LEADING COMMUNITY ROLES IN THE “WORLDWIDE EXPERIENCES AND TRENDS IN SPORTFOR ALL"
Lamartine P. DaCosta & Ana Miragaya
University Gama Filho - Rio de Janeiro

The book “Worldwide Experiences and Trends in Sport for All" (DaCosta & Miragaya - Eds) has
recently been launched by its publisher: Meyer & Meyer Sport. This new source of information focuseson physical activities, leisure, health promotion, and sport development in 36 countries from fivecontinents. This publication is simultaneously a Data Bank and the largest international comparative
investigation ever done in the sports area.
The book also represents a breakthrough project of research development promoted by Trimand Fitness International Sport for All Association – TAFISA – with the support of IOC, UNESCO andEditora Gama Filho (Brazil). With the aim of providing data from national cases on history,
management, culture, marketing, sponsorship, finance, target groups, settings for activities, strategyof promotion and social changes as related to Sport for All (SFA), 87 authors (46 PhDs and 16 Ms
included) raised information from their countries, which account for 47% of the world’s population.
The SFA Data Bank was primarily planned to offer researchers and students not only generaltrends by continents but also trends in context, putting together point-specific collected data from justone country or group of countries. Selected features of SFA-like activities may be reviewed by crossanalytical searches applied first to general trends and then to idiosyncrasies identified in particular
contexts.
The category “community” represents a typical demand to be made in terms of SFA generalassumptions in cross-continental reviews, presupposing the key role of communal gatherings in sports
for leisure and/or health promotion. In this concern, a significant approach to community roles is met
in several categories and sections of the data bank. The first one appears in the category "History andCulture" (pp. 758 - 765) of the various chapters of the data bank: "local communities" rank second
only to "government" among five alternatives of SFA management during the1970 - 2000 period.
In the section "Institutions" of the same source (pp. 765 - 767), the variable "non specialized
institutions" emerges as dominant from 1945 onwards, referring to institutional insertions of SFA
initiatives with 35 occurrences in 5 continents. Other institutions identified from information deliveredby respondent countries were "multi-layered sport system" with 30 occurrences; "Sport for All roof
organizations" (16 occurrences) and "leisure and recreation institutions" (15 occurrences). In otherwords, the SFA approach to community has been basically the preferred focus of sport development
for the local government and for the local private initiative. According to DaCosta & Miragaya (2002),
the interpretation to this detected fact is that “there is some articulation between a macro perspective(government and business) and a micro perspective (local management and volunteers)" (p. 762).
Furthermore, the target group approach taken by the Data Bank also focuses on communities
at large when listing preferred options from respondent countries regarding the 1970 - 2000 period.
Table 1 depicts "poor people" with the lowest degree in targeting as compared to the six other groups
despite the high index of this variable detected in Africa and Latin America. In short, the accumulative
experience of SFA worldwide has been revealing a local community accomplishment in the last threedecades; however, the development of activities and programs is today a targeting enterprise.

1Moreover, in underprivileged regions, communal development and targeting seem to overlap when
they face specific social needs.

Table 1 - SFA Data Bank – Target Groups
Preferred Options from Respondent Countries – 1970s/1990s*
Frequency = (total of occurrences of variables in all countries of the continent) **CONTINENTS ELDERLY/ VARIABLES

CHILDRE
N&YOUTHFAMILYWOMEN(*)

PEOPLE
WITH
SPECIAL
NEEDS

WORKER POORSPEOPLE

ASIA

(8)

(4)

(4)

(6)

(4)

(5)(2)AFRICA

(1)

(2)

(1)

(1)

(1)

(2)

(2)

EUROPE

(15)

(13)

(4)

(12)

(11)

(11)

(1)

L. AMERICA

(6)

(6)

(3)

(0)

(3)

(2)

(5)

N.AMERICA

(2)

(1)

(2)

(1)

(1)

(1)

(1)

TOTAL

32

26

14

20

20

21

11

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

When this conclusion is matched with the data from the category "Settings and Activities", it ispossible to observe that the role played by the community in SFA has become clearer in its evolution
since 1970.

By far, the options "sport facilities", "schools", "workplaces" and "nature & parks" aremore frequently found in continental comparisons, except for Africa and Latin America, where "streets& roads" are important as SFA settings (p. 773). Actually, today's local focus of SFA is the naturalresultofavailabilityandopportunityoffacilities

near

theparticipants'residential

places.

Unsurprisingly, the growing concern for "social inclusion", as ascertained in the Data Bank section"Strategy” (p. 775), represents the confirmation of the community's leading role in the SFA process ofdevelopment. In summary, "social inclusion" stands for a synthesis of local management as it refers toappropriate targeting and facilities made available to people who need to share an active lifestyle.
In addition to the intervention rationales of local SFA, "social inclusion" is a matter of communal
belonging as Table 2 is taken into account. This last exhibition was collected from the section "SocialChanges" of the Data Bank, aiming to provide positive perceived repercussions of SFA in the year 2000

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(p. 777). The most detected variables in this comparative arrangement have approximately the same
quantitative value (20 to 18 occurrences in each continent) and are all related to a new lifestylecommitment. While "healthy life" and "positive attitudes" are linked to the "diffusion of SFA", thevariable "changes in participation profile" has the meaning of reshaping SFA from "national to local,
mass to individuals, leisure to health and target groups to non-compliers" (p. 782).

Table 2 - SFA Data Bank - Social Changes
Positive Perceived Repercussions from SFA – 2000*
Frequency = (total of occurrences of variables in all countries of the continent) **CONTINENTS /VARIABLESCHANGES INPARTICIPATIONPROFILEMORE CONCERNWITH HEALTHYLIFE

POSITIVE
ATTITUDESTOWARDS SFAPENETRATION
AND DIFFUSION
OF SFA

ASIA

(5)

(7)

(6)

(4)

AFRICA

(0)

(0)

(1)

(0)

EUROPE

(10)

(8)

(7)

(7)

L. AMERICA

(3)

(2)

(2)

(5)

N. AMERICA

(2)

(2)

(1)(2)

TOTAL

20

1917

18____________________________________________________________________* N=36: Asia - 8; Africa - 2; Europe - 17; Latin America - 7 and North America - 2** Variables occurrences per country: 0, 1 or > 1

Summarizing, these trends can be understood as community development on account of atypical link between them: from general participation to specific inclusion. Thus, should “inclusion" besubmitted to an updated review, it might rather stand as the core meaning of communal belonging, atleast concerning participation in sport.
Of course, these continental trends reveal different formats and approaches when we examine
the different categories of comparative analysis, which has put together the 36 participating countriesof the research. For instance, the financial appreciation of SFA interventions concluded that local
activities have had a strong support from the participants themselves, which reinforces theinterpretation of communal belonging attributed to sport for health and/or leisure (pp. 769 - 771). For3

a final assessment of this finding, here follows a transcription of the Data Bank as found in the section"Sponsorship and Finance" (p. 770):"Although the state has controlled the direction and, sometimes, the management of SFA in allcontinents, the financing of these activities has been done through various sources, including theimportant participation of non-governmental institutions. In both North America and Europe thefinancial commitments of non-governmental institutions have been practically the same to the ones
that come from multiple sources. However, the financial support to SFA at the local level – generally
governmental – is becoming more like that of the other alternatives or even taking up the most part inthe cases of North America and of Asia. The participation of sponsors in the activities of SFA in theperiod that goes from the 1970s to the 1990s was registered in all continents as being equivalent tothose done at the local level, except for Latin America, which mobilized more resources from sponsorsand for Asia, which used fewer sponsors. The appreciation of the variables identified by this section all
together reinforces the hypothesis that most of the expenditures of SFA are covered by theparticipants of the activities once only the variable that refers to local government investments isexplicitly committed to the State".

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