Integration by Sport and Physical Activities? Comparing European Perspectives http://elea.unisa.it/xmlui/handle/10556/7214 2026-04-14T12:20:04Z 2026-04-14T12:20:04Z Gasparini, William Russo, Giovanna http://elea.unisa.it/xmlui/handle/10556/7169 2025-08-01T07:31:58Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

Integration by Sport and Physical Activities in Europe: An Introduction Gasparini, William; Russo, Giovanna Sport is traditionally presented and used as a vector of integration and citizenship for for-eign populations in all immigration countries. Leisure sports activities allow intercultural dialogue and offer opportunities for socialization. For this reason, in several European countries, sports associations and NGOs have initiated many sports programs open to mi-grants and refugees, the effects of which are often unknown to social science. Furthermore, the issue of welcoming migrants has taken on a new dimension in recent years: Europe is the region that quantitatively welcomes the largest number of international migrants. In this context, the use of sport to integrate newly arrived migrants raises many questions for so-cial sciences. Can we thus identify practices and initiatives for integration through sport that can be generalized to all countries? How do the different European countries deal with the migratory phenomenon and with what reception arrangements and integration models? Comparing several sporting practices, programs and systems in different countries the pa-per investigates how inclusion and integration are translated into action strategies, and sug-gests a rethinking of some sociological categories. Doing so, the concepts of Integration, immigrant, migrant and sport are tested by Social Sciences in order to better understand the society we are living.

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z Puech, Julien Le Yondre, François Freedman, Jane http://elea.unisa.it/xmlui/handle/10556/7168 2025-08-01T07:32:53Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

L’accueil des migrants par le sport : l'Europe à la croisée de philoso-phies politiques différenciées Puech, Julien; Le Yondre, François; Freedman, Jane There has been an unprecedented increase in the number of displaced people arriving in Europe in mid-2010. The reception of these populations has resulted in controversial responses and varying degrees of support, reflecting contrasting ideas of citizenship analyzed as 'political philosophies' (Favell, 1998). Many sports programmes for the inclusion of migrants have been developed in this context. However, the political objectives of these initia-tives remain unclear beyond claims of the vague social and educational benefits of sport (Gasparini, 2008). Based on a cross-sectional survey of the objectives of 258 sports pro-grammes, this paper identifies three “Ideal Types” (Weber, 1971) of political philosophies of the use of sport for migrant populations: emancipation - emphasizing the free develop-ment and well-being of individuals - integration - aiming to foster social affiliation through language and work - and protection - based on a logic of physical and/or psychological care. Although in reality none of the programmes sticks exclusively to these ideal types, and the boundaries between the categories are blurred, highlighting them enables us to en-visage a political analysis of these sports programmes and of the impacts they hope to achieve.

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z Michelini, Enrico Burrmann, Ulrike http://elea.unisa.it/xmlui/handle/10556/7167 2025-08-01T07:33:03Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

A Preliminary Impact Model for the Integration of Young Refugees through Sports Programmes Michelini, Enrico; Burrmann, Ulrike This paper outlines a provisional impact model for the social integration of young refugees in German sports clubs through sports programmes. The questions ‘what works, under what circumstances, and for whom?’ are explored based on a Realist Evaluation of these pro-grammes’ integration goals. For this purpose, the sports programmes for refugees of se-lected sports clubs were examined by considering: (1) the available requests for funding and reports produced by the clubs; (2) guideline-based interviews with the clubs’ contact persons; and (3) participant observations of selected programmes. The resulting data (documents, transcriptions and observation protocols) were analysed qualitatively and in-terpreted using Esser’s conceptualisation of integration. The impact model shows that inte-grative processes were observable within the sports programmes examined. To facilitate these processes, sport must ‘show its best side’, which cannot be taken for granted. More-over, the relevance of sport as a means of integration could not be weighed, because the in-fluencing factors are numerous, complex and interrelated. Hence, what is portrayed as the integrative power could be the result of more complex psychosocial processes that manifest themselves in sport. Theory-guided and empirically-based evaluations may contribute to the development of a more objective reflection on integration in/through sport.

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z Elia, Anna Fedele, Valentina http://elea.unisa.it/xmlui/handle/10556/7166 2025-08-01T07:33:15Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

Calcio, soggettività e immaginari nell’esperienza dei “minori non accompagnati” Elia, Anna; Fedele, Valentina Based on a qualitative research that has involved young migrants belonging to the norma-tive category of unaccompanied minors according to the Italian Law, hosted in centres of the Sistema di Accoglienza Integrato (SAI- Integrated Reception System), the article ques-tions the role of football in young migrants’ daily life. Football, indeed, both played and enjoyed as a “fan”, being outside the normed paths of integration, is a possible space for the expression and affirmation of migrant subjectivities, where specific paths of construction of self-esteem can be activated. Within these paths, an important role is given to those models of masculinity that are built in the football imaginary, whose articulation allows to grasp the specific gender dimension of young migrants’ biographical experience.

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