Developing through sport: evidencing sport impacts on young people

The use of sport in pursuit of international development goals is broadening, with widespread policy support for sports-based programmes that promote social, educational and health goals. Academic assessment has however been more critical, posing searching questions about the paucity of evidence that justifies the use of sport in these roles. Recent growth in evaluation studies has increased the evidence-base but carries some risks of privileging positivist forms of knowledge and fails to engage with issues surrounding decolonization of research.1 This essay suggests that reflexive qualitative studies that capture authentic local knowledge can help address both of these issues, illustrating this through an exploratory study conducted with young women and adult sport workers involved in a ‘successful’ community-based sports programme in Delhi, India (n = 38). It is argued that the form of data obtained can enhance academic understanding and assist in the process of decolonization of sport-in-development research.

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