Those individuals in our midst without a firm and fixed place to call home in society have elicited variously: fear, disgust, disdain, punishment, pity, nostalgia, and curiosity. The transience of their lives positions them ‘outside the city walls’ both literally and symbolically. These widely negative perceptions see those who experience Homelessness to be burdened both physically and emotionally. This vastly complicated issue is one, seemingly, without a solution. So what can sport, specifically football, offer to that which has hitherto failed to erase this issue? Homelessness and sport manifest obvious inequalities. So in society as in sport there are winners and losers. Similar to sport, Homelessness is enduring and kaleidoscopic. Attitudes toward sport, like arguably the most marginalised members of any society, can change with time and place. Social inequalities are reflected in sport even if sport has positioned itself as a salve for a range of social problems. An annual football tournament that carries the claim that ‘A ball can change the world’ might offer a somewhat simplistic and mythopoeic view of sport. Such a view of sport has been challenged but it has its aficionados. Whether or not football, in its delivery or play, is capable of solving anything for those enduring the predicament of Homelessness is tantamount to this inquiry. What follows seeks to complement contemporary research by offering a panoptic view of the genre of that termed ‘Homeless Football’ (HF) utilising an analysis of one country’s – England – national programme and a HF initiative in a local setting. The local, national and international segue – hopefully – serves to illustrate the interactions between those playing and those delivering. Using French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theories and concepts, the social field of HF is considered and interrogated. In this space of play will be the focus of four specific questions were asked: What is the social field of HF and how can it be understood? Who are the social agents taking part in HF? How does HF ‘sit’ within the broader sport-for-development sector? And lastly, is there a meaningful impact for individuals experiencing Homelessness through participation in such football opportunities? The research presents the complexities that encompass HF in definition, delivery, and desired outcomes. The genre has many angles and aficionados. If it has critics they remain silent. The dualism of Homelessness and Football proved to be a seductive partnership.

Despite the lack of clarity on how sport delivers the benefits intended, sport continues to be positioned as a panacea for social disparities (Coalter, 2010). The inconsistent and sometimes nonexistent evaluation of sport has raised doubt about sport’s capacity to deliver the benefits desired (Broh, 2002; Chalip, 2006; Coakley, 1979; Coakley, 1993). In worse cases, sport has been considered complicit in reinforcing the same oppressive social structures that created the initial need for its intervention (Hartmann & Depro, 2006; Hartmann, 2003; Shaw, Frisby, Cunningham, & Fink, 2006; Spaaij, 2009). The belief that sport can provide benefits stems from the recognition that there are two groups of people: the empowered (i.e., those who employ sport for development), and the disempowered (i.e., those who are targeted to participate in these programs). Darnell (2007) asserts that “within the development through sport movement, a well-intentioned and benevolent ‘mission’ of training, empowering, and assisting is not only based upon, but to an extent requires, the establishment of a dichotomy between the empowered and the disempowered, the vocal and the silent, the ‘knowers’ and the known” (561). The crux of this assertion lies in the notion that the benefits provided through sport serve as social control mechanisms by reifying the values of the empowered as those that should be desired and reinforcing the social hierarchies that oppress the disempowered through the controlled (unequal) allocation of resources. Latent in the intent of these sport-for-development programs is the need to continually identify and socially anchor the historically disempowered. Social myths about their inferiority overshadow how social class, further distinguished by race and gender, was historically fashioned by the unequal distribution of resources and overpower the voices of those who are marginalized through this process. Therefore, what is considered “beneficial” becomes a contest between which group can put the most resources behind their ideals as opposed to the expressed needs of the participants (Coalter, 2007; Darnell, 2007; Spaaij, 2009). To better understand what shapes perceptions about the benefits obtained from sport participation, the purpose of this study was threefold: (1) to determine what players and coaches perceive as the benefits obtained by players through basketball and what benefits they perceive to be important; (2) to determine whether players and coaches perceive that players obtain benefits to the same degree that they feel they are important; and (3) to understand the differences in these perceptions based on gender, race, SES, and role (i.e., player or coach). Upon receiving IRB approval, a pilot study was conducted on high school athletes (N= 450) to ascertain the benefits they obtained from high school basketball. In SPSS, exploratory factor analyses with varimax rotation were conducted on 109 benefits identified in the literature to determine which groups of benefits were salient to high school basketball players. From the initial factor analysis, 23 factors emerged. In addition to feedback from sport-for-development researchers, coaches, and players, a second pilot study (N= 69) was conducted to refine the categories of benefits players obtained. The final instrument contained 41 items in ten categories of benefits: Academic Resiliency, Self-Expansion, Self-Discipline, Analytical Thinking Skills, Moral Value Development, College Preparation, Leadership Training, and Relationships with Others, Sense of Community, and Career Development. Cronbach’s alpha was used to test reliability of each category and all were found to be acceptable for this study Nunnally (1978). The instrument was available in paper form and electronic form for players and coaches to complete in a four-week period. The final sample included 237 high school basketball players and 164 high school basketball coaches from Texas. First, two MANOVAs (one for benefits obtained and one for importance) were conducted to examine the potential interactions among gender, race, SES, and role in perceptions of benefits obtained and the importance of those benefits. Results of the MANOVAs were considered significant at α = .10. Next, paired-sample t-tests were conducted to determine whether players and coaches perceived that players received the same benefits that were deemed important. Finally, one sample t-tests (against the neutral point of the scale, 4) were used to determine which benefits were perceived to be obtained and which were considered important by players and coaches. T-tests were considered significant using Bonferroni criteria. The results of the MANOVAs included a three-way interaction between race, gender, and role that was significant in determining the perceived benefits obtained through sport. These results reinforce the need to analyze sport from a transdisciplinary lens to understanding the personal and structural factors shaping the needs of sport participants and subsequently creating culturally responsive sport component to provide the desired benefits. SES was used as a proxy for social class, more specifically, for one's access to resources, and was not found to be significant in determining the perception of benefits obtained from sport. This finding suggests that people marginalized by class differences may have a false consciousness about the benefits sport can provide despite the evidence that these individuals are not receiving benefits at levels comparable to more privileged groups and even worse, that sport participation can be detrimental to their development. In light of the findings that African-American women perceive more strongly that they obtain benefits from sports than do their male counterparts, further exploration is needed on how the experience of sport is influenced by hegemonic structures based on race and gender. To this end, practical implications for implementing sport-for-development programs including promoting culturally responsive training and implementation of programs (Ladson-Billings, 1990) that employ the resources available to foster the intended benefits and more importantly, to create more sustainable programs. Another key finding was that race, gender, role, and SES were significant in influencing the benefits perceived to be important. While the results showed that "sport is good" for providing the benefits observed, the differences in how well these benefits are obtained by race and gender suggest that further investigation is needed in understanding what are the mechanisms that allow sport to be "good" in providing these groups with benefits and in determining how athletes perceive sport as the channel for receiving benefits. Both findings push for more organic and long-term studies in the benefits of sport participation. Using the tenets of Critical Race Theory, theoretical implications include employing a socioecological approach to understanding how needs and benefits are conceptualized, the use of more emic approaches to studying these concepts, and providing more agency to the individuals in researching and understanding their needs and the benefits they desire from sport (along with the potentially negative implications of sport participation). The results promote the need to look specifically at one's access to resources, race, and gender in determining the components necessary and sufficient to providing benefits through sport. The concept of hegemony posits that these factors are not conditions inherent to an individual but identities and social positions constructed by the larger society. Therefore, sport researchers must create concepts of researching "needs" and "benefits" that are reflective of the individual as well as cultural and environmental factors that shape sport participation. These concepts must also be organic, taking into consideration that factors influencing the needs of participants are changing in concert with social norms and their effects on one's identity and access to resources. The results of this study also provide practical implications for recognizing that sport does not exist in vacuum and to be effective in providing participants with the intended benefits, sport must be culturally responsive (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1992). To this end, sport administrators should be mindful of the cultural and structural factors that shape the students’ environment and consequently their identities and needs, by implementing sport components that work on multiple levels. Administrators and participants should also examine the ways that sport may impact them in negative ways, particularly if those negative impacts are masked by potential benefits (Bruening, 2005; Glover, 2007; Harrison, Sailes, Rotich, & Bimper, 2011). Giving voice to the participants, engaging school and community officials in providing access to resources, and using goal-setting to help students exercise more agency in shaping their sport experience were also practical implications from this study. / text

This thesis includes two stand-alone articles with the overall purpose of critically exploring experiences related to sport-for-development from the program participants’ perspective on the one hand, and from the practitioners’ perspective on the other. After outlining the research objectives and present a review of literature, theoretical framework, epistemology, methodology, methods, and analysis, the first article focuses on the YLP participants’ experiences with a particular interest on empowerment processes. Specifically, I employed a Critical Youth Empowerment (CYE) framework in relation to youth experiences and larger community involvement with youth programming (Jennings et al., 2006). Photovoice was conducted and supplemented with eleven semi-structured interviews, one focus group and a month-long participant observation. The above-mentioned research was juxtaposed with a second article presenting an autoethnographic account of my own experiences as a practitioner and researcher. My autoethnography mixes theory, methodology, and methods throughout the narrative. My hope was to produce a theoretically rich and reflexive account of the experiences that led me to conceptualize sport-for-development differently. This self-critical piece aims at providing an opportunity for readers to reflect upon and hopefully challenge their own practices, knowledge production, and research orthodoxy.

Sport for development programs are becoming increasingly popular to address a variety of social issues such as poverty, lack of education, gender equality, and conflict within marginalized communities. Within Canada, many sport for development programs are created for Aboriginal peoples, as they are considered marginalized communities. However, there is a dearth of research on what the actual impacts of sport for development programs are on the recipients of the program, as well as on those who provide the program. My thesis, which is written in the publishable paper format, is comprised of two papers. Using a case study approach in paper one, I explore the impacts that Alberta’s Future Leaders Program’s (AFL) youth leadership retreat has had on its participants (Aboriginal youth). Similarly, using a case study approach in paper two, I explore if/how working for AFL had lasting impacts on the former employees, known as youth workers and arts mentors. Together, the two papers in this thesis show the need for a deeper look into the actual impacts sport for development programs yield, provide insights into some of the lasting impacts AFL has had on its participants, and address the importance of long-term evaluation for sport for development programs.

This thesis includes two stand-alone articles with the overall purpose of critically exploring experiences related to sport-for-development from the program participants’ perspective on the one hand, and from the practitioners’ perspective on the other. After outlining the research objectives and present a review of literature, theoretical framework, epistemology, methodology, methods, and analysis, the first article focuses on the YLP participants’ experiences with a particular interest on empowerment processes. Specifically, I employed a Critical Youth Empowerment (CYE) framework in relation to youth experiences and larger community involvement with youth programming (Jennings et al., 2006). Photovoice was conducted and supplemented with eleven semi-structured interviews, one focus group and a month-long participant observation. The above-mentioned research was juxtaposed with a second article presenting an autoethnographic account of my own experiences as a practitioner and researcher. My autoethnography mixes theory, methodology, and methods throughout the narrative. My hope was to produce a theoretically rich and reflexive account of the experiences that led me to conceptualize sport-for-development differently. This self-critical piece aims at providing an opportunity for readers to reflect upon and hopefully challenge their own practices, knowledge production, and research orthodoxy.

This thesis investigated pupil and staff experiences of a curricular sports programme known as the Scottish School of Sport (SSoS). Participation in these types of sports programmes is a promising avenue to foster what is known as Positive Youth Development (PYD; Holt, 2008). PYD is based on a strengths-based model, in which youth are seen as having the ability to develop and enhance socially desirable characteristics. As greater responsibility is placed within the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) for enhancing aspects commonly associated with PYD such as social and emotional well-being, it is essential to understand how school provision may develop these characteristics. The majority of research involving sport and youth development is cross-sectional and quantitative in nature, with very few studies drawing on qualitative evidence. In addition, research involving curricular sports programmes such as the SSoS, and their ability to foster aspects of PYD is limited. This research employed a sequential multi-phase mixed methods design consisting of three phases (QUAL→QUAN→QUAL). The three phases of research began with an exploratory design, which sought to understand the research context through documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with associated SSoS staff (Phase 1) and then to investigate pupil PYD reports with a longitudinal quantitative design that was comprised of two survey questionnaires (Phase 2). The final phase (Phase 3) was explanatory in nature and utilised semi-structured interviews with pupils both enrolled and not enrolled in the SSoS; these interviews sought explanations for the results which emerged from the previous two phases. A further extension phase, which analysed Tweets and the physical environment of the school, was devised to add further depth to findings from the earlier data collection. Findings overall indicated that while participation in the SSoS was a positive and engaging experience for most pupils, it was unclear if the pupils perceive the positive outcomes to be transferrable to other contexts, which was a key overarching aim of the SSoS. Programme ‘selection’ appeared to be a self-validating factor for increases in pupils’ confidence in their athletic ability. With recent requirements such as ‘playing for the school team’ added to the programme documentation, the SSoS has, perhaps unwittingly, taken on a ‘sports-plus’ approach, where the developmental aims have become secondary to sport performance. This research adds to the continuing conversation regarding the possible developmental nature of sport programmes and the continued search for positive avenues in which to enhance social and emotional development and HWB in the school context.

This thesis contains two stand-alone articles for which the overall purpose is to learn from the experiences of a non-Indigenous SFD program designed for Indigenous youth, by exploring how the program has dealt with questions of Indigenous knowledge, culture, and worldviews. By looking at how the program officers and managers articulate their experiences and challenges within the different phases of designing, managing and implementing the SFD program, this study examines questions of decolonization, Indigenization, and resurgence. The first article utilizes an Indigenous resurgence lens to explore the challenges of running the Promoting Life Skills in Aboriginal Youth (PLAY) program through the reflective discourses of middle-upper level management staff members. The main objectives of the first article are to 1) explore the perception of the PLAY staff on challenges experienced within program design and development generally, 2) analyze those challenges in light of critical research on SFD, and 3) inform program development with Indigenous youth. In the second article, I examine the experiences and perceptions of the staff and in dealing more specifically with the question of culture and Indigenous knowledge and Indigenization. This article highlights the experiences that occurred during a two-year period of Indigenous leadership, two years after the piloting of the program. The objectives of this article are to 1) consider and examine the place of culture within SFD for Indigenous youth 2) highlight and learn from Indigenous leadership experience in a Western-based program 3) inform program development.

In the past decade a rapid increase has been seen in the number of organizations using sport as a development tool in majority world communities. Specifically, Sport for Development programs have been promoted as a means to promote peace, a forum for social mobilization efforts and health initiatives, and a tool for sustainable community development (SDP IWG, 2008; UNIATF, 2003). Often, a fundamental goal of such programs is community capacity building. However, despite this increase in attention, data regarding benefits of these programs remains anecdotal, without a strong body of reliable evidence on the impact of Sport for Development programs on community capacity building. Informed by this context, the purpose of this study was to understand the effectiveness of a Sport for Development program in community capacity building in a refugee camp in Tanzania.<p> The research was accomplished using a qualitative case study approach with 12 key stakeholders involved in the program. The principal method of data collection was a participatory workshop methodology using Laveracks (1999) nine domains to assess community capacity. This qualitative workshop methodology also employed a quantitative tool vis-à-vis Laveracks nine domains which acted as a participatory guide to evaluate the level of community capacity in the program. An initial workshop held with key stakeholders assessed current status, which was followed by the development and implementation of strategic plans for action by stakeholders based on the workshop assessment. A second workshop was held one year later to re-assess community capacity. Additional methods of data collection included individual interviews, observations, and field notes. Member checking, a prolonged time in the field, and triangulation were the primary procedures for verifying the accuracy of the findings.<p> The results showed that community capacity was increased in eight of the nine domains. Specifically, these eight were community participation, local leadership, organizational structures, problem assessment capacities, resource mobilization, ability to ask why, role of outside agents, and program management. The findings from this study demonstrate that a Sport for Development program can be effective in increasing community capacity; this was attributed to the specific participatory methodology used to assess community capacity, structural changes in the program, and a change in approach to programming by project coordinators.

In the past decade a rapid increase has been seen in the number of organizations using sport as a development tool in majority world communities. Specifically, Sport for Development programs have been promoted as a means to promote peace, a forum for social mobilization efforts and health initiatives, and a tool for sustainable community development (SDP IWG, 2008; UNIATF, 2003). Often, a fundamental goal of such programs is community capacity building. However, despite this increase in attention, data regarding benefits of these programs remains anecdotal, without a strong body of reliable evidence on the impact of Sport for Development programs on community capacity building. Informed by this context, the purpose of this study was to understand the effectiveness of a Sport for Development program in community capacity building in a refugee camp in Tanzania.<p> The research was accomplished using a qualitative case study approach with 12 key stakeholders involved in the program. The principal method of data collection was a participatory workshop methodology using Laveracks (1999) nine domains to assess community capacity. This qualitative workshop methodology also employed a quantitative tool vis-à-vis Laveracks nine domains which acted as a participatory guide to evaluate the level of community capacity in the program. An initial workshop held with key stakeholders assessed current status, which was followed by the development and implementation of strategic plans for action by stakeholders based on the workshop assessment. A second workshop was held one year later to re-assess community capacity. Additional methods of data collection included individual interviews, observations, and field notes. Member checking, a prolonged time in the field, and triangulation were the primary procedures for verifying the accuracy of the findings.<p> The results showed that community capacity was increased in eight of the nine domains. Specifically, these eight were community participation, local leadership, organizational structures, problem assessment capacities, resource mobilization, ability to ask why, role of outside agents, and program management. The findings from this study demonstrate that a Sport for Development program can be effective in increasing community capacity; this was attributed to the specific participatory methodology used to assess community capacity, structural changes in the program, and a change in approach to programming by project coordinators.

Operating under the rubric of sport-for-development, nongovernmental organizations have mobilized sport activities as a tool for international development. Along with these initiatives, a scholarly analysis of the phenomenon has emerged. However, this body of research has not included analysis from a critical occupational perspective. This is a conspicuous shortcoming since, in the language of occupational science, sport-for-development initiatives are occupation-based programs. This study explored sport-for-development using a critical occupational approach to research I constructed, wherein the central site of knowledge production was occupations used in sport-for-development programs. Through five case studies with sport-for-development organizations in Lusaka, Zambia, I describe how staff and youth participants spoke about and understood the use of sport occupations in sport-for-development programs and the sport-for-development ideologies and practices in Zambia and how these shaped the participation of youth. Data generation included observing program activities, interviewing participants, and analyzing organization documents. The findings drew attention to the form, function, and meaning of the sport occupations used in sport-for-development, and illuminate that football, which is a heavily gendered and segregated sport, was constructed as the preferential activity for programs. This prioritization of football, in conjunction with a hierarchical, authoritative approach to decision making, and focus on the development of youths’ sports skills, led to athletic, non-disabled boys living in urban areas being the primary beneficiaries of the programs. I argue that the ideological beliefs that re/produced these understandings contributed to occupational injustices by (1) contributing to the practice of sport being used uncritically as an activity for all youth, (2) perpetuating what were considered acceptable activities for boys and girls in the local context to do, and (3) defining boys in opposition to girls, rural youth, poor youth, and youth with disabilities from both genders. Finally, I propose directions for institutionally-orientated actions to address occupational injustices and consideration of the wider uses and implications of a critical occupational approach within health and social research.