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?   

The overarching objective of this article is to discuss whether or not one can identify a specific Scandinavian sports policy model. First, the sports policy system of the three Scandinavian countries is presented. Then we sketch some common characteristics of the governments' involvement in sports and discuss to what extent sports policies reflect the broader Scandinavian welfare-state policies. The third part discusses whether increased pluralism in sports challenges the prevailing corporatist-like system existing between voluntary organizations and the state and/or the relationship between the executive and legislative within the government. We conclude that in many respects it is meaningful to talk about a specific Scandinavian sports policy model hallmarked by large, national and voluntary sports organizations with a near monopoly on competitive sports on the one hand and a significant involvement in sports from the government on the other. Further, the parliament plays a minor role, and there are few legal restrictions in the field of sports. However, the degree of concentration of power differs among the three countries, the Danish model being more decentralized and dispersed and the Norwegian model more centralized and concentrated, while the Swedish model lies somewhere in between these two.

The last chapter introduces a methodological tool for analyzing social entrepreneurship in a sport policy context, built on a number of steps in relation to the five theses. This tool has become useful in the research process as well as being valuable when communicating the analysis. On the basis of the seven cases, a comparison is conducted in which similarities but also differences between the cases are identified and analyzed.

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.

Voluntarily organized sport is the cornerstone of Swedish sports and has an important societal role. In this chapter, the Regional Sports Confederation and Sports Education Skåne, which is the gathering body of the non-profit sport clubs in the region, represents the voluntary, non-profit sector. The Leisure Department, City of Malmö, represents the public sector. The football club Malmö FF represents the for-profit sector, despite not being a completely commercial club. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analysis of documents.

The three sectors have overlapping interests and a lot to gain from extended cooperation and knowledge transfer to bring about change. All our informants state a clear awareness of the importance of sustainability and highlight sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the leading level of their organizations. However, their capacity and incentives to act differ, partly due to each sectors’ specific logics. Malmö FF, strongly affected by commercial logics, stands out as the organization most active in realizing the SDGs. The Leisure Department, limited by political requirements, works hard to handle basic political requirements with an ambition to do good and even be a role model among municipalities. For the sports movement, the possibility of collective actions is challenged by voluntarism and the strong autonomy of sports clubs. Perhaps it would be logical to argue for a stricter control of the sports clubs’ operations to ensure proper handling of sustainability issues, but according to the Swedish sport ideology, the incentives should rather be created from the bottom-up.

The aim of this article is to outline a theoretical framework for how the concept of trust can be used as analytical tool for a study of the aim, design, output and societal legitimacy of a Swedish welfare programme conducted to reduce disparities in health and social inequities and to give newborn a positive start in life. This programme, labelled Grow Safely, implies that home visits will be conducted at six occasions at first-time parents by different professionals: child health care nurses, midwifes, dental hygienists and counsellors from the social services. Prior to when the intervention is carried out, the involved professionals in the programme will be participating in training in order to increase the possibility that the home visits will be carried out in similar ways and be followed the same manual throughout the programme.

The welfare programme will be based on relationships on different levels: between professionals and parents, between different professionals, between professionals and managers, and between organisations. Trust is believed to be of significance for the development of relationships as well as for the social legitimacy of the implantation of welfare programmes. Therefore, our ambition is to embrace a broad perspective on trust, combining insights from a variety of research traditions and analyses on macro, meso and micro levels in the outline a model for how the concept of trust can be used as an analytical tool for studying welfare programmes like Grow Safely. We argue for that the model can capture the significance of trust at different levels: individual, professional, organisational and societal levels as well as interplays between these levels, and consequently be useful in to analyse implementations of welfare programmes.

The Swedish sports confederation and the membership associations are bound to do their work in accordance with the UN Conventionen on the Rights of the Child. This handbook is developed to support this work. Previous research on children and youth sport as well as children's rights and examples from sport are presented and discussed to form a base for work in practice.

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 measurement to analyze equality in PE.

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.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to critically examine previous studies’ claims about the magnitude of gender differences and gender inequality in physical education (PE) in Sweden. Method: The data were based on students’ (N = 39,980) perceptions of PE and were gathered from four large research projects in Sweden. Three effect size measures (Cramer’s V, rsquared, and Cohen’s d) were calculated for gender differences. Results: In general, there are small gender differences; and after controlling for students’ grade, “sports capital,” and parents’ “educational capital,” the differences are practically irrelevant. Conclusion: This study provides compelling evidence that there are small, or even irrelevant, gender differences in students’ perceptions of PE in Sweden. Moreover, given that previous research asserts that large gender differences can be used as an indicator of inequality, this study suggests that gender inequality issues related to students’ perceptions of PE are relatively small.

Although students' perceived learning is central in physical education (PE), few measurements are available. Furthermore, little is known about how students' perceptions of PE effect students' perceived learning in PE. Therefore, the aim was to develop a scale to assess students' perceived learning and a measurement to assess students' perceived contentment in PE, and furthermore, to analyze the interrelationship between students' perceived learning and students' perceived contentment in PE. A total of 1203 students in Sweden who were aged 12-16 years participated. The results from the exploratory (n = 601) and confirmatory (n = 602) factor analyses as well as the validity and reliability analyses showed that there was psychometric support for the one-dimensional model perceived learning in PE and for the three-dimensional model perceived contentment in PE. The structural equation modeling analyses showed that both competence and joyfulness were directly and positively related to students' perceived learning.

Under åren 2019–2022 genomfördes en satsning på ett utökat hembesöks-program för förstagångsföräldrar inom barnhälsovården i Skåne. Satsningen hade namnet Växa tryggt och baserades på erfarenheter av ett liknande program i Rinkeby. I Växa tryggt erbjöds förstagångsföräldrar sammanlagt sex hembesök under barnets första 15 månader. Besöken genomfördes i ett sam-arbete mellan barnmorskor, barnhälsovårdssjuksköterskor, föräldrastödjare och tandsköterskor/tandhygienister.En tvärvetenskaplig forskargrupp från Malmö universitet har på uppdrag av Region Skåne forskat om Växa tryggts genomförande och effekter. Forsk-ningen har inkluderat intervjuer och enkäter riktade till deltagande familjer, de professioner som genomförde hembesöken, verksamhetschefer och politiska beslutsfattare.I denna rapport redovisas forskargruppens övergripande resultat. Resultaten visar genomgående att både professioner och deltagande familjer var mycket nöjda med de utökade hembesöken. För professionerna, främst familjestöd-jaren och tandsköterskan/tandhygienisten, har Växa tryggt inneburit möj-ligheter att tidigt komma i kontakt med barnfamiljer i upptagningsområdet. Utöver stöd och support i enskilda frågor har professionerna även kunnat informera om ytterligare stöd som barnhälsovården, socialtjänsten och tand-vården kan erbjuda. För familjerna har de utökade hembesöken varit ett stöd i den intiala osäkerhet som ofta präglar ett nyblivet föräldraskap. Samtidigt har Växa tryggt främjat möjligheten att bygga tillitsfulla relationer med välfärds-professioner som utifrån sina skilda kompetenser är experter på barn- och familjeliv. Hemmet har i det föreliggande projektet visat sig vara en bra arena för att kunna individanpassa råd och stöd. Ytterligare en positiv effekt av Växa tryggt har varit att fera professioner samverkat i hembesöken och därmed kunnat komplettera och stärka varandra i dialoger med familjerna.

This article sketches the development of voluntary organized sports in Sweden from its establishment in the late 19th century to the present, using the concept of “popular movement” as a theoretical framework. Important questions are: when and how did sports actually adopt the forms of a popular movement? Which criteria were first fulfilled and which ones took longer to complete? Finally, will sports in Sweden retain its character of a popular movement in the future?

This article concerns the relation between the state and the sports movement in Sweden. First, a theoretical model is presented for understanding and analysing the relation of the state to voluntarily organized sport. This model takes its starting point in administrative studies and modern political philosophy. Thereafter follows a general description of state support to sports in Sweden in the twentieth century. In this section the concept of an ‘implicit contract’ is used to show how the incompatible interests of the state and the sports movement have been solved in practice within the framework of Swedish welfare politics. The article ends with a discussion on whether current changes in government sport policy may lead to a reconsideration of the implicit contract between the state and the sports movement.

The aim of the essay is to describe the establishment of football pools in Sweden during the 1920s and 1930s and how this - unexpectedly - contributed to the breakthrough of sports within the framework of Swedish welfare politics. The essay begins with a short historical background. It continues with an account of the illegal pool industry which arose in Sweden in the 1920s followed by the forming of the government-controlled gambling company Tipstjnst in 1934. After an analysis of the short- and long-term importance of pools to Swedish sports, the effects the development in Sweden had on the sports policies of the other Scandinavian countries will be discussed. The essay concludes with a discussion of the link between the Swedish sports movement and the gambling market in modern times. The fact is that the gambling policy problems current in the inter-war period have emerged in a new form - with uncertain consequences to Swedish sports' future economy and relation to the government.

In recent years, good governance has been established as an overarching concept for the struggle against corruption and abuse of power in both international sports organizations and the hosting of major championships. Still, in Sweden, the concept is to a large extent unknown. This can partly be explained by the fact that Swedish sport is weakly represented in international sports organizations, and rarely hosts major sporting events. Further, a strong popular movement tradition and limited commercialization have fostered a notion that Swedish sport has been spared from such economic and democratic problems. However, a new study regarding economy and ethics in local sport clubs indicates the occurrence of financial irregularities and the need for increased awareness of the principles of good governance. Method The study was conducted by The Swedish National Centre for Research in Sports (CIF) and United Minds as part of CIF’s assignment to monitor government support to sport. A web-based questionnaire concerning financial management and ethics was sent to the treasurers of all local sports clubs within The Swedish Confederation of Sports. 5480 treasurers responded, repre- senting a response rate of 34 percent. A non-response analysis showed that the questionnaire replies were evenly distributed across the country and that all sports were represented. Results The treasurer’s description of Swedish sports confirms the picture of a non-profit movement with low degree of professionalization and commercialisation. A majority of the sports clubs are small (fewer than 200 mem- bers) and primarily engaged in youth sports. Their turnover is low and member fees are their main source of revenue. Only three out of ten clubs have employees and a majority of the cashiers lack professional experience in the areas of finance and accounting. According to the cashiers, economic irregularities are common among Swedish sports clubs. Most common are unaware irregularities, caused by carelessness, ignorance or stress. But one out of four also state that it is common with conscious financial fouls with the aim to support the clubs non-profit endeavours. Discussion The study indicates a perception in Swedish club sports that financial irregularities can be justified if they serve a good purpose. Increased awareness of Good governance can be an important strategy to counteract such views. References Centrum för idrottsforskning 2014:3 Etik och ekonomi i idrottsföreningar

I denna bok berättas om hur idrottsrörelsens statliga stöd sköt i höjden närmast explosionsartat under 1990- och 2000-talet som en konsekvens av att statens idrottsstöd knöts till utvecklingen på den svenska spelmarknaden. Historien kan både beskrivas som en fascinerande framgångssaga där idrotten drog den högsta vinstlotten under ett expansivt spelpolitiskt skede och som en okontrollerbar händelsekedja där idrottsrörelsen visserligen fick höjda anslag men samtidigt knöts allt starkare till staten. Boken riktar sig särskilt till alla som är intresserade av spelpolitik, idrottspolitik och relationen mellan staten och idrottsrörelsen - men den kan med fördel även läsas av personer som vill lära sig mer om den politiska styrningens svåra konst.

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 support for sport was not in order to govern, but to strengthen the movement’s character of a voluntary and independent mass movement. But the state’s neutrality was not unconditional. The government demanded extensive measures designed to control the use of public funds. Moreover, the principle that economic support was not a gift was clearly emphasised. Attached to the grant was thus the condition that the movement itself took on the responsibility of ensuring sport’s development as wholesome, voluntary and idealistic. This policy can be most easily understood as an implicit contract between the state and RF. Its main function was ensuring the sports movement’s right to both state support and a relatively high degree of autonomy, conditional upon it reciprocating by voluntarily bearing a public welfare responsibility.

I denna artikel diskuteras ett antal trender och utvecklingsprocesser i idrottsrörelsens relation till staten, marknaden och civilsamhället. Den övergripande frågan är om den frivilligt organi-serade idrotten har förutsättningar att förbli en av Sveriges största och mest vitala folkrörelser eller om den traditionella föreningsmodellen tvärtom nått sin kulmen.

Centrum för idrottsforskning (CIF) har sedan år 2009 i uppdrag av regeringen att genomföra en regelbunden och långsiktig uppföljning av statens stöd till idrotten. Uppföljningen ska bestå av en fortlöpande bevakning av det statliga idrottsstödets betydelse utifrån ett indikatorsystem, tematiska fördjupningsstudier i teman som regeringen bestämmer samt bevakning av forskningsresultat med relevans för statens stöd till idrotten. För 2011 års uppföljning beslutade regeringen att CIF skulle genomföra två fördjupningsstudier. Den första studien handlar om elitidrott och preciserades som ”en fördjupad analys av det samlade elitstödets utformning och verkan samt övrig verksamhet som stärker idrottsutövares internationella konkurrenskraft”. Den andra studien avser delaktighet och etnisk mångfald inom idrotten. Mer konkret uppdrogs åt CIF att analysera ”i vilken omfattning idrottens organisation och verksamhet på alla nivåer medverkar till att uppfylla syftet med statsbidraget att människor med annan kulturell och etnisk bakgrund ska bli mer delaktiga i idrotten”. CIF fördjupningsuppdrag har utmynnat i två separata rapporter. Analysen av det svenska elitstödets utformning och verkan redovisas i rapporten För framtids segrar – en analys av det svenska elitidrottssystemet. Studien av delaktighet och etnisk mångfald redovisas i rapporten Vem platsar i laget? – en antologi om idrott och etnisk mångfald.

Rapporten innehåller en fördjupad analys av hur idrotten når olika grupper i samhället. CIF har tittat närmare på skillnaderna i aktivitet mellan till exempel kön, ålder, sexuell läggning, utländsk bakgrund och socioekonomiska förhållanden. CIF har även analyserat i vilken utsträckning som idrottsrörelsen gör det möjligt för alla människor att utöva idrott och motion, bland annat genom att undersöka vilka kriterier som ligger till grund för idrottsrörelsens beslut om nivån på medlems- och träningsavgifter. CIF har särskilt undersökt hur idrottsföräldrar tänker om dels den idrott som föreningar bedriver, dels idrott i kommersiell regi. Dessutom har CIF tagit reda på hur företrädare för idrottsföreningar resonerar om bland annat medlemskapets betydelse. Rapporten innehåller även ett omfattande statistiskt material där CIF beskriver och analyserar utvecklingen inom svensk idrott och folkhälsa.

Sport and social entrepreneurship are concepts that must be understood in relation to their specific societal context. Hence, this chapter looks at the broad characteristics of sport in Sweden with a focus on societal and political levels, comprising the extent of voluntary sport, its organization and financing involving the state, the market and civil society. The development of social entrepreneurship within Swedish sport is analysed. Even though the ideal of the social benefits of sport is firmly rooted in the Swedish sports movement, the argument is that the concept of social entrepreneurship must be reserved for clubs and activities that swim against the stream and set social goals before sport’s own core logics.

Introduction In 2011, the Swedish government commissioned The Swedish National Centre for Research in Sports (CIF) to examine the structure and impact of government support for elite sport. A study was conducted in collaboration with several research groups under the guidance of Johan R Norberg, researcher at CIF. The result was reported back to the government in May 2012. Methods CIF:s survey begins with a comprehensive analysis of the Swedish elite sport system, based on quantitative data relating to sports federations’ economy, scope and results at international championships. Thereafter follows a qualitative study concerning the current state of Swedish elite sport, based on interviews with athletes, coaches and sports managers in eight strategically selected sports. Thus, the report also includes a review of international tendencies in elite sport support, a survey of programs for coaching development in Swedish sports and an analysis of sports policy implications of the Swedish government’s increased support for elite sport Theoretically, the survey takes its starting point in current research on increased competition in international elite sport (De Bosscher et al 2008, Houlihan & Green 2008). Results The study shows that Swedish elite sport has always had a relatively marginal position – at least on a political level (Bergsgard & Norberg 2010). Government support for sport has mainly come in the shape of subsidies to sports facilities, grants to youth sport activities and economic support to the administration of the national sporting federations, while targeted investments in elite sports been few. Furthermore, such investments have had an ambivalent position, viewed as somewhat inappropriate in a social democratic welfare regime based on ideals of breadth and equality rather than elitism and ranking. Thus, the Swedish sports model differs from many comparable countries with a strong focus on “sports for all” rather than elite sport. This is reflected in the organization and conditions of Swedish elite sports. One one hand, local clubs and publicly financed facilities have created good opportunities for young people to try out different sports and develop their skills. One the other hand, there have been few public subsidies to help athletes to take the final step from promising talent to the international elite. Discussion In recent years, the Swedish government has taken steps to strengthen the international competitiveness of Swedish sport. This raises the question whether Sweden is about to join ”the Global Sporting Arms Race” or if the Swedish government’s support for sports will continue to focus mainly on sports-for-all, voluntarism and youth sports.