Voies vers la prospérité: Canada

Policy and Practice Rationale

There is strong circumstantial evidence suggesting that sports and recreation can be used as integrative tools, spanning a variety of age groups. Yet little research has directly addressed this assertion, examining how municipalities, sports associations, and other organizations can use sports and recreation to promote newcomer integration into the local community, promote community connections, and facilitate host community understanding of immigrants and their contributions.

This project will explore the relation between sports and recreation participation and various indicators of integration and cross-cultural awareness, from the perspective of both newcomers and members of the established community. The indicators will include perceptions (feelings of belonging), involvement (participation in local activities, both sport and non-sport), integration and bridging (whether one’s friends and colleagues are from one’s ‘own’ community or the host community) and plans to remain in the community. It will also explore strategies for most effectively using sports and recreation to promote integration and cultural awareness. The involvement of municipalities in community-based initiatives, such as LIPs, opens the door to greater municipal involvement in immigrant recruitment and retention, and by extension, the deployment of municipal ‘tools’ such as recreation and sports in the service of attracting and retaining newcomers. The project will focus on a variety of age groups, including newcomer youth and seniors.

Conceptual/Theoretical Framework

Several theoretical perspectives are relevant to this research. The first, the contact hypothesis, suggests that contact between members of groups that occurs under specific conditions is likely to lead to improved intergroup relations and understanding. The most important of these conditions are equal group status, mutual interdependence in working toward common goals, intergroup cooperation, and support from authority figures. A related theoretical perspective that is particularly relevant to this research is the Common Ingroup Identity Model, which proposes that bias among groups can be reduced by structuring intergroup interactions so that ingroup and outgroup members are recategorized as members of a more inclusive, superordinate group. In particular, the theory suggests that when members of a former outgroup begin to be part of the ingroup, the cognitive and motivational processes that contribute to ingroup favoritism become redirected to improve attitudes and foster more positive orientations to these newly defined members of the ingroup. The theoretical questions to be addressed will be how to structure sports and recreation activities to fulfill these conditions, and their specific role in promoting positive outcomes in this context.

An additional theoretical perspective that will be applied to this research is that of immigrant social networks and social capital. There is considerable evidence that bridging social capital – networks formed with members of the host community – can improve the integration outcomes of newcomers. The question to be addressed by this research is how sports and recreation activities can be used to enhance bridging social capital so that immigrants can benefit from connections formed with non-immigrants.

Research Questions

Specifically, the following questions will be addressed in this research:

• What can municipalities, sports associations, and other organizations do to encourage newcomer participation in local sports and recreation programs? What are current barriers to participation and how can they be overcome? How effective are fiscal incentives (e.g., tax credits) in promoting newcomer participation?
• How should sports and recreation programs be structured to optimize opportunities for connections between newcomers and members of local host communities? Do these differ as a function of participant characteristics, such as gender, age, and other background characteristics?
• Do networks constructed through participation in sports and recreation programs facilitate positive outcomes for newcomers in other domains, such as finding a job and learning English/French?
• Do immigrant parents effectively connect with host community parents through their children’s joint participation on a sport team?
• Can sports and recreation programs be used to promote feelings of belonging to local communities and to Canada, increased participation in Canadian society including civic participation and citizenship, and increased knowledge of Canadian culture among newcomer participants?
• Are some sports more effective than others as tools of integration (e.g., team versus individual, traditional Canadian versus sports introduced by immigrants)?
• Can sports and recreation programs be used to encourage cultural awareness and sensitivity among members of local host communities?
• What role can sports, recreation and outdoor activities play in attracting and retaining newcomers in Northern and rural communities, and in minority Francophone communities?

Description of the Project and Possible Approaches

A multi-method approach will be useful for this research, focusing on the perspectives of those who participate in the delivery of sports and recreation programs, and on immigrant and non-immigrant participants and non-participants. For example, interviews with program deliverers will focus on their capacity to meet the needs and integrate newcomers into their programming, and the perceived costs and benefits of “mixed” programming. Promising practices for the delivery of sports and recreation programs that seek to integrate immigrants into the larger society will also be documented, focusing, for example, on YMCAs, Boys and Girls Clubs, schools, and municipal after-school sports programs. Focus groups and surveys of immigrants will examine the barriers and facilitators of access to and participation in sports and recreation programs in one’s local community, including those offered by non-profit organizations and by private programs, such as schools of dance. Focus groups and surveys of participants in sports and recreation programs will systematically examine the extent to which the conditions known to facilitate positive intergroup contact and a common ingroup identity are present in particular programs, and the outcome of these factors for both immigrant and non-immigrant participants. Outcomes to be examined will include intergroup attitudes and cultural awareness, as well as retention in smaller communities, sense of belonging, attachment to the local community and to Canada, civic participation, and more general social and economic outcomes.