciplines, such as tennis, ski, and riding.
The program of DACIADA became diversified, practically involving all the sports movement competitions, work place gymnastics, the “Sport and Health” Requirement, demonstrations andsports festivals, villages holidays, cultural and sporting Sundays, specific Women and Sport
activities, “the Veterans Cross”, competitions by professional branches (The Agricultural Sports
Cup, the Forestry Cup, the Villagers Cup, etc.).
It is not exaggerated to mention that the Sport for All (called mass sport before 1990)
strategies in Romania have aimed at devising programs for all the categories of the population,with the idea of materializing the desideratum: “the most sporting activity in as many places foras many people”. Evidently there are priorities which are a function of the social-politicalrequirements of the respective times: children and youth have been considered as central
targets. Periodically, each five-year plan established one or many new target-groups for which“intensive action should be taken”. Thus, during the period 1960-1964, the target groups were
“working people and youth”, during 1965-1970, pre-school children were given the mostattention, then women, families, senior citizens, rural sport, sport at home. Each new target

26

group added to the previous ones, but for each new one, a “forced approach” has been used,consisting of advertising campaigns and intensive action.
Women as a target group has features which include: (i) fitness centers organized in schools,
faculties, institutions and/or close to the working places; (ii) sporting and leisure activities during
weekends, for independent participation, with friends or family, organized by district sports
associations in the district or in leisure areas; (iii) local competitions (in volleyball, tennis, table
tennis, ski, skating and chess); (iv) campaigns: "Woman and Sport", "Mother and Child",
including special programs for pregnant and new mothers, "Beauty and Health" programs foryoung women among other actions.
In terms of sub-programs of Romania 2000 it is important to mention ‘Femi Sport, which is a
program involving women in practices and organization of physical activities and sport. All otherinitiatives of Romania 2000 such as Fun Sport, Elderly Sport, Pronatura, Sport for All Human
Resources All Around Romania’s Games involve groups of individuals but they are not specific for
women.
In 1991, the Romanian Sport for All federation conducted an inquiry with the help of the
Romanian Institute for Public Opinion Research on “How sport is perceived by the population”.
Among the conclusions of this research are: (i) 10% of the adult population declares they
practice leisure sports (irrespective of the frequency); (ii) 33% declare that they wish to practice(much and very much) such sports; (iii) 36% do not wish to practice leisure sports (their number
increases if they are asked to evaluate the time and money spent in this purpose); (iv) men
practice leisure sports more that women; (v) the number of practitioners lowers as age
increases; (vi) professional profiles: foremen, technicians and clerks practice the most,intellectuals, the least, if the urban area is taken into consideration; in rural areas, leisure sports
are practiced less; (vii) the dominant motivation in practicing or in the wish to practice leisuresport is the option for maintaining one’s health and fitness, followed by the need to relax and toentertain; (viii) the main difficulties in practicing leisure sports are declared to be the lack of time
and the lack of sports equipment and (ix) economic conditions are determinant for the decreasein the number of practitioners.
In 1999, the Ministry of Youth and Sports conducted a research aiming to analyze the “Social
Image of the Ministry of Youth and Sports in Young People’s Perception”, on a nationally
representative sample, with individuals between 15 and 30 years of age from urban
environment. The conclusions regarding the way to spend spare time by the young people
revealed the following: (i) during the week and on weekends, the main ways to spend spare time
were: watching TV, listening to music, meeting with friends and colleagues; (ii) during the week,
as compared to men, women assumed household duties (46% as compared to 25%), read (45 %as compared to 31%) or spoke on the telephone (40 % as compared to 35%), while, in a higher
and higher proportion, men met with friends and colleagues (63% as compared to 53% forwomen), went to terraces, pizza parlors and restaurants (38 % against 24 %), went for sport orwork on the computer; (iii) during the weekend, men preferred to a larger extent than women tomeet their friend and colleagues (62% against 56%), to go to terraces, pizza parlors and27

restaurants (49% against 43%), but also to play billiards (26% as compared to 11%), to do
sports (22% as compared to 10%) or to play on the computer (20% as compared to 8 %), while
women dealt with home activities (36% as compared to 17%) or read (38% as compared to25%); (iv) 43% of the respondents did not practice sport, while 41% practiced sport in their freetime; (v) the preferred places for sports practice were the home/ alone (33%) and school/college(27%), while the most important motivations seemed to be physical shape (47%), hobby (22%)
and entertainment (20%); (vi) women awere less concerned with sports than men (54% do notpractice sport, as compared to 34% of men, the latter allotting a larger part of their spare timeto this interest: 51% as compared to 31% for women); (vii) there were no significant differences
between the young people of Bucharest and the young people from other cities in this respect(as far as the place of practice is concerned, men chose the club/sports hall and went outdoors
with friends, while women did sports at home or at school/college. Young people from othertowns differed from those in Bucharest only by the fact that a larger proportion of them did
sports at school/college); (viii) only for women, the main reason for practicing sport was toremain fit (64% as compared to 35% for men, and to 13% the next reason for women); (ix)men considered sport a hobby (28% as compared to 13% for women) and as an entertainment
means (26% as compared to 13% for women); (x) the manners in which spare time was spent
and

the

satisfaction/dissatisfaction

wouldregisterdifferent

valueswhen

theeconomicdevelopment of the country was higher, when the population’s revenues increased, when leisureservices offer grew and diversified and when mentality and aspirations evolved in parallel andtogether with the civilization level.
Conclusively, it is significant to mention that in Romania women are involved not only withthe practice of sports but also with its organization. Although men’s and women’s preferences
are very variable, women do sports in Romania, but on their own style and at their own
interests.

10. Germany: Sport for All as a Departure into the Unknown Lands of Sport(Juergen

Palm & Wolfgang Baumann)
According to the authors, starting in 1970, several campaigns to motivate and encourage
German people into physical activities and sports were launched.

In the first five years, theaspect of rediscovering the simple satisfaction felt in moderate physical activity appeared in theforeground of the campaigns. The adult audience to which the campaign directed its motives wasreminded of the pleasure of an active childhood and of the benefits of doing just that little moreof physical activity. Special invitations were directed to women. Active weekends were thenpromoted.
The target groups that stood in the foreground of Sport for All development were women,
adults, family, repatriated Germans and especially, in the 1990s, health sport participants andsenior citizens.
Sport statistics of the 1950s show the same disparity between male and female sport
members. In 1958 the total of male membership was four times higher than the female. Among28

the adults the difference was even bigger. There were four male sport members for one female
sport member.
This has remarkably changed. If we now look into the Almanac of the German Sport
Confederation, we can compare the 8,000,000 female members to the 15,000,000 malemembers as no more that distant from a future statistical balance. There are even several sport
associations like those for gymnastics, horseback riding, roller-skating in which girls and women
now are dominating in their attendance.
As a matter of fact, the major task to be dealt with under the goal of Sport for All definitely
was the change of the male/female disparity into more even chances and conditions. The politicalfoundation for that was provided for by a representative elected as Presidium Member of DSB for
Women Sport and by a Women Sport Commission with voting and self-governing rights.
A new view on sport – as not just being a pastime for hard competition of the young andtalented- was presented to the general female audience in the country when the Trimm
Campaign addressed the non-competitive, more health, well-being, social-communication
oriented qualities of physical exercise.
Girls and women sought the access into more and more sports. This is considered as the
proclamation and a realization of a primary human right for both genders. Gender differences inattendance and leadership participation in sport are losing some of their former deficiencies but
still present many challenges. The creation of more and more variations of exercises in the fieldof calisthenics and dance with their differentiated impact level from ‘Aerobics’ to ‘Step’ to‘Spinning’ attracted the interest of women specifically as did the entrance of women into formerly
male-dominated sports like weight training and rugby. Another factor must have been that joined
sport programs which men and women participate in together became popular in sports fortourists, games, fitness exercises, dancing etc.
The promotion of Sport for All in Germany has been influenced by its expected role in twocontemporary challenges for the society: (1) the growth of leisure time when the weekly workhour from an average 50 dropped to 38, and (2) the loss of physical activity due to mechanic
replacement at work, at home and in traffic. Sport was –and is - seen as a kind of “tool for social
engineering”, as a countermeasure to threatening lifestyle conditions – and not only as a chance
to free the human being as “homo ludens”. This purpose orientation of sport development inGermany can be observed in various –but not all segments- of the campaigns and projects inGermany. Examples are the programs for integrating repatriates with the assistance of sport into
the differing society of their new home country. Another aspect is the proclaimed role of sport in
the protection of youth against the seduction of drugs. Sport provides social and emotional
support for women with breast cancer in post-operation classes. Sport is seen as acountermeasure to premature aging, a factor of rehabilitation and as a medium of community
building etc. None of these acclaimed utilizations of sport are ethically negative; on the contrary,
they are qualities of improving human life quality. Sport cannot be isolated from interaction withsociety’s demands. On the other hand, the participants may experience their activity as source ofenjoyment and fulfillment and not as part of a cure.

29

Although women are not treated in this study as a particular target group, it is observed thatthey are included in SFA as a whole.

11. Greece: Sport for All as a Governmental Commitment (Yvonne Harahousou &Christos Kabitsis)
According to the authors, women are considered a target group for SFA in Greece. There areprograms designed to reach women of all ages and they were among the first programs
implemented under the "Sport for All" campaign in Greece. Their objectives are to improve
women's physical appearance by becoming fitter and slimmer, self-confident, and sociallycompetent. The contents of these programs are enriched by a great variety of sporting activities,
such as aerobic exercises, modern and traditional dances, calisthenics, team sports, athletics andother sporting activities that are practiced when facilities are available.
Other target groups that also offer sporting activities for women are: (i) Sports forrepatriates, which aim at men and women who are repatriates from various countries; (ii)
Innovative targeting programs, tailored for specific groups of the population living in villages orcities in such numbers that justify fitness or sports organized programs. These groups may
include individuals with heart or renal problems, pregnant women and people who needrehabilitation etc. The programs are not strictly stratified, but creative in nature and offered allyear round for all age groups and (iii) Sport and fitness for university students, directed towards
male and female university students and their main objective is to help them continue theirinvolvement in various forms of physical activity, improving their health and fitness since
universities no longer require P.E. classes. These sports programs take place in university sports
centers or athletic halls indoors and outdoors, on campus or elsewhere.
In addition to these programs, opportunities for the whole family to become involved in
sports exist in these programs, which in turn give them feelings of satisfaction, fun, andcohesion. In others, they offer opportunities to try on some new sporting activities, which
otherwise they would never try. These opportunities increase for those individuals and groups
who reside in areas rich of mountains, lakes, rivers, forests, or seacoast, allowing them toappreciate the environment. These programs include mostly outdoor activities, such as hiking,mountain and water ski, mountaineering, mountain bike, climbing, etc.
In relation to the increased demand for sports participation, according to the Ministry ofYouth and Sport the percentage of people who participated in physical activities before 1981 wasestimated at 0.3% of the population (Y.N.G.A., 1984). However, since 1981 - the official
introduction of SFA programs - people have been sensitized towards sport and physical activity
participation as a response to the new philosophy underpinning structural developments ofsports. The initial sensitization has led to an increased interest, as a response to thegovernmental initiatives undertaken to develop sport at all levels, which enable all Greek citizens(men, women, the elderly, the disabled, etc.) to take part in sporting activities.

30

To assess the above changes, in quantitative and qualitative terms, is not an easy task,
especially when there has not been yet any national survey to provide valid information andallow comparative analysis. So, one can only rely on speculation and findings from small-scalestudies to obtain some quantitative meaning. With regard to SFA participation, the available
information comes from a research project that was conducted on a representative sample of
1,000 women (Harahousou, 1989). The findings reveal four levels of physical activity
involvement: very active (4.3%), active (19.8%), little active (24.1%) and inactive or sedentary(52%). The participation level of the elderly women was the following: active (10%), seasonallyactive (25%), and inactive (65%).

In general, it seems that the participation in physicalactivities is higher in urban areas, among younger, single and better-educated women andexpressed as a ratio tells us that approximately one woman in four has been identified as active.
Women's participation rates seem to be similar to those reported by other European countries,
but it cannot be stated that these were the outcomes of the new introduced programs since mostof those women had already been exercising individually. However, participation percentages
might have improved during the course of twelve years, among women and/or among men.

12. Belgium- Flanders: Origins, Development and Trends of Sport for All (Bart
Vanreusel, Marijke Taks and Roland Renson)
According to the authors, all kinds of socio-cultural organizations supported the Sport for All
movement. Although sport promotion was not a primary aim of these organizations, they used the Sport for
All success as a vehicle for their own aims. Organizations as diverse as unions, public health careorganizations, insurance companies, target group organizations, ideological and political organizations, youth
movements, senior citizens organizations, women’s organizations, workers’ organizations, banks andmultinationals … have adopted Sport for All ideas in their strategies and policies. School sport organizations
also showed a change from a competitive profile for a minority of athletes to a Sport for All profile withinclusion of students as the main target.
Vanreusel et al point out several programs which included women and families such as (i) the Sports
Biennale I, a bi-annual promotion campaign with initiatives such as ‘fit-o-meter’, ‘the Family kilometer’, the‘Fit and healthy brochure’ and the ‘Sports Biennale physical condition certificate’. The ‘family kilometer’ was arelay run by four members (parents and children) of the same family, very popular at that time; (ii) theSportiva 1971, which took place in a year especially dedicated to sport for women with a Sportiva-certificateand (iii) Sports Biennale II 1972: with as main idea ‘everybody his/her Olympic minimum’, with as target
groups the 6-12 year old youngsters, the seniors and the disabled. Special actions were: the Olympic
minimum, the mobile sport teams, the most sport active class or school, the fit-o-meter for disabled andpeople in wheel chairs, a radio slogan contest, a television cartoon contest, a family quiz and a press price.
However, women do not show up today as a target group in Belgium, with no data available.

13. Hungary: the Development of Sport for All in a Sporting Nation (Gyöngyi Szabò
Földesi, Jósef Nagy & László Jakabházy)31

Founded in 1989, the Hungarian Leisure Sports Federation (MSZSZ) was one of the first
institutions devoted to sports. It holds together the small clubs, leisure-time sections, sport clubsof the trade unions, those which proved to be capable of living. About 170,000 sportsmen andwomen can find colorful programs in the 580 sport clubs. The federation has been the member of
the TAFISA since January 1, 1996.
The Hungarian Leisure Sports Federation has been working in this field since 1998. As it
considers the management and administration of the Academy as a mission, it attempts toaccomplish several tasks in the coming years including the promotion of women’s involvement in
the decision making process, the organizational work and in the training program.
The fact that Hungarian mass sport/leisure-time sport followed the pattern of elite sport
had several unfavorable consequences. While in the 1970s, 1980s and in 1990s the sporting
activity of untalented and not very young people was not well managed, those located in villages
and those specifically designed for women were not at all either. The mass sport of older anddisabled people was not on the agenda at all. From among the older people only the sportsmen
with a competitive past had chances of participating in senior competitions and only elite sport
was developed among the disabled.
The population of the rural and lower classes had prejudice against competitive sport for
women. This prejudice meaningfully weakened in the 1980s and 1990s. Nowadays similar Sport
for All events can be organized for women living in villages and towns.
Involvement of women was considered important in both areas, but the target was
successfully realized only with schoolgirls. They even had to participate in the paramilitary
obstacle races. At the companies, factories, cooperatives four or five times more men wereinvolved in sports than women were. Fewer opportunities were available for the latter group.
A new campaign launched by specialists fought against these results, as early as the
1970s, under the auspices of the KISZ (Communist Youth Organization) with the title “Olympic
Five Trials - Gold Badgers for the Olympics”. The campaign was extended to the very young andolder too. Special trial systems were worked out for those under 14 and over 50. A further meritof it was that it offered the possibility of the trial during the whole calendar year, and only those
who could complete the trials in the given activities (running, kayaking-canoeing, swimming,
cycling and winter hiking) were the ones that regularly did physical activity. There was only one
serious flaw: it had a performance-centered viewpoint. The actual target groups were thetalented youth. This was also reflected in the attainable requirements. There were so called small
and large trials. The prescribed qualifying standards were 40 and 100km cycling, 40 and 100km
kayak-canoeing, 7 and 14km running for women and 14 and 28km for men, and 15 and 30km
winter hiking at the beginning, when about 30,000 people participated in the campaign. This wasa very nice result under Hungarian conditions. It was a special manifestation of leisure time
sport, following the pattern of elite sport, that winners of SFA competitions were awarded a freejourney to the site of the Olympic Games.
The underdevelopment of the Hungarian SFA is represented by the fact that at the end of
the 1980s almost half of the population (51% of women and 40% of men) had no idea at all

32

about the kind of sport they wanted to participate in, in case of optimal conditions. Those who
indicated such sports chose the traditional ones, and they had a feeling that even these are also
inaccessible for them. Very few of them had any idea about the new types of SFA activities. The
impact of social-economic factors could be observed even in their conception related to desired
sports (Table 11).

Table 11: Ranking of desired sports with Hungarians according to genders
MenSport activities

Women
Ranking(%)

Sport activities Ranking (%)

Soccer1

7.8

Swimming

1

6.7

Tennis2

5.9

Walking2

6.0

Car and motor

3

5.1

Skiing3

5.6

Yachting, surfing

4

4.9

Conditioning

4

5.2

Hiking, walking

5

4.3

Tennis5

5.4

Swimming

6

3.9

Horse riding

6

2.9

Skiing7

3.3

Yachting,

7

2.3

8

1.5

sportssurfing
Self-defense sports

8

2.5(judo, karate)

Running,
jogging

Horse riding

9

2.3

Team handball9

1.5

Table tennis

10

1.5

Gymnastics

10

1.5

Running, jogging

11

1.1

Hang gliding

11

1.1

Team handball

12

0.9

Figure skating

12

1.1

Cycling
No answer

40.0
No answer

51.
0

The Hungarian Leisure Sports Federation has considered the improvement of sport for
women and older people since its 1997 general assembly. A book was published for promoting
sport walking. A new edition is under press because of its popularity. W.W.D. (World WalkingDay) has become part of the 25 most important sports events supported by the Ministry for
Youth and Sport. Popularization of the future W. W. D. program under preparation, is thestrongest in the media being paid attention to by the older people.
A new tradition was born in 1997, when the first “women’s sport day” was organized.
Teams of women competed in different sport activities. At the same time they had the chance tolearn the latest types of movement, modern nutrition and training methods at the more andmore popular events. They could participate in beautician advice and could test the latest

33

products. It was important that more and more women participated in local events before
proceeding to the national central programs.
By the middle of the decade it was recognized, that the development of sport for theelderly as well as for women and families should be dealt with separately. It was also a greatchange in the strategy that attention was paid to the sporting activity of the disabled and people
with special needs. Accordingly new programs were launched, for instance the conditions ofparticipating in the street running festival with wheelchair, were ensured. Women Sport Days, aseries of running events are organized by the Hungarian Leisure-time Sports Federation. Avon
women running festival and network of running clubs are organized by the Budapest Sport
Office.
This review finally suggests that women had large participation in sports in Hungary not
only in the activities but also in the organization and management of events and programs.

14. Italy: Towards Sport for All from Fascism to a Democratic Way of Life

(Gigliola

Gori)
Women were not involved in the promotional actions of sports at the end of the 19th century
and beginning of the 20th century in Italy, with the exception of a little number of wealthy girls
following the sporting habits of the European aristocracy and some female workers who enjoyed topractice sports, challenging the bourgeois mentality. The long lasting patriarchal habits of Italians
were based on paternalistic male hegemony with women counting for less or even nothing.
Moreover, the Roman Catholic Church had obstructed any kind of feminine emancipation in thename of women's modesty and traditional family values.
In the 1920s the involvement of women in sporting activities was encouraged by the fascist
movement, according to the revolutionary spirit of the first period, which exalted the body and its
actions. Then, women's athleticism and feminine slender bodies were quite fashionable, according
to the modern habits of the most industrialized countries in northern Europe and the U.S.
However, in the first years of the 1930s, when the regime was fully established, the campaign for
demographic politics wanted women to be in the home again, and become submissive wives andstrong mothers of numerous children.
Physical activities for women were reduced to healthy basic gymnastics and a few suitable
sports to be practiced within fascist institutions, such as ONB, GUF and OND, under control of sport
medicine physicians. The Church was opposed to women's “sportivisation”. This quarrel, as well asothers against a number of fascist choices in sport, can be included in the wider debate on youth
education that settled Church and State on antithetical positions.
Men and women's participation in competitive mixed displays wearing fascist uniforms wasquite usual in those years. As an example, one can read from GIL-Yearbooks that in 1939 about
2,153,566 boys, and 228,288 girls were involved and competed in physical activities. Of course,
massive involvement in these activities led more women to social emancipation, which wasprobably an unexpected and undesired result of the fascist virile ideology. Furthermore, women's
sport was not supported much by the already mentioned bodies, whether ideologically Marxist or34

capitalist, or linked to the Roman Church, due to a society which still was heavily conditioned bypatriarchal traditions. In the Catholic context, for example, in 1959 there were roughly 100,000
male athletes enrolled in CSI, and only 3,460 female athletes in FARI.
The new era also brought into light the innovative Second Vatican Council’s proposals as
referred to the transformations of Catholic sport movement.

A new concept, overcoming theprevious 'Christian Sport', gave birth to 'Sport for Christians', namely sport for all people,
independently from sex or political credo. As a consequence, women's sport was finally promoted
within the Catholic FARI association: in 1967 female athletes doubled the number of those enrolled
in 1959, and later, in 1971, the feminine FARI joined the masculine CSI.
For the culture of movement concerns, both statistics of 1976 and 1980 displayed that 40%of sports people lived in metropolitan cities, but very few sportswomen were counted in Italy(about 30%). In conclusion, statistics showed that in those years the 'typical' sporting person wasa middle or high class man living in cities of northern and central Italy, where there was aconsistent number of inhabitants and a relatively high standard of living.
The current UISP membership is constituted by 39% of women and 61% of men.

Amongfemale members, those below 30 years are 61%, those from 31 to 52 are 23%, and those over 53
are 16%; among male members, those below 30 years are 64%, those from 31 to 52 are 26%,
and those over 53 are 10%.
Commenting on the numbers one should argue that in Italy the gap between the two sexes isstill lasting, but in 1985 general statistics displayed that 31% of sports people were men and only
14.1% were women. The current UISP numbers also show that a positive gender trend isoccurring: the percentage of women enrolled in UISP was 35% in 1993, but now female members
are near to 40%; as far as adult women are concerned, and although at that age they should be
involved in both working activities and familiar duties, they reach about the same percentage ofmale members (23% and 26%, respectively); and, what is more, the percentage of elderly female
members overcomes that of elderly men abundantly (16% and 10%, respectively).

Possiblereasons of this surprising phenomenon can be found in the fact that, according to recent statistics,
elderly women are healthier and live longer than men, and probably Italian women learnt at theirown expenses to take care of themselves and enjoy an active life outside their homes, like theopposite sex.
From an anonymous author, Gori points put: "(...) Most part of our [UISP] programmatic
declaration is dedicated to the fundamental values and characters of our identity and [secular]
historical humanism, often recalled and concretely applied in our movement, i.e. rights,
environment, solidarity. (...) We consider the right to practice sport at any age as the right to havedifferentiated and qualified proposals, with different criteria according to the age (...).

In thissense, our work protects infancy opposing the risk of both a lack of movement and precocious
specialization, and it promotes as well new social occasions for the youngsters and new autonomy
for the elderly. (...) More generally, the expression 'all ages for sport' should mean to study, know
and experiment, to compare our proposals with a permanently formative 'ideal', based on the
ethics of personal responsibility towards our body, ourselves and every form of sociality, from35

family and groups relationships to general society ones. Another question regards the culture ofequality and pair opportunity between women and men, and that of our refusal for any hierarchic
concept of sport, which dumbfounds the athlete and mortifies technical competence. Finally, thereis the question of health, which from ages represents a focal point of the UISP cultural identity,
aiming at promoting an 'active' health for self prevention, knowledge and care, and at fighting
against any form of pollution.

Our initiatives can be summarized in two general objectives: bymeans of our identity and values we intend to organize and represent a Sport for All rotatingaround the single subject who express the majority of citizens practicing sport; we wish to becomea stable reference-point for the democratic opinion concerning sport, for progressive forces
working in different sport organizations and for the most advanced civil society. (...) According tothis, sport cannot be anymore only a material practice but it should need communications, values
and opinions, and UISP should [start] begin a political work so as to build and broaden internalalliances and relationships as well as to renew its position in the society (...)."
According to both declarations, central priority should be given to citizens, women and menof different ages, needs, abilities and motivations, who are interested in sport activities.

Theyshould join UISP - was said in the sportpertutti declaration of 2000 - because UISP is really awareof their rights and equal opportunities, and supports both the modern goals of promoting
environment and social solidarity.

"Principal objectives of UISP should be: to obtain effective

participation of its members in a democratic form of government and distribution of resources; tofavor cohesion among its institutions at central and local levels; and finally, to be sufficiently open
and capable so as to involve different forces, such as university, school, regions, municipalities andthose associations working for the environment or other volunteer activities, which might beinterested in the development of the Italian sportpertutti" (UISP, 2000, p. 5).
In the already mentioned season, the UISP of Pesaro also organized senior amateurchampionships in disciplines such as male and female football, basketball, 'small billiard' tablegame, ruzzola (a traditional Italian game), and a number of courses addressed to children, adultand elderly.

Among these, should be quoted at least special gymnastics classes for pregnant

women, a swimming course for both kids and their parents, and another held in gymnasium andswimming pool for restoring the body of citizens damaged by car, work or other incidents.
Although women clearly do not have specific policies in terms of target groups, the author
selected numbers and sufficient data to show that women have been thought of as sports people.

15. Poland: Sport for All as a Physical Culture and Social Value (Teresa Wolanska, Salita
Jolanta, R. Jung & Z. Mikolajczak)
In terms of history, according to Wolanska et al., health, aesthetic and recreational aspects
were more important in sport for women. The so-called woman issue greatly contributed to the
popularization of sport and recreation among women in Poland. The emancipation movement
included a change of opinion on the question of women’s access to sport into its program. Womenfrom the middle and upper class strove to keep abreast with men. Physical education teachers who
wished to change the character of sports classes for women began to promote the principles of36

Swedish physical education. With the development of sport and social and political awareness, more
female workers and shop assistants were attracted to sport for recreation. Three congresses on
physical culture of women were held in the years between the two World Wars, the first of which
took place in 1928. In 1935 the Society for the Propagation of Physical Culture among Women(TKKFK) as the first organization in Poland introduced physical exercises during breaks at work.
TKKFK co-operated with many other associations, including the Scouts’ Association, the Rifle Cluband the Housewives’ Association. It is important to note here that sports organizations showed theinitiative in organizing sports holidays for women, including female workers, as well as family andmountaineering holidays. TKKFK played a big role in the development of recreation in Poland.
In the period of nearly twenty years between 1918 and 1939, after the First World War,
there were favorable political and social conditions as well as enthusiasm for the development ofsport in independent Poland. There was a boost in the activities of the existing associations, e.g.
“Hawk”, townspeople’s and workers’ sports associations, peasants’ institutions and associations. It
is worth mentioning that the Polish Scouts’ Association, the Society for the Propagation of PhysicalCulture of Women, YMCA, Polish tourism associations and numerous sports clubs were involved in
active propagation of sport for all.
Martial arts are one of the few forms of recreation where some formal requirements must be
met by the participants. Everyone is obliged to submit a medical certificate of the absence ofcounter-indications against practicing martial arts and an accident insurance certificate. The mostpopular at the moment are: karate-shotokan, ojama, seitendo, gosoku-riu, kyokushikay, gojo ryu,
shorin riu, kobudo, ju-jitsu, aiki do, kendo, yabu same, nin jitsu, tae-kwon do, viet-vo-dao. In
Poland judo is treated as a sport and that is why, it is the domain of performance sports clubs
rather than recreation centers. One third of those doing martial arts are women, and the others areyoung and adult men. Judo is now offered by private sports and recreation clubs and TKKF clubs
which were its precursors in Poland in the 1970s.
Both men and women develop their swimming styles, health and fitness. Due to the small
number of swimming pools, modern forms of water activities are not offered. In few places only
water gymnastics or hydrobics are available. Village women do not take part in it, but in towns
more and more women go in for body-building. Village traditions include strength testing exercises.
Women are definitely a target group in Poland. They have access to all the forms of physicalactivities they could be interested in. Most often, however, they take part in aerobics organized byprivate and TKKF clubs. The standard of these services is varied, but basically they are affordable by
all women irrespective of their financial status.
They take part in other forms of physical activities most often with their families, including
walking, sailing, skiing and cycling. More and more women are interested in body-building andhorseback riding.
Horseback riding is characterized by the greater participation of girls and women than men.
It is difficult to explain this tendency. All over Poland in big towns new horse riding centers arebeing established, where you can learn and perfect your skills of horse riding as well as take part inhorse riding therapy classes. The development of ‘agricultural tourism’ is conducive to the37development of this form of recreation, which is still, however, very elitist. It is due to high charges
for the services of the horse riding centers and the cost of the journey to the places.
In Poland women have access to various sports and activities from martial arts to horseback
riding. Moreover, it is interesting to observe the incentive for the participation of families.

16. Portugal: Towards Sport for All as Management without Bureaucracy (Gustavo Pires& Jorge Olimpio Bento).
According to the authors, during the 1980s, the Central State started moving away from its
involvement with the control of sports practices. More precisely, the government programs stopped
referring to Sport for All as of 1987. Conversely, as soon as the autonomous offices solved the
population's basic problems, they started investing more and more in sports, namely, in surveying
traditional games and promoting them as essential procedures for the preservation of the local
cultural legacy. At the same time, there is a considerable effort in Portugal to increase the numberof women involved in sports practice. So, although women's participation is still at a rate quite
below the desirable figure, a change in people's behavior was triggered then, and in the long run,it will provoke positive transformations in that scenery. Some examples of that fact are the highpercentage of female students in the Sports Sciences and Physical Education Schools and thegrowing number of women engaged in physical activities directed to the care of health, fitness andappearance.
The text about SFA in Portugal does not display much data on women, which should have themeaning of a less important approach to be made by its authors.

17.

Russia:Traditions,

Political

Interventions

and

the

Educational

SystemasFoundations of Sport for All (Zinaida Kouznetsova, Iouri Kalinine & Galina Kalinine)

There are several distinctions between Sport for All from international conceptions andmass sport as it had practiced in the U.S.S.R. While the former has been a claim for accessibility,
the latter became a process of selection despite its pledge for equality. As far as the pyramid
model is concerned, Sport for All concentrated its efforts on the basis, failing to integrate itself incompetition-oriented sports. In turn, mass sport concentrated in excess of its possibilities ofintegration on the top, failing to open sport opportunities for all. Not surprisingly, mass sport had
many changes in its course mostly connected to reinterpretation of accessibility in sport
practices. This trend is still current in the mix of mass sport-Sport for All found in Russia.
Actually, targeting stood as a tool for mass sport, too. For the 1970-1980 badge winningcompetitions, winter and summer spartachiades, mass sport days and paramilitary sport
programs, the target groups comprised schoolchildren, workers of big factories and dwellers fromurban areas.

Accessibility was not the focus in this case, but mobilization above all. Thosetargets were the easiest to mobilize and to meet the results expected for elite sport selection. Of

38

course, excellence was a valid justification for this targeting process but the low priority given tounderprivileged groups created a "mass" sport with exclusions, among which women.
While the Russian school system showed aptitude to both mass sport and Sport for All,
people with special needs or the elderly had few chances of participation during the 1970s and1980s. Similarly, the very young people and women from rural areas in the former U.S.S.R. haddifficult access to sport practices in the same period. But the situation has been changing after
1989 in spite of the performance-centered social values yet surviving from the past.
Clearly,

thiscontradiction

involved

genderdeviations:

womenparticipation

wasconsidered to be important, but targeting was successfully made only with schoolgirls. Thus,
men's participation in mass sport activities was five times more than women. Simply put, thesupply side of these activities was much smaller for women. And the preference of this kind of
offer was definitely to young ages. Even the programs targeted to worksites searched
participants under 30 years of age.
The unbalanced situation of mass sport in the Russian Federation was demonstrated at
the end of the 1980s by a survey conducted by Chermit (1990). At that point of time, almost halfof the population, i.e. 52% of men and 47% of women, could not mention the kind of sport theywanted to participate in. Respondents to this investigation in most cases were not able toacknowledge either the existence of mass sport or its new opportunities just making appearance
in the country.
Also in present days, the Russian Aerobics Federation is paying much attention to theimprovement of sport for women and girls. These targets have the chance to learn the latest
types of body movement, modern nutrition and training methods at popular gatherings andpromotional events.
In conclusion, they have not been considered as a major target group in Russia. The
analysis shows that women’s participation tends to increase.

NORTH AMERICA

1. Canada: Participation and Active Living as Catalysts of Sport for All (Russ Kisby)
By 1970 there was mounting evidence and public concern regarding the health implications of
the growing trend toward physical inactivity. In 1971 Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, withthe encouragement of a prominent, national business/media leader, Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien,
created “ParticipACTION”, which had as main aim to encourage Canadians to participate in sports
and physical activities. ParticipACTION has become an innovative experiment in social marketing.
Its mission: “to be a leading catalyst and provider of information to positively influence personal
behavior and the social supports which encourage healthy, active living for all Canadians.”
ParticipACTION has had major targeting challenges. Given the many personal health, socialand economic benefits in targeting regular physical activity in Sport for All programs, it may
seem surprising that only a small portion of citizens – in most countries – are regularly active,
participants.

39

In terms of benefits from interventions, the ParticipACTION’s experience has also beenstressing benefits for target groups according to programs interventions. The following benefits
have the support of Canadian researchers and program leaders: (i) to reduce alienation,
loneliness and anti-social behaviors; (ii) to promote ethnic and cultural harmony; (iii) to offer
integrated and accessible leisure opportunities for disabled or disadvantaged individuals; (iv) tobuild strong families, the foundation of a healthy society; (v) to provide leadership development
opportunities among volunteers and (vi) to contribute to community involvement, shared
responsibility and community pride.
The major challenges in the years ahead are: (i) the general lack of public understanding
about the benefits of regular physical activity and Sport for All programs; (ii) the trend of
declining participation by young people, as they get older; (iii) the low levels of physical activity
among women (especially young women) in most of our societies and (iv) the decline infunctional ability and independent living as people get older.
In Canada, many health and social welfare groups today cooperate to address importantsocial issues using Sport for All as one of the primary vehicles to reach individuals and groups inneed. ParticipACTION in particular has played an important role in promoting these programs,
creating public awareness of them and their benefits, and developing the leadership resource
materials to support them.
The experience of dealing with target groups in Sport for All concerns has been developingin terms of television as a means of definition and approach to those selected social segments.
Although Sport for All programs usually have their targets for adequate insertion in media
messages, ParticipACTION's option has primarily been to promote targets as real people not only
as participants.
Illustrations of this social marketing rationale are the TV spots from the 1990s, such as“Street Kids” to reach youth at risk (drugs, crime); “All in the Family” to put emphasis on family
members with osteoporosis; “Healthy Active Living” to mobilize seniors for activity and social
programs, and “Workplace Stress” to address physical exercise advice to workers to combat
stress and other factors of risk to health and wellness. These TV short duration programs havebeen naturally including complementary actions as defined by cooperation of various community
groups, peer leadership approach, resource materials production and promotional strategies.
The participation profile of each target group generally refers to the proposals of eachParticipACTION program. However, the central focus of participation is put essentially on inactive
people of all age groups. A brief description on how a particular target group is addressed follows
as an example of ParticipACTION ’s experience in this key element of any Sport for All initiative.
It is then observed that women do not make up a target group in itself. It is rather part ofother segmentation strategies such as ‘family’, ‘workers’, ‘children’, etc.

2.United States: Sport for All as a Complex and Uncoordinated Network (Diane H.
Jones-Palm)

40

Luther Gulick of the YMCA movement said ‘…athletics have never been either a test or a large
factor in the survival of women; athletics do not test womanliness as they test manliness.’ Itshould be noted that female participation in sport was not encouraged. Not only was the female
body thought to be not suited for sport (which was a male gender activity) or important for theircharacter, which was, after all, tied to home and child rearing. Sex-integration in games wasthought to be undesirable. In fact, sports were thought to be bad for a woman’s organs.
However, some selected sports that promoted desirable female body forms consistent withgender roles and cultural expectations of female beauty of the day were thought to be
acceptable. Girls could, then, become involved with those sports that promoted ‘grace andbeauty’, such as skating and gymnastics. Opportunities were limited for women outside of theupper class private clubs or college level. As ideas of femininity and medicine changed, so too did
sport for women change.
A similar limitation was found in Black American participation in sports. Jim Crow laws (lawsof segregation and discrimination) and biological determinism shaped the idea of restriction ofrights for blacks because of racial inferiority. Blacks that excelled in sports were understood interms of exceptions to the rule of social inferiority. Other ethnic groups under similar ideologicalrestraint were forced to play their sports in segregated clubs. Public schools provided the only
commonly found access to sports until the 20th century.
Over the 20th century, college sports in the U.S. have been increasingly divided into theparticipation and the profit-driven venues. Entertainment has created marketing of spectator
sports at the college and professional levels. Coaches, managers, administrators, and owners areoften heavily influenced by political and economic factors, particularly in professional sport.
Today, sports such as basketball, football and baseball, are multi-million dollar enterprises thatstir up patriotism in spectators and promote capitalistic and ‘masculine’ ideals (aggression,competition, domination) as well as provide millions of dollars to the university budgets.

To thisday, one problem facing women’s sport programs at the university level has been that
universities have become so dependent on marketing revenues that investment into women’s
sport programs (that do not bring in such revenues) are seriously handicapped.
World War II brought a resurgence of interest in physical education (PE) as a way to improve
fitness and preparedness. In 1940 and 1941, the first appointments were made to governmental
offices of PE training and programs for men and women (respectively). The public health focus
during the war years was on PE for the purpose of resisting disease and building muscularstrength and endurance, cardio-respiratory endurance, flexibility, speed, muscular growth,balance and accuracy. Following the war, universities (both in the U.S. and Europe) began thescientificstudy of exercise withinterdisciplinary work groups including physiologists,

cardiologists.
A special word must be said here for girls and women’s Sport for All participation.
Participation in sport has increased for girls and women since the 1970s, largely due togovernment legislation demanding equal treatment of women in public programs, the women’s
movement, increased media coverage of women and girl’s sport, and the health and fitness41

movement. However, gender equality in sport is still far from a reality in the U.S., particularly at
the collegiate level. Areas of specific concern in women’s sports today center around participation
opportunities support for athletes, and the employment of women at the level of administrationor coaching. Another problem can be found in cultural ideas of masculinity and femininity thatshape choice of the type of sport, how it is organized and played.
If one looks simply at the numbers of participants in any sport in the U.S. and include thepassive participants who watch sports on TV, one might assume that sport participation is amajor part, if not central, to U.S. culture. Certainly total numbers are impressive. However, bothtime budget studies (Kelly, 1985) and public health estimates (U.S. Public Health Service, 1996)
show that on the average, American males spend about 12-15 minutes a day in sports
participation and women spend less than 5 minutes a day. Over 90% report not participating ina sport the previous day. Of those who participate, the overwhelming majority does so only very
occasionally. This means they go swimming, but play in the pool or do several laps; they jog but
only a block or two, or they golf once a year.
And it is remarkable that sport is highly valued in U.S. culture at the same time that 60% of
Americans reporting little or no physical activity, and one in four report having a totally inactive
lifestyle. Because of the decrease in activity and the continuation, apparently, of appetite, about
1/3 of all Americans are overweight (U.S. Public Health Service, 1996).
While the middle and upper class Americans enjoy sports and Sport for All in a wide variety
of settings and contexts and enjoy higher levels of fitness than previous generations, there aremany sub-sectors of society which lag behind in participation.

While the target groups in need forSport for All have been made clear by the 1996 Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and
Health, Sport for All is so diverse and so uncoordinated in the U.S. that national or regional effortsin Sport for All are difficult to summarize simplistically.

Therefore, only a few activities can besummarized here in relation to target groups which include youth, disadvantaged population (lowincome communities, inner-city areas, black, minorities, indigenous groups, etc), senior adults,
overweight children and adults and women.
Equal access to and participation in sports for girls and women have been enhanced bygovernment legislation to bring funding for girls’ and women’s sports on an equal par with malesports. Many experts argue that despite this legislation, there is serious sexism at the individualand organizational level of sports for women.
Attempts to promote physical activity from a health standpoint have been based on complex
ecological models which recognize that programs to reach specific target groups must be linked
to the settings in which those groups live, work and play.

Thus, strategies for promotion ofphysical activity must focus on this complex interaction.
In spite of having SFA uncoordinated in the U.S., there is still segmentation that provides
women and girls with encouragement and motivation for the development of physical activities
for women of various ages and across other target groups.

42

LATIN AMERICA

1. Mexico: A Cultural Based Sport for All with Social Inclusion (Elena Simon, Sofia
Leon, Minaluaztekatl Hernandez, Eduardo Larrinaga & Juan Guadarrama)
Targeting is a typical approach to Sport for All that may be appreciated as follows by two
examples collected from the group of the most important programs supported by governmental
institutions which aim at providing social inclusion: (i) Sport for youngsters at risk, with the
National Juvenile Program for Prevention of Addictions (PREVEA) and (ii) Mexican Physicalactivity and sports association for adults and elderly people (AMAFyDA).
Some of the sport activities promoted by PREVEA workshops are: (1) basketball for both boys
and girls together, in appropriate courts or entitled spaces in streets or plazas; (2) soccer,
mainly for boys, even though women are being encouraged to participate, usually on fields
without appropriate measurements; (3) pedestrian races or walks, normally in the rural areas orin streets and public parks; (4) volleyball, with predominance of women players; and (5)baseball, mostly boys, in appropriate places, streets, parks or open spaces, without the official
equipment, with a sponge ball that is hit at either with open hands or fists instead of official
equipment. In this last situation, the spaces or streets are used with the permission of thepotentially affected neighbors and the local authorities. Essentially, PREVEA´s trained youngsters
act as leaders of the community work, especially during the sports events. On these occasions
the leader talks with the participants about health and social environmental problems, which
often are brought about by the excessive consumption of alcohol or even by use of forbidden
drugs.
AMAFyDA deals with official and specialized research of several areas including geriatrics
have already pointed out a number of benefits that physical activity can bring to the aging
process including improvement in the quality of life of old individuals. A group of enthusiastic
specialists in the area, urging to inform adult and elderly people of the adequate way ofpracticing physical activities without

taking risks, has developed the Mexican Association of

Physical Activity and Sport for Adults and Elderly People. Having “AMA EDAD” (“I love my age”)
as its motto, this institution has already produced its own statutes and rules, which areregistered with the Mexican Sport Confederation regulations. Today, AMAFyDA seeks thefollowing main goals: (1) to offer and promote the safe practice of adequate physical and sport
activities to the adult and the elderly population in order to help in the prevention of illnesses
and to improve their physical, mental and social health; (2) to disseminate basic information
among Sport Federations, institutions, State associations and other physical and moral people
involved in these areas; (3) to propose adaptations of technical rules, manufacturing of adequate
sport implements for the practice of physical activities of aging groups; (4) to organize courses,
conferences, symposia, and lectures not only for the professionals involved in these activities but

43also for the adult and aged

population; (5) to collect specialized bibliography, so people andorganizations have access to it; and (6) to organize events on subjects related to its mission.
In sum, it is noted that although women are not a target group, they may be included in the
two target groups that make up this study.

2. Argentina: Sport for All as Social Inclusion (Oscar Incarbone)
The Argentinean experience of Sport for All has tended to endow it with the perceptive ofWith All since its origins. It has naturally emphasized the following specific groups of the
population in order to propose and guide the activities according to “A City on The Move”
Program, of 1993, which has taken into consideration the family unit, the handicapped and thepeople who for some reason have been placed aside from society: (i) Children and youth sportand recreation and (ii) Social Sport and Recreation (family and community).
According to Incarbone, the present fundamentals of the so-called National Program havethree axes as a basis: (i) ‘social sport’ has as objective to put up schools of sport training in thepoorest areas, taking into account the necessity of central sport organizations of different
provinces to open 50% of their activities for individuals of low income in those areas: (ii) ‘sportof development’, as the National Plan of Sport Development affects 40% of the schools in
relation to the sport of Provincial development, which is found close to provincial sport games inorder to activate the practice of sports from its very beginning to federative sport and (iii) ‘sport
for handicapped people’ as 10% of the schools is directed to them in order to generate policies
referring to the improvement of research and information.
Women are not a target group in Argentina. They may be benefited as they belong to thegroups served by SFA programs. However, the author points out that the Council Management
includes men and women with large experience in the field of sport management, especially inleisure sport at community level. Through the negotiation with Non-Governmental Organizations(NGO) and Governmental Organizations (GO) these specialists will encourage and promote every
sport activity of leisure character in the social area putting forward alternatives which willcertainly contribute for the improvement of the quality of life.
In short, women can be part of sport management for SFA activities and actions inArgentina.

3. Venezuela: Institutional Improvements and Backlashes in Sport for All Development(Carlos Vera Guardia)
In accordance with the principles defined by the Pan American Institute of Physical Educationand the International Working Group Project, the target groups defined with the purpose to reach
the whole population with simplified schemes were: school sector; community sector; working
sector and the special populations sector.
The school sector (ages 7-18) corresponds today to approximately 15% of the population.
Furthermore, the community sector considered as the population that lives in neighborhoods or44

communities of low or middle/low incomes represents 40% of the population (100% forgovernment obligations). The working population corresponds to 35% of the country's total
number of inhabitants, within which women and students have a small participation. The special
population, as defined by the physically and by the mentally impaired, the elderly or those whoare seriously ill, is nearly 10%.
In view of these targeting basic references and in order to better define the relationships
between target groups and activities, the Pan American Institute of Physical Education had
elaborated a chart of definitions here depicted in Table 12. This referential chart may help
identify and compare essential factors for adequate programming, planning and implementing
Sport for All activities.
The selection of activities by chartering target groups characteristics as it had been taken up
initially by the Pan American Institute differed from the option of dealing with targets andactivities that were used later by the National Sport Institute's model of Sport for All. Actually,
the government's model revealed itself coincident with the former elaboration only by focusing
on the items "schools" and "special populations". The Pan American Institute's choice on the
problem of targeting seems today the best decision taken at the early stage of Sport for All in
Venezuela, for being compatible with international studies in this theme published later. In Powell
et al. (1991), for instance, targeting is regarded as a result of systematic comparisons in relation
to (i) socially selected groups, (ii) settings available for activities, and (iii) strategy delineated tomake interventions.

Table 12: Referential Chart of Target Groups Identification
Pan American Institute of Physical Education (1988 - 1996)

Users

SchoolCommunity

Sector

SectorcaptivefreeWorkingSpecialSectorPopulations

Audience

captive/volunt.

audience

audience

audience

audienceAges

same age

all ages

adultsall ages

Educationsame

similarvariedvariedSocio-econ.

similarsimilarvariedvariedPopulation %15 %40/100 %35 %+ 10 %

free/special

45

Time

Place

fix schedule

free schedule

limited sched. free/limited

school year

alwaysalways/vac.

always/limited

schoolcommunity

work placecomm./school

In Venezuela, women are not yet considered a target group, but may be benefited as they
belong to the various sectors focused on by SFA initiatives.

4. Uruguay: The Insertion of Sport for All in Local Sports Traditions (Arnaldo Josman &Gonzalo Calzavara)
The authors point out that the most traditional programs that introduce the ‘Sport Squares’
consist generally of "classes" of sport, gymnastics and swimming and with a strong tradition
especially in the interior of the country. In addition, the events of great span (like the "ChallengeDay", run- walk races, crossroads and races, etc.) aim at reaching a wider number of people. It
is also possible to perceive that the users of aerobic activities offered in public installations tend
to be adult and senior citizens of the middle and upper classes of the Uruguayan society.
This confirmation could be associated to three elements: (i) the understanding of thebenefits for health and the quality of life of these activities, which requires a cultural appreciablelevel; (ii) free available time; and 3) the easy access to those installations, located in residential
areas or where they can go in their own cars. In this sense, independent studies have detectedthat sport and physical activities practiced during free time are done in a percentage close to 50% in Montevideo. Participants belong to the upper social classes with equal numbers of men andwomen. On the other hand, this percentage goes down to a 5 % to 9 % for the lower social
classes. In this situation, physical activity is exclusively male.
It has been perceived that physical-sport activities follow the lines of the social
stratification in society. The class of the population with the highest income practice activities
such as aerobics, tennis, hockey, polo, rugby, andnautical sports according to some social

studies. On the other hand, it should also be mentioned that almost 100% of the young people
that practice any sport in the social classes that have the lowest income are exclusively male andthe sport is only soccer. As we go up in the social pyramid, the practice diversifies and theexclusion of the women tends to be less. As a result,the majority of the participants in SFA

activities are people who do not belong to the excluded sectors or classes of population. This has
to do not only with the economical possibilities, that in some cases are crucial (the membershipto a sport club is about US$50.00), but also with the family and personal budget of free time,communication

abilityandtransportation,difficulties

in

the

accesstoinstallations,reconnaissance and identification with the cultural, social, hygienic and educational values of
SFA.

46

In Uruguay, projects related to SFA for women as a target group are non-existent. However,
it is observed that there are proposals aiming at various groups such as children, the elderly andthe adult population. Women are included in these target groups but not explicitly.

5. Colombia: Sport for All as a Result of Social Contexts and Constraints ( Oscar Ruiz,
Roberto Ruiz, Alicia Olmos, Leonor Puyo & Jesus Mejia)
The focus on target groups represents a synthesis of SFA in Colombia once the concern forsocial inclusion is the core of all initiatives, which include: (i) programs for children (‘recreationaland creative holidays’, ‘learning through recreation’, ‘summer vacations’); (ii) programs forfamilies (‘long life to citizens’, ‘recreation blocks’); (iii) programs for the youth (‘youth camps’,‘youth promotion with creative use of spare time to prevent drug addiction’; ‘youngsters, society
builders’; ‘street games and tradition festivals’, ‘let the youth walk’; (iii) programs for adults(‘community games’, ‘university for the elderly’, ‘the night is ours’,‘recreation for adults’,‘veterans’ club’, ‘disabled people’. Women are not a target group in Colombia.
Figures in Colombia indicate almost 7% participation in sports, which means 2,520,000
people, but only 504,000 women. In short, the problem of implementation of SFA should bebetter defined in terms of social inclusion in order to reach the level of leisure and healthrequirements (data taken from the Statistics National Administrative Department -DANE, over an
estimate of a total of 36 million inhabitants).
Colombia has, however, a very good strategy to promote physical activity. In a country
where most of the population that does any physical exercise is male and the preferred activity issoccer, authorities had conceived a plan to attract people to it in a sense that would serve one ofthe desires of the Colombian population for peace and at the same time integrate communities:
Soccer in search of Peace – Medellin. The basic principle of this program is to connect theexperience of the game with the urban context. Here the intention is to attain an ongoing
improvement of the urban development with emphasis on sharing a common life. This program
started in 1996 as a project that includes social actors who live in the city, suffer and enjoy it at
the same time. Led by the German professor Jurgen Griesbeck, its success in conflict zones isimpressive and may be used as a model of fraternity among social groups (see Table 13).
The possibility of influencing the pacific resolution of conflicts based on dialog, interface of
population groups usually segregated, promotion of values such as tolerance, comradeship,
encounter spaces, solidarity, team work, morale, is developed by building values added to theproject. The German NGO, TIAS Association, generated all the process of this prospective
project.
“Live the game – soccer in search of peace” has five main elements: (i) it is a city project;(ii) it is a long-term strategic process; (iii) it is a culture management project that utilizes the
sport inherent potential - soccer- to promote values such as teamwork, respect to different
opinion, fair play and solidarity, among others, facilitating a social and sustainable development;(iv) it proposes the reasonable use of the existing resources through the “common life venture”

47

as a model of inter-sectors cooperation among the State, private entities, NGOs, Universities andthe Community; and (v) it makes the international technical co-operation in Sports stand out.
Summarizing, the distinctive importance of this project is the integration of women.

Table 13: Methodology of the game: Soccer in search of peace
Men and women participate – a mixed team - category: young and older
than 13 years
All teams use the same uniform–city to share a common life
Teams are mixed in the process within the game lines
Interface can be soccer eleven or soccer five
A woman must score the first goal and per each team (mixed interface)
There is no referee, just an advisor outside the field–space to share a common life
There are no credentials or registrations to play
Before starting, teams get together and get to know each other –exchange of rules/
common life
The game evaluation is not limited to just adding goals, it is also influenced by afair game, work team, respect, solidarity – city culture in coexistence
Nobody is eliminated, competitions are permanent, with no anguish for being
defeated, ensuring a sustainable impact on the target population.

6. Chile: Sport for All as ‘Social Physical Education’ (Carlos Lopez Von Vriessen)
According to Vriessen, it is possible to point out an approach to the following target groups: (i)women (actions to increase the interest of women in physical activity, especially housewives of low
income); (ii) youth (programs for the youth are directed to promote, animate, advise integral andpermanent sport projects for non-students and above all for the under-privileged people); (iii) the
elderly (the program has had as objective to challenge the elderly to develop their self-esteem
whenever they faced daily problems); (iv) the family (the aim of this promotion is the integrationof the family through activities of sport and recreation); (v) workers (the program for worksites
from all over the country which aim at providing systematic sport and recreation for a better
quality of life, developing physical, mental and social well-being in addition to managing stress);(vi) the disabled (systematic practices in order to develop physical qualities, self-esteem, family

48integration, general welfare and self-realization; and (vii) prisoners (this segment integrates
cognitive, physical and affective learning, spreading principles and values related to sport andrecreational practices).

Table 14: Participation in SFA Programs - 1995 - 1999

Training of leaders

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

-

-

1,248

2,246

3,837

3,771

528

2,563

Training of instructors
Women scholarships

29,336

18,91041,86362,85349,992

Family scholarships

79,143

124,801

287,258

300,531

96,602Youth scholarships

46,384125,180

157,948

138,524

158,402

Senior scholarships

9,748

4,856

32,731

36,242

26,749Workers scholarships

46,08799,032

107,400

94,48634,933Disabled scholarships

9,980

5,868

16,48218,00015,199Total participation

222,411

380,367

654,227

658,037

651,969(Source: Digeder, 2000, p. 47, "Recreational sport development")

Women are considered a target group in Chile and as such it shows up on top of the list.
Programs for women included aerobic exercises, one of the most important activities with yearlyparticipation of almost 35,000 women from 1995 to 1999. Besides, women can also be part ofother target groups such as family, workers, the elderly and the disabled. Women were helpedwith scholarships as a target group. However, it is not clear the amount of female scholarship
recipients for scholarships granted to women participants in the other target groups.

7. Brazil: Developing Sport for All from Public Recreation (1920s) to Leisure (1970s)
and Health Promotions (1990s) (Antonio C. Bramante, Edison Valente, João Nelson
Santos, Lamartine DaCosta, Maria Luiza Dias & Victor Matsudo)
SFA activities in the version created in Brazil have adopted exercises, sports and games fromlocal promotion experiences and from cultural traditions as well, initially concentrating on socialgroups with focus on physicals activities and later on target groups with focus on the individual
people. From public recreation to leisure and then to health promotions, SFA in Brazil has notconcentrated on specific target groups such as children and youth, women, or the elderly. The
three major Brazil SFA campaigns are now operating with their focus put basically on targeting
inactive people through segments as connected to their vocation or specialization. For thisreason, women were not considered as a target group, but could be part of collective practices.

AFRICA49

1. Mozambique: Sport for All under Poverty and War Conditions (Edmundo Ribeiro &Antonio Prista)
Sport for All in Mozambique went through very difficult times. The target groups reported in the
text are (i) children and adolescents, with emphasis on soccer; (ii) youngsters, with actions inbasketball and football; (iii) sedentary people; (iv) workers and military people. During the firstyears after the Independence, the recreational sports were implemented in companies, prisons andmilitary institutions; besides, with the creation of unions and worker-oriented associations, theworkers started organizing their own manifestations and sports competitions.
In the Mozambique context, sports activities were directed mostly to male adults with little
reference to women's sports. However, it is possible to deduce that women and girls could
participate in general activities as they were offered to general target groups or in special programs
such as ‘Correr é Saúde’ (‘Running is Healthy’). It aimed to promote the habit of running races andwas developed in the City of Maputo. The program included the organization of 6 concentration posts
spread through the city. The activities and the concentration spots were orally informed on the radio
and through dynamism-promoting groups (political structure at local level available at the time),both in Portuguese and ronga (their mother language), and published in written form in Portugueseon posters spread throughout the city. The programs happened on Sunday mornings in the six
selected sports and the activities were guided by monitors and teachers from the provincial
department of Physical Education at the city of Maputo. The practiced activities were destined to all
age groups and one of the centers was linked to a cardiac rehabilitation program.
Stemming from the assumption that SFA is a means for social inclusion, in the mid-1970s thecountry's sport system had started initiatives towards simplified sports practices intended toencompass all the citizens of Mozambique. It should be a means to reinforce health, the nation's
defense, and an instrument for the sake of national unity through the exchange and close approach
between different cultures and ethnic groups existing in the country. However, that generalization
implied access to cultural and sports activities for all social sectors of the country, with special
emphasis on women, children, youngsters at school age, workers and military people.
Traditional games are basically Sport for All, and as such, they are practiced at festive occasions,
without any restrictions. There are also specific games from certain regions, and their practice islinked to traditional and religious rituals, and, thus, they are restricted to certain ethnic groups, or
still restricted to the gender of the participants (men and women practices).

2. South Africa: Sport for All from a Way of Life to a Matter of Choice (Anneliese Goslin &Alan Rae Bush)
Women of all races have always been a neglected group in South Africa. Only 14% of black
women and 51% of white women participate in any form of physical activity. Specific efforts are
made to redress the imbalances of gender equity in all Sport for All initiatives. The advocacy role of
Women and Sport in South Africa is of specific importance.
Women are a SFA target group in South Africa. The settings women as a target group do
physical activities and sports are located in community centers, immediate social environment,

50

recreation and sport clubs, and luncheon clubs. The rationale is gender equity, empowerment of
women, improvement in the quality of life and total fitness. In terms of impact figures for the 19941999 period, approximately 65% of participants in all projects were women.
Women can also be included in the target group of families. In this case, the settings arecommunities, regional festivals and walking days. The rationale is related to family values,
connection of generations and positive recreation activities. The impact figures of the 1994-1999
period were320 communities/ 1,8 million per year.
Besides taking part in these two target groups, women can also participate in the other ones
mentioned by the authors: youth-at-risk, children (3-6 years), corporate managers and seniors.

RESULTS
Australia – Women as a Target Group (TG)
Some Australian percentages for comparison follow. While on one extreme theparticipation of teenage boys reaches 85%, the participation of women aged 65 years and older
is of 33%. While the male participation is of 63%, the female participation is of 56%. In relation
to the age bracket of 18-24, male participation reaches 82% while female participation 79%,
which means very close. People aged 35-44 have participation of 61% while people 65 and over,
37%. Facts that belong to Australia are: (i) younger women (30%) walk more than younger men(23%); women swim more than men; aerobics is the third most popular activity for women,
coming after walking and swimming. Nearly 60% of women between 18 and 54 years of age now
engage in some form of regular physical activity.

Israel Women as a TG
The participation of women in sport was found to be linked to level of education and age,rising as the level of education rose and falling with the rise in age. It was observed that in 5
years (1974-1979), there was a decrease of women’s participation not only in walking activities
but also in team ball games although more women were interviewed in 1979. Adult participationin sports activities was surveyed again in 1980 by the Central Bureau for Statistics. Among men,
activity was more common (39%) than women (23%).

Japan
In Japan, an “active sports participant” is someone who exercises somewhat moderate morethan twice a week for over 30 minutes at a time to maintain and improve their health. Numbersof the Sasakawa Sports Foundation show 13.1% men and 13.0% women of the respondents
were active sports participants. This result shows a continuous increase since 1992, when the
SSF National Sport-Life Survey started (1992-6.5%, 1994 - 7.6%, 1996 - 9.6%). The sports
participation rate for those who exercised more than once over the last twelve months was
65.7% (72.2% men and 59.2 women), similarly to a previous survey conducted in 1996, which
proved that sports participation in Japan has improved in quality. In terms of target groups,
women are not addressed as a target group, but rather as part of other target groups such as

51

the following, in terms of priorities: (1st) children and adolescents; (2nd) older adults; and (3rd)disabled people. As most sports and exercise programs in Japan are offered at schools,
workplaces, private sport clubs and community sport clubs, it is possible that women can get
their physical activities there. In addition, SFA campaigns and programs have recently become
more organized in community settings.

South Korea - Women as TG
A 1997 survey showed the Korean population to be 45.9 million people, out of which 11.8 million
participated in SFA, including 4.6 million women, which is 38.8% of the total. This figure showsthat there were still many limitations that prevented women from engaging in Sport for All.
However, there is also much room for improvement. Women have come a long way in Korea
from limitations related to gender roles in the past to more free time to have more opportunities
to enjoy leisure time, and growing numbers of women have participated in sports activities inorder to enhance the quality of their life and stay healthy. Hiking is most favored by women(25.5%), especially older women. The reason for women to favor hiking is just the same as themen: there are many mountains in Korea and there is no need of special equipment to go out
hiking. It is also because it is not a competitive sport and is less dangerous because women cancontrol the amount of physical exercise. Stretching and rope jumping (18.7%) are also thesecond most popular exercise.

The reason for this is that they can do stretching and rope

jumping in their backyard or alley, and it takes only 10 to 20 minutes to do them so that there isrelatively no burden for women who are busy taking care of their children. Women who havedifficulty in carrying out activities of daily living and do not like sports prefer to do stretching andrope jumping in order to relax their muscles and to watch their weight. Badminton ranked third(11.2%). Even though badminton is a competitive sport, it is easy to learn and requires lessphysical strength and power to do because the racket is light and the court is small. Besides
that, there are many badminton courts in the neighborhood. Swimming (10.6%), aerobics(9.1%), and bowling (8.3%) are also popular with women because as indoor sports, women are
not exposed to the sun and can enjoy sports in a modern-style building and pleasantatmosphere. Golf has recently become very popular among women as 7.1% of them elected it asa favorite. Compared to other sports, this figure is very high. Due to the economic growth of thecountry, a growing number of middle class women have been playing golf.

Malaysia
Although women are not considered as a target group, the Women’s Sports and Fitness
Foundation Malaysia (WSFFM) was set up in September 1996. Some of the activities mentioned
in the foundation’s 1996 annual report include the Lecture Series on Sports and Fitness, a
Women and Sports Convention and free aerobics sessions for women.

Singapore

52

The 1992 survey revealed that the least active segments of the population were senior citizens,
housewives and working adults - only 12% of senior citizens, 11% of housewives and 22% ofworking adults participate regularly in sports. In Singapore, women make up an indirect target
group. As surveys have shown that women are generally less physically active than men, Sports
For Life aims to address this problem through a variety of sports activities targeted at women,
especially housewives.

These include the annual National Sports Carnival for Women and theInternational Folk and Recreation Dance Night. Learn-To-Play schemes like Aerobics and Yoga
have also proved to be especially popular among women.

The SSC organized the first ever

Women and Sport Conference in March 1999 to discuss issues pertaining to women and sports.
The Brighton Declaration on Women and Sport was adopted during the conference and a Womenand Sport Working Group was formed to draw up action plans to promote the increased
participation among women in sports. The subgroup ‘housewives seems to be Singapore’s mainconcern, but there is no explanation for that.

People’s Republic of China
SFA in China is in reality mass sport. Women are included as they are part of the population.
Today, there are about 33.26% of individuals who can be regarded as sport population in China.
The rate of participation is still low comparing with that of developed countries. By 2010, sport
population is expected to increase continually, with the transformation of the mechanism of theMass Sport, the development of the economy, the improvement of physical education, and the
pursuit of the value of aesthetics of the human being.

Austria
Austria does not include women as a target group. The Austrian ‘Fit-Philosophy’ included a
special program that aimed at ‘the general public, first and foremost at families and women’.

Bulgaria
The key target groups as identified by Sport for All programs between 1970s and 1990s were thepre-school children, pupils, students, workers, farmers, elderly, and people with disabilities.
Women, ethnic minorities, or the family (except for short spell in 1982-86) were never identified
as specific groups for targeting. However, women could be included in the chosen target groups
indirectly. A 1982 representative survey in 291 cities and villages where 63.2% of the country
population was concentrated, showed that 16.2% of men and 6.8% of women (a 70%:30% maleratio) were practicing some sport.

Cyprus
Women are included with men in a second target group (the first one includes children and thethird the elderly and the handicapped). The program for ‘men and women’ covers both urban andrural areas, and offers organized activities for adults in aerobics, basketball, swimming and53

tennis. As the number of SFA Centers started to grow so did the number of women attending
them. In fact, there were more SFA Centers for women than for men.

Denmark – Women as TG
Although SFA in Denmark does not focus on women as a target group, women are included
directly and indirectly in the target groups. The text devotes a reasonable amount of space toanalyze women’s participation in sport. A 1998 survey revealed that the evening school was oneof the places where 15% of all women, compared to only 3% of all men, were actively involvedin sport or exercise. More active women (907) than active men (784) took part in this survey,
which indicated that the most active age brackets were 20-29 and 30-39, with 55% of the total
number of people who answered the survey. The percentage of women participating in sports
increased from 11% in 1964 to 51% in 1998, leveling with that of men. The percentages showthat there is a tendency to decrease the practice of physical activities as individuals get older:from 67% at the 16-19 age group to 37% at the 70-74 age bracket. The reasons why men andwomen adhere to the practice of physical activities were: (i) for health and well-being reasons to use the body, to keep healthy, to have fun, to relax, to avoid getting fat, to obtain a surplus ofenergy for the rest of the life; (ii) for solidarity reasons – to develop solidarity, to develop
friendships; and (iii) for sporting reasons – to keep improving skills, to meet new challenges, tobe push oneself to the limits, to compete against oneself, to compete against others, and to begood or the best at sport. Most of men and women of the various age groups who participated in
the 1998 survey pointed out that they do sporting activities for health and wellbeing reasons.
Surveys reveal that the inequalities which traditionally plagued participation in sport (on thebasis of gender, age and education/occupation) are much less prevalent now than they were 35
years ago when “Sport for All” was formulated as the Council of Europe’s most important policy
goal for sport: (i) as far as participation is concerned, there are no significant gender differencesamong adults or children; (ii) the differences between levels of participation by young people andsenior citizens are relatively minor (the highest level of participation is around the age of 12,
after which levels of participation fall with age, but the difference between participation levels foryounger adults (20 - 29 year) and older people (70 - 75 year) is only on approximately 20%, andas far as women are concerned, participation falls only slightly between the ages of 20 and 70);(iii) the differences between the levels of participation of the various occupational andeducational groups are relatively minor (participation levels are highest for those with a higher
education and lowest for skilled and unskilled blue-collar workers, and this is not due only to thefact that unskilled workers are predominantly older. What happens is that the biggest difference
between the levels of participation of those with a higher education and those without a lower
education was found in the younger section of the population (16- 39); (iv) the extent to which
an area is urbanized makes significant difference at participation levels, which is due today to acomplicated interaction between a number of social changes on both the individual level andsociety level.

54

England
Women were a target group in England in the years 1976, 1982, 1987, 1989, 1993. There areplans to develop programs for women, but none are described in the text.

Spain
The participation of women in sport increased 317% from 1968 (12.3%) to 1995 (39%). In 1968,
women were 37.1% of the total sports participants in the country while in 1995 they totaled 66.6%.
Although women were not a target group in Spain they could be involved in the three target groups
listed: school children, young and adults and the elderly. Spain developed the concept of target
groups based on phases of the life cycle.

Finland
Although women are not referred to as a target group, the author’s report points out that FGFA
has been conducting some successful programs in order to cater for women’s needs. The text
offers data related to courses for women and strategies adopted in relation to strategies such ascourses on fitness and programs that appeal to women such as the popular health product ‘The
Slim & Trim’ and ‘The Shapely Woman’ program, which is a weight-reducing program for women
desiring fitness, health and a firm body.

France
Women are not considered a main target group. There are however courses of specialization intarget groups, aiming at the training of monitors, teachers and instructors. There seem to beplans for the identification and selection of activities for various target groups, such as children,
adolescents, women, the elderly, people with physical disabilities, etc. The Ministry of Youth andSport has chosen as priorities the following target groups for SFA events: (i) youth at risk or put
aside by their own social group; (ii) women; (iii) the unemployed regardless of age and sex; (iv)the physically disabled and (v) companies’ employees and workers.

Romania – Women as TG
Women are a target group in Romania with features which include: (i) fitness centers organizedin schools, faculties, institutions and/or close to the working places; (ii) sporting and leisureactivities during weekends, for independent participation, with friends or family, organized by
district sports associations in the district or in leisure areas; (iii) local competitions (in volleyball,tennis, table tennis, ski, skating and chess); (iv) campaigns: "Woman and Sport", "Mother andChild", including special programs for pregnant and new mothers, "Beauty and Health" programsfor young women among other actions. The programs seem to concentrate on traditional
womanly interests centered on women’s lifecycle: losing weight and staying on shape, leisure,mothering, and family life. Women are less concerned with sport than men as 54% of them do

55

not practice sport, as compared to 34% of men, the latter allotting a larger part of their sparetime to this interest: 51% as compared to 31% for women. Men considered sport a hobby (28%as compared to 13% for women) and as an entertainment means (26% as compared to 13% forwomen). The manners in which spare time is spent and the satisfaction/dissatisfaction willregister different values when the economic development of the country is higher, when the
population’s revenues increase, when leisure services offer grow and diversify and whenmentality and aspirations evolve in parallel and together with the civilization level.

Germany
Although women are not considered a target group in Germany it is possible to observe a
number of actions directed towards them, especially the ones related to ‘social engineering’.
Girls and women sought the access into more and more sports. The Almanac of the German
Sport Confederation registered 8,000,000 female members to the 15,000,000 male members in
1999. Forty years ago there were 4 men for each woman doing sports.

Greece – Women as a Target Group Women are considered a target group for SFA Greece. With regard to SFA participation, theavailable information comes from a research project that was conducted on a representative
sample of 1,000 women (Harahousou, 1989). The findings reveal four levels of physical activity
involvement: very active (4.3%), active (19.8%), little active (24.1%) and inactive or sedentary(52%). The participation level of the elderly women was the following: active (10%), seasonallyactive (25%), and inactive (65%). The levels of participation in sport were still low at that time.
In general, it seems that the participation in physical activities is higher in urban areas, among
younger, single and better-educated women and expressed as a ratio tells us that approximately
one woman in four has been identified as active. Women's participation rates seem to be similar
to those reported by other European countries, but it cannot be stated that these were theoutcomes of the new introduced programs since most of those women had already been
exercising individually.

However, participation percentages might have improved during thecourse of twelve years, among women and/or among men; thus, further research is required forcomparisons.

Belgium
Although women are not considered a target group in Belgium, they can participate in activities
with their families.

Hungary
The fact that Hungarian mass sport/leisure-time sport followed the pattern of elite sport had
several unfavorable consequences: the exclusion of the general population as the main objective
was to participate in international competitions and big events. There were prejudices among therural and lower classes people against competitive sport for women. These prejudices56

meaningfully weakened in the 1980s and 1990s. Nowadays similar sport for all events can beorganized for women living in villages and towns. The underdevelopment of the Hungarian SFA isrepresented by the fact, that at the end of the 1980s almost half of the population (51% of
women and 40% of men) had no idea at all about the kind of sport they wanted to participate in,in case of optimal conditions. Those who indicated such sports chose the traditional ones, andthey had a feeling that even these are also inaccessible for them. Very few of them had any idea
about the new types of SFA activities. The impact of social-economic factors could be observed
even in their conception related to desired sports

Italy
The gap still exists: in 1985 general statistics displayed that 31% of sports people were men andonly 14.1% were women. The current UISP (Italian Union for Popular Sport) numbers also showthat a positive gender trend is occurring: the percentage of women enrolled in UISP was 35% in
1993, but now female members are near to 40%; as far as adult women are concerned, andalthough at that age they should be involved in both working activities and familiar duties, theyreach about the same percentage of male members (23% and 26%, respectively); and, what ismore, the percentage of elderly female members overcomes that of elderly men abundantly(16% and 10%, respectively). Although women clearly do not have specific policies in terms oftarget groups, the author selected numbers and sufficient data to show that women have beenthought of as sports people.

Poland – Women as a Target Group
Women are definitely a target group in Poland. They have access to all the forms of physicalactivities they could be interested in. Most often, however, they take part in aerobics organized byprivate and TKKF clubs. The standard of these services is varied, but basically they are affordable by
all women irrespective of their financial status. They take part in other forms of physical activities
most often with their families, including walking, sailing, skiing and cycling. More and more women
are interested in body-building and horseback riding. There is great participation of women with
their families. However, the text does not define family, which could imply the presence or absenceof a male partner. Were women accompanied by their children or were the children accompanying
their mother?

Portugal
There is a considerable effort in Portugal to increase the number of women involved in sports
practice as they do not make up a target group.

RussiaIn Russia, targeting stood as a tool for mass sport. The target groups comprised schoolchildren,
workers of big factories and dwellers from urban areas. Accessibility was not the focus in thiscase, but mobilization above all. Those targets were the easiest to mobilize and to meet the57results expected for elite sport selection. Of course, excellence was a valid justification for thistargeting process but the low priority given to underprivileged groups created a ‘mass’ sport with
exclusions, among which women. Men's participation in mass sport activities was five times morethan women. Simply put, the supply side of these activities was much smaller for women. And
the preference of this kind of offer was definitely to young ages. Even the programs targeted toworksites searched participants under 30 years of age. When a survey was conducted at the endof the 1980s, almost half of the population, 52% of men and 47% of women, could not mention
the kind of sport they wanted to participate in because they were not able to acknowledge either
the existence of mass sport or its new opportunities just making appearance in the country. Alsoin present days, the Russian Aerobics Federation is paying much attention to the improvement ofsport for women and girls. These targets have the chance to learn the latest types of body
movement, modern nutrition and training methods at popular gatherings and promotional
events. It is possible to observe then that although women participate in sporting activities,
women have not been considered as a major target group in Russia. The text shows thatwomen’s participation tends to increase.

Canada“ParticipACTION” had as main aim to encourage Canadians to participate in sports and physicalactivities. It has become an innovative experiment in social marketing. Its mission is “to be aleading catalyst and provider of information to positively influence personal behavior and thesocial supports which encourage healthy, active living for all Canadians.” In terms of benefits
from interventions, the ParticipACTION’s experience has also been stressing benefits for target
groups according to programs interventions. The following benefits have the support of Canadian
researchers and program leaders: (i) to reduce alienation, loneliness and anti-social behaviors;(ii) to promote ethnic and cultural harmony; (iii) to offer integrated and accessible leisureopportunities for disabled or disadvantaged individuals; (iv) to build strong families, thefoundation of a healthy society; (v) to provide leadership development opportunities among
volunteers and (vi) to contribute to community involvement, shared responsibility andcommunity pride. The major challenges in the years ahead are: (i) the general lack of public
understanding about the benefits of regular physical activity and Sport for All programs; (ii) thetrend of declining participation by young people, as they get older; (iii) the low levels of physicalactivity among women (especially young women) in most of our societies and (iv) the decline infunctional ability and independent living as people get older. However, women do not make up atarget group in itself. It is rather part of other segmentation strategies such as ‘family’,‘workers’, ‘children’, etc.

United States
Although 60% of Americans report little or no physical activity and 1/3 of the American people
are overweight, SFA in the United States is still uncoordinated. While the target groups in need58for Sport for All have been made clear by the 1996 Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity
and Health, Sport for All is so diverse and so uncoordinated in the U.S. that national or regional
efforts in Sport for All are difficult to summarize simplistically. Therefore, only a few activities
can be summarized here in relation to target groups which include youth, disadvantaged
population (low-income communities, inner-city areas, black, minorities, indigenous groups, etc),
senior adults, overweight children and adults and women. Equal access to and participation in
sports for girls and women have been enhanced by government legislation to bring funding forgirls’ and women’s sports on an equal par with male sports. Many experts argue that despite thislegislation, there is serious sexism at the individual and organizational level of sports for women.

MexicoWomen are not a target group in Mexico, but their participation in sporting activities may be
implicit in the two target groups mentioned in the text: Sport for youngsters at risk, with the
National Juvenile Program for Prevention of Addictions (PREVEA) and (ii) Mexican Physicalactivity and sports association for adults and elderly people (AMAFyDA).

Argentina
Women are not a target group in Argentina. They may be benefited as they belong to the groups
served by SFA programs. However, the author points out that the Council Management includes
men and women with large experience in the field of sport management, especially in leisuresport at community level.

Venezuela
In accordance with the principles defined by the Pan American Institute of Physical Education andthe International Working Group Project, the target groups defined with the purpose to reach thewhole population with simplified schemes were: school sector; community sector; working sector
and the special populations sector. Women were not a target group, but they may be included in
the sectors listed.

Uruguay
Projects related to SFA for women as a target group do not exist. However, it is observed that
there are proposals aiming at various groups such as children, the elderly and the adult
population. Women could be included in these target groups but not explicitly.

Colombia
Although women are not a target group in Colombia, there is clearly a concern for social inclusionas the core of all initiatives, which include: (i) programs for children (‘recreational and creative
holidays’, ‘learning through recreation’, ‘summer vacations’); (ii) programs for families (‘long life
to citizens’, ‘recreation blocks’); (iii) programs for the youth (‘youth camps’, ‘youth promotion
with creative use of spare time to prevent drug addiction’; ‘youngsters, society builders’; ‘street

59

games and tradition festivals’, ‘let the youth walk’; (iii) programs for adults (‘community games’,‘university for the elderly’, ‘the night is ours’, ‘recreation for adults’, ‘veterans’ club’, ‘disabled
people’. Women could be included in these groups. Figures in Colombia indicate almost 7%
participation in sports, which means 2,520,000 people, but only 504,000 women.

Chile
Women are considered a target group in Chile and as such it shows up on top of the list.
Programs for women included aerobic exercises, one of the most important activities with yearlyparticipation of almost 35,000 women from 1995 to 1999. Besides, women can also be part ofother target groups such as family, workers, the elderly and the disabled. Women were helpedwith scholarships as a target group. However, it is not clear the amount of female scholarship
recipients for scholarships granted to women participants in the other target groups

BrazilWomen were not considered a target group in Brazil. However, they participated in the firstinitiatives of inclusion of social groups and mass sport.

Mozambique
The target groups reported in the text are (i) children and adolescents, with emphasis on soccer;(ii) youngsters, with actions in basketball and football; (iii) sedentary people and (iv) workers
and military people. Traditional games are a major characteristic at festive occasions without any
restrictions. In addition, there are specific games from certain regions, and their practice islinked to traditional and religious rituals, and, thus, they are restricted to certain ethnic groups,
or still restricted to the gender of the participants (men and women practices). As a result,
women are not considered a target group.

South Africa – Women as a target group
Women are a target group in South Africa. Women of all races have always been a neglectedgroup in South Africa. Only 14% of black women and 51% of white women participate in any
form of physical activity. Specific efforts are made to redress the imbalances of gender equity inall Sport for All initiatives. The advocacy role of Women and Sport in South Africa is of specificimportance. Women are a SFA target group in South Africa. The settings women as a target
group do physical activities and sports are located in community centers, immediate social
environment, recreation and sport clubs, and luncheon clubs. The rationale is gender equity,empowerment of women, improvement in the quality of life and total fitness. This is so much sothat in terms of impact figures for the 1994-1999 period, approximately 65% of participants inall projects were women. Women can also be included in the target group of families. In thiscase, the settings are communities, regional festivals and walking days. The rationale is related
to family values, connection of generations and positive recreation activities. The impact figuresof the 1994-1999 period were 320 communities/ 1,8 million per year. Besides taking part in60

these two target groups, women can also participate in the other ones mentioned by theauthors: youth-at-risk, children (3-6 years), corporate managers and seniors.

OBSERVATIONS AND TENDENCIES
Different cultures around the world have different definitions about what they consider women.
Some countries consider women as housewives, part of the family; other countries consider
women as only adults (excluding girls of the various ages and elderly women), other countries
consider women as female human beings going through the various phases of the cycle of life.
Based on this last definition and after examining all the texts of the databank, it was possible toinfer the following:
1. Women tend to participate less than men in physical activities, especially for cultural
reasons (including gender roles, prejudice and discrimination against women who dosports, tradition, religion, and time available from housework and children upbringing). It
is also important to take into consideration that women have gone more into the job
market, but they have kept their roles as mothers and housewives as well, which
prevents them from investing more time on physical activities.
2. The younger the woman the more chances for her to be engaged in some form of physicalor sporting activity. As women get older, they tend to discontinue their participation inphysical exercise.
3. As time goes by and information becomes more available, more women seem to beengaged in sporting and physical activities.
4. Although women tend to have fewer children in the 21st century, it is important toremember the patterns of income of the different regions of the countries. Women who
have low income tend to have more children, which leaves them with less free time to andprevents them from participating more in physical activities
5. Women are also generally less fit than men, and tend not to return to physical activity asmuch as men due to restricted choice of activities, a lack of confidence, the likelihood ofharassment, and fewer women coaches and role models.
6. The participation of women in sports and physical activities was found to be linked to levelof education and age, rising as the level of education rose and falling with the rise in age.
7. Women gave the following reasons to participate in physical activity and sports: the main
improvement of fitness and health, relaxation and recreation, lose weight and stay inshape, better financial conditions, following examples of role models, and esthetic
reasons. With advanced marketing strategies, sports centers provide specialized sports
programs for women; thus, a growing number of women participate in sports activities.
8. It is important to keep in mind that different cultures have different interpretations about
what it means to be an “active sports participant”. In Japan, for instance, ‘it is someone
who exercises somewhat moderate more than twice a week for over 30 minutes at a time61

to maintain and improve their health’. The objectives are very clearly stated and seem tobelong to the Japanese culture as a whole, not considering genders. Other cultures are
not specific about it.
9. Besides being considered as a target group, women can also take part in programs
offered for other target groups such as children and adolescents, youth, seniors, workers,
disabled people, unemployed (Japan, Israel, Romania, Greece). Besides, they can also getsome exercise in the various settings such as schools, workplaces, private sport clubs andcommunity sport clubs, whenever available for that purpose, as it is the case of Japan. In
Venezuela, women can be included in several sectors: school sector; community sector;
working sector and the special populations sector, which are considered by Venezuelans
as target groups.
10. The more urbanized an area is, the more investment on public facilities, the more people
tend to use them playing sports and doing physical activities.
11. Higher education and gender equity have greatly contributed for women’s increasing
participation in sport.
12. It is also important to remember that the growth of women’s role as workers andindependent earners has left them with much less free time (explaining their decreased
participation in outdoor activities and take up of urban, keep fit and sports that can beundertaken in short spells) to do sports and physical activities. Women’s participation in
outdoor sports fell, perhaps as a result of increasing participation, full and part time in thelabor market while men’s participation in sports increased. On the other hand, the factthat the working week hours have been reduced in some countries does not mean thatwomen have more ‘free time’ for their physical activities as they still have to comply withhousehold chores, sometimes helped by men and sometimes not.
13. It is interesting to observe that some countries offer courses on fitness in SFA programs
for women. Sport and education are together. Some of these courses go from the simple
practice of activities, to dietary instructions and even registration of weight to checkprogress.
14. Programs for women which were successful tended to concentrate on women’s interests:
sporting activities, getting on shape and keeping fit, having fun, physical activities for thefamily (focusing on mothers and children), losing weight, beauty and health programs,
etc. Competition, stressing and aggressive activities and sports tended not to be favored.
15. Men tend to practice leisure sports more than women; the number of practitioners lowers
as age increases.
16. It is interesting to observe that leisure sports are practiced less in the rural areas.
17. The main difficulties in practicing leisure sports tend to be the lack of time and the lack ofsports equipment. Favorable economic conditions are determinant for the increase in thenumber of practitioners. As women are more on the job market, they become more
independent and their purchasing power tends to increase, which favors the acquisition ofsports equipments.

6218. Elite sports tended to discriminate against women of several ages. Only the most talented
were privileged. As a result of the underdevelopment of SFA in the countries that followed
those practices, the population would tend to have little idea of about the kind of sport
they wanted to participate in, in case of optimal conditions. Those who indicated that theywould like to participate chose the traditional ones, and they had a feeling that even these
are also inaccessible for them. Very few of them had any idea about the new types of SFA
activities. The impact of social-economic factors could be observed even in theirconception related to desired sports.
19. In some countries it was possible to observe that there was no segmentation of SFA into
target groups, but as little success was achieved, the administrators started to separate
the different target groups.
20. Some countries display a higher percentage of elderly women who are active. Possible
reasons of this surprising phenomenon can be found in the fact that, according to recent
statistics, elderly women are healthier and live longer than men, and probably Italianwomen, for instance, have learnt at their own expenses to take care of themselves andenjoy an active life outside their homes, like the opposite sex.
21. In some studies there seems to be great participation of women with their families.
However, the texts do not define family, which could include the father. In the case of theabsence of the father, on week days, for instance, were women accompanying their children
or were the children accompanying their mother?
22. According to the researches, two types of mass sport could be found: (i) one targeting on
the young populations of boys and girls with political objectives, which would later oncontribute for the ignorance of the people of a country in relation to sports and (ii) one
targeting on everybody alike, aiming at physical exercises for everybody, perhaps withlocal distinctions of contextualization,
23. Sport can be considered a means to empower women as it is done in South Africa. The
rationale is gender equity and improvement in the quality of life and total fitness.
24. According to the texts, women participated as sports organizers and administrators in
Romania, Hungary and Argentina: 3 out of 35 countries (8.6%).
25. Australia, Cyprus, Denmark, England, Spain, Romania, Hungary, Italy, Israel and South
Korea were the nations that presented some data in elation to the participation of womenin sports.

CONCLUSIONSThe surveyed countries in the five continents deal with the inclusion of women in physicalactivities and sports in a number of manners as shown in Table 15.
From the 35 countries surveyed, women were considered target groups, although not toppriority, in 9 of them. Two countries stated that women as a TG were to be included in future
policies. It is also possible to note that women could be implicitly included in other target groups
and in two other countries they would participate in mass sport. The word ‘women’ was not

63

mentioned in four nations, which represents 11% of the total countries that participated in thesurvey. The results suggest that the fact that women are beginning to participate in sporting
practices worldwide tends to be universal from the social inclusion perspective as 74 % of thesurveyed countries (26) include them in their practices. Differences between eastern and westerncultures in terms of inclusion of women in physical activities and sports tend not to be so clearly
defined probably because of globalization into which sport would act as leveling factor.

Table 15: Women as a Target Group (TG) in SFA
Women as a

Women in indirect TGs

direct TG

Women andMen and Women as afamilies as a TG

TG

Australia

Japan

Austria

IsraelSingapore

BelgiumSouth Korea

Bulgaria

Denmark

Spain

Romania

Finland

GreeceGermany

PolandHungarySouth Africa

Italy

Chile

CanadaCyprusUnited States
Colombia
Argentina
MexicoVenezuela
Uruguay

Women

as

TG

Women

as

TG

Mass sport

Women

PAST

FUTURE(England)England

China

Malaysia

FranceRussiaPortugal

notmentioned64

(Hungary)

Mozambique

BrazilCONCLUSIONS
According to the United Nations, all human beings have the right to play a sport and to dophysical activities for a variety of reasons, among which for health and social inclusion. However,
although women constitute more than half of the world’s population today, very few actions havebeen taken by nations in the five continents to make sport and physical activities part of awoman’s day.
In countries that have western culture patterns (including some eastern countries due toglobalization), particular reasons for women’s adherence to exercise programs include to lose
weight, to become thin, to become attractive, to be healthy and to have fun. This represents
very important information as it can be observed that women share some common culture
independently from the place they are located and the ethnicity they belong. Women’s patternsof participation tend to be the same.
It is also possible to conclude from the data collected that men participate more than
women when differences between genders is specified and data are available; the participation
rate declines as people get older. As a consequence, many of the SFA programs aim at social
inclusion, especially in Europe. In general, it seems that the participation in physical activities ishigher in urban areas, among younger, single and better-educated women and expressed as aratio tells us that approximately one woman in four has been identified as active. Women's
participation rates seem to be similar to those reported by other European countries.
Some countries that follow western traditions in Europe, for example, in Poland,encourage the participation of women and their families, but the studies do not mention whether
this participation includes husbands or only the children, since men are supposed to spend the
day at work.
It is significant to observe that different countries had different readings of what target
groups meant. In the ‘Call for Authors’ (1998) sent to prospective authors, the expression ‘target
groups’ was not defined by the organizers. Instead, the following questions were addressed by
the organizers in order to guide the work to be done by the volunteer authors facing such achallenge: (i) How did Sport for All in the country, if ever, focus on target groups during theevolution of this practice? (ii) Were the large groups aimed by campaigns explicitly assumed astarget with its correspondent characterization? (iv) Are there examples of activities selected byinstitutions or programs taking into consideration targeting techniques? (v) What was or is thedegree of importance of target groups for institutions and leaders, comparing with activities? (vi)
Was there during the life-span of Sport for All in the country any characterization of relationships
between target groups and activities in terms of economic status, cultural traditions, social65

development levels etc? (vii) Actually, which single element was mostly considered in order toorganize events: activity, target group, setting or strategy? (ix) Are there examples ofcombination of these elements to organize a particular event, campaign or program?
As a result, various interpretations were attributed according to each country. However, it
is possible to conclude that countries had two major following interpretations of target groups
referring to women. One group of countries included women as an explicit and direct target, andthis is clearly stated in the text under Target Groups. Another group of countries included womenin their policies of SFA indirectly, sometimes not even mentioning words such as ‘women’, girls’,‘females’, or other words denoting gender. These studies can be subdivided in two groups: (i)one sub-group of texts referring to women in target groups such as the elderly, the handicappedor the youth and (ii) one sub-group of texts reporting on mass sport, where women would be‘implicitly’ included.
In addition, there were a few countries that had no mention to any target groups at all.
Women in these cases seem either to be totally excluded or to be invisible in their practices.
From a universal perspective, it is possible to say that women are in fact participating insport; however, they are not visible everywhere. Some countries and ethnic groups promotewomen’s social inclusion and others are on the way to do that.
When SFA was proposed by Coubertin, it could have had the sense of universalism, as
there seemed to be very little mention to diversity. It is also significant to remember that
Coubertin was known for his opposition to women’s sport. One may infer then that theexpression ‘sport for all’ in the beginning aimed to universalism without universals, anotherexpression denoting qualitative identity and resemblance among individuals (Coubertin also
never referred to sports to the disabled or to the elderly).
However, if a more updated reading of SFA, which comes down to considering eachindividual person as a participant, is set forth, then it is possible to state that sport becomes
inclusive as it considers everyone. In other words, individuals are said to be similar in virtue ofsharing universals.
As a matter of fact, both tendencies co-exist as at the same time that a given populationof men and women is doing physical activities and doing sports as ‘mass sport’, they are also
doing them individually, then it is crucial to point out that there is strong urgency to cater for
everyone’s needs according to their limitations and skills. Moreover, people of different cultures,
different ethnicities and backgrounds, age limitations, physical capabilities, tastes, etc. need tobe respected within their potentials if universality is under scrutiny.
In short, the influences of cultural diversity on women’s participation in today’s SFA and in
sport at large really mean multicultural respect towards universalism. But this answer to acommontheoreticalinterrogation

among

CulturalStudies

researchersisconcerned

tomanagement’s rationales and intervention, as seen in SFA data collected.
An additional answer usually found among researchers of human rights lies in thenecessary agreement involving a diversity of cultural interplays. In this case, “universal”
understanding is cognitive and an agreed outcome and not necessarily based in Olympic and66

Coubertin’s traditions, as emphasized elsewhere by DaCosta, Abreu and Miragaya (2006). This
option for mutual understanding is more a philosophical problem and sometimes a political
proposal than an anthropological contention related to cultural relativism.

REFERENCESDACOSTA, L., ABREU, N. & MIRAGAYA, A. (2006). Multiculturalism and Universal Proclaimed
Values in Olympic Movement: an Approach to Human Rights and Sport Development? ICSSPE
Bulletin 48, September 2006, Berlin, pp. 50 – 54.

DACOSTA, L. & MIRAGAYA, A. (2002). Worldwide Experiences and Trends in Sport for All.
Aachen: Meyer & Meyer Sport.

LANDRY, F., LANDRY, M. & YÈRLES, M. (Eds). (1991). Sport, the Third Millennium. Les
Presses de l’Université Laval Sainte-Foy.

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