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From racial exclusions to new inclusions: black and minority ethnic participation in football clubs in the East Midlands of England

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journal contribution
posted on 2017-03-24, 16:10 authored by Steven BradburySteven Bradbury
This article reports on survey and interview data from a two-phase study examining the shape and scope of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) participation in amateur football clubs in Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. Survey results identified strongly differentiated patterns of participation and a concentration of BME (male) players, coaches and management committee members at a small number of clubs in the city of Leicester. Interview data contextualized the socio-historical development and ongoing reality of these BME clubs as a consequence of – and as active resistance to – racisms and exclusions within pre-existing and homogeneously White local football networks. BME clubs also had distinct social, cultural and religious attachments and had historically operated as symbolic and practical sites of community mobilization and cultural identity production for specific BME communities. Survey and interview data indicated that BME clubs and newer ‘multiethnic’ clubs increasingly featured a strong focus on the provision of valuable participation opportunities to younger players from a range of culturally and religiously diverse backgrounds and from communities experiencing disproportionate levels of social and economic deprivation. The article concludes by examining the role of BME clubs and newer ‘multi-ethnic’ clubs as facilitators of new inclusions and positive multi-cultural leisure spaces for young footballers within the context of the changing local cultural landscape of Leicester and with reference to wider debates around racial integration and multiculturalism in late modern Britain.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

Volume

46

Issue

1

Pages

23 - 44

Citation

BRADBURY, S., 2011. From racial exclusions to new inclusions: Black and minority ethnic participation in football clubs in the East Midlands of England. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 46 (1), pp.23-44

Publisher

SAGE Publications Ltd

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2011

ISSN

1012-6902

Language

  • en

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