Search

School grades are among the most common measurements used to analyze equality of outcome in education. Large or increasing ‘gaps’ in school grades between boys and girls and between students with different migration background are considered strong indicators of inequality. Based on students’ school grades, several studies have shown that equality in Swedish schools has decreased during the last two decades. Although equality has been described as one of the most important goals in physical education (PE), studies that focus on equality of outcome are lacking. Moreover, there have been no studies that focus on equality of outcome since the 2011 implementation of a new school grading system in Sweden. Therefore, the aim of this study is to contribute with new knowledge on equality in PE in Sweden – in regard to gender and migration background. The study is based on register data for all students enrolled in Swedish schools during the years 2012–2016 from Grades 6 and 9 and Year 1 in upper secondary school N = 1,294,990). Based on a cross-sectional approach, analyses were conducted to explore general trends in students’ school grades in PE in the study period 2012–2016, and to calculate the percentage difference in PE grades between students with a Swedish background and both students with a foreign background and foreign-born students. After controlling for grade inflation, regression analyses with Wald tests were used to analyze how gender has moderated the relationship between migration background and school grades in PE in Sweden between 2012 and 2016. The results from this study suggest that (a) the intersection of gender and migration background is related to unequal school grades in PE, (b) there are gender equality issues in relation to students’ school grades in PE and, (c) the most prominent equality issues concern the group foreign-born girls.

Sports can strengthen social inclusion and tackle various economic, social, and environmental challenges, bind individuals and communities together and promote objectives such as health, education, climate action, sustainability, and social development. Nonetheless, organised sport at the grassroot level in Europe is facing severe challenges: declining membership rates, reduced levels of physical activity among adolescents and difficulties in recruiting volunteers. Sport organisations, in particular in the non-profit sector and with limited resources, are struggling to find time and resources to create new sustainable, inclusive and innovative ways to work. The Erasmus + project CHANGE – Cooperation for Change Management and Innovation in Sports (CHANGE) has been created to equip sport’s governing bodies, sport organisations, and sport leaders with new, innovative, and sustainable tools to support sport at the grassroot level. Coordinated by ENGSO, it consists of eleven partners from nine countries: 1) research (Malmö University & EASM), 2) sport organisations (UFEC-Catalonia; Basics Sport Club, Belgium; World Snowboard Federation, Austria; Latvian Sports Federation Council; DIF, Denmark; and Opes, Italy) and 3) experts in the field of sport and digitalization, inclusion/engagement and sustainability (SandSI, N3XT Sports and ENGSO). Within CHANGE, the Department for Sport Sciences at Malmö University is responsible for background research regarding change management and innovation in contemporary grassroot sports in Europe. In this report, we summarise research activities carried out in 2023 and insights from 3 workshops with stakeholders from sport organisations and academia. The overarching research questions in this report are: 1) What challenges are the grassroot sport movement/organisations facing today? 2) Are the grassroot sport organisations equipped to handle the challenges? Do they have change readiness? 3) How can we understand the results?, Change – cooperation for change management and innovation in sports

School grades are among the most common measurements used to analyze equality of outcome in education. Large or increasing ‘gaps’ in school grades between boys and girls and between students with different migration background are considered strong indicators of inequality. Based on students’ school grades, several studies have shown that equality in Swedish schools has decreased during the last two decades. Although equality has been described as one of the most important goals in physical education (PE), studies that focus on equality of outcome are lacking. Moreover, there have been no studies that focus on equality of outcome since the 2011 implementation of a new school grading system in Sweden. Therefore, the aim of this study is to contribute with new knowledge on equality in PE in Sweden – in regard to gender and migration background. The study is based on register data for all students enrolled in Swedish schools during the years 2012–2016 from Grades 6 and 9 and Year 1 in upper secondary school N = 1,294,990). Based on a cross-sectional approach, analyses were conducted to explore general trends in students’ school grades in PE in the study period 2012–2016, and to calculate the percentage difference in PE grades between students with a Swedish background and both students with a foreign background and foreign-born students. After controlling for grade inflation, regression analyses with Wald tests were used to analyze how gender has moderated the relationship between migration background and school grades in PE in Sweden between 2012 and 2016. The results from this study suggest that (a) the intersection of gender and migration background is related to unequal school grades in PE, (b) there are gender equality issues in relation to students’ school grades in PE and, (c) the most prominent equality issues concern the group foreign-born girls.

Students’ perceived learning in physical education (PE) is an important yet neglected area of research. Increased knowledge about students’ perceived learning can provide teachers with useful information to promote meaningful learning experiences in PE. Moreover, perceived learning can potentially be an alternative measurement to school grades when analyzing equality of outcome. Given that gender and migration background are associated with equality issues in PE, these groups are of particular focus in this study. With this background, the aim of this paper is threefold: (a) to explore students’ perceived learning in PE in Sweden, (b) to analyze what perceptions of PE are most prominent, and (c) present a way to quantitatively illustrate how perceptions about PE vary across gender and migration background. The analysis was based on a question about students’ perceived learning and was conducted in two steps. First, the students’ answers were categorized using qualitative content analysis. The analysis shows that the perceived learning in PE can be categorized into the following categories: ‘Physical doing’, ‘Emotional experiences’, ‘Health’, ‘Do not learn’, ‘Outdoor Education’ and ‘Social interaction’. Second, by quantitatively illustrate all answers in relation to the six categories, the result showed that the category of ‘Physical doing’ (36%) was the most prominent, and thereafter, in descending order are the categories of ‘Emotional experiences’ (22%), ‘Health’ (18%), ‘Do not learn’ (10%), ‘Outdoor Education’ (10%) and ‘Social interaction’ (4%). The results also showed that regardless of gender and migration background, students have somewhat similar perceptions of what they learn in PE. In this study we: (i) present a categorization of students’ perceived learning in PE, (ii) show that physical doing is a prominent aspect in students answers, lastly (iii) by quantitatively illustrate students’ perceived learning in PE, this study also suggest an alternative mea

Since the turn of the millennium, Sweden has, like many other countries, become more neoliberal in many areas, including that of sport. The government has increased its expectations on the sports movement and become more result-oriented, which, for example, its revised motives for supporting the sports movement and the establishment of an audit organization can illustrate. However, in contrast to other countries, the Swedish government has not introduced any financial cutbacks in its support for sports. Rather, the opposite is true. The financial support has increased significantly over the last two decades. In the paper, we argue that this contradictory development of Swedish sport policy can be understood as expressions of neoliberalism and social entrepreneurship. As a theoretical concept, social entrepreneurship offers a way of understanding the increased Swedish government support for sport. There are in particular two underlying reasons for this claim. Firstly, sport is considered as a solution to various societal problems, such as social exclusion and refugee crises. Secondly, much of the increased support has been in form of various large-scale, earmarked, and time-limited political initiatives/reforms and project grants, which all have aimed to achieve social change through sport, such as social inclusion. In the paper, we consider these initiatives as expressions of social entrepreneurship. This paper contributes to the ongoing scholarly debate on how neoliberalism and neoliberal policies in the public sector have affected sport organizations. Also, by using social entrepreneurship theory, we provide new theoretical insights into how sport policy can be understood and analyzed.

Artiklen omhandler den svenske idrætspolitik og giver indblik i statens støtte til idrætten med paralleler til den generelle svenske velfærdspolitik. The article gives a characterization of Swedish sports policy in relation to Swedish welfare policies. The analysis is divided between two main lines. First, I argue that sport in several aspects can be seen as an integral part of Swedish welfare policy. Thereafter, I emphasize differences with the result that sport can also be described as a deviant and »unimportant« area of government policy, albeit with a remarkable ability to allocate public resources. Finally, I argue that the Swedish government’s sports policy in recent years lost much of its former character as a divergent »side-track« in Swedish welfare policies. Thus, sport has strengthened its position – but to the cost that sport as an area of government policy has become more traditional and predictable.

I denna artikel presenteras ett större forskningsprojekt med syfte att studera och analysera den ideellt organiserade idrotten som samhällsfenomen utifrån ett civilsamhällesperspektiv. Detta har inte tidigare gjorts i Sverige. I teoretiskt avseende handlar det om att utifrån teorier och forskningsresultat i aktuell forskning om det civila samhället generera nya perspektiv och ny kunskap om föreningsidrotten som en del av det svenska civilsamhället. I ett institutionellt avseende handlar det om att utveckla ett vetenskapligt samarbete i korsvägen mellan två forskningstraditioner; dels civilsamhällesforskningen företrädd av Enheten för forskning om det civila samhället vid Ersta Sköndal Högskola, dels samhällsvetenskaplig idrottsforskning företrädd av enheten Idrottsvetenskap vid Malmö Högskola.

Swedish sports, with their unified/uniform organisation and democratically evolved structure,represent in many ways the archetype of a popular movement. However, the sports movement has also since the beginning of the 1900s received regular – and over time substantial –state support.In addition, the main sports organisation, Sveriges riksidrottsförbund, (RF) has developed a close co-operative relationship with government powers.This intimate sport-and-state relationship highlights a question regarding organisational autonomy: has it been possible for the sports movement to retain its autonomy while at the same time accepting public funds? Or, put another way: how are we to comprehend government politics vis-à-vis sport? As a strategy to control the voluntary movement,or an attempt to encourage its independence? As shown by these questions,the aim of this thesis is to produce a characterisation of the state ’s relationship with the sports movement.More tangibly: to analyse how the relationship between the autonomy of sports clubs and associations, and government control, was resolved in Swedish sports politics between 1913 and 1970. Theoretically, the investigation takes it ’s starting point in a politico-philosophical discussion on “what the state should be doing ”. Three idealtype-constructed positions on how the state can act towards the sports movement are presented: passive neutrality,active neutrality and perfectionism. In regard to an adjacent question, “what the state can do ”,a perspective of legitimacy is applied,signifying that the state ’s possibilities of political control are limited by the sports movement ’s propensity for autonomy. The subsequent empirical study is divided into three themes:government economic support for the sports movement,the role of RF as an authority,and the taxation of sport. The investigation shows that active neutrality was a dominating principle in the state ’s relation to the sports movement. The primary aim of economic supp