IRiSS Research Seminars are held in the Greenbank Building of the Preston City Campus of the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan): http://www.uclan.ac.uk/information/uclan/how_to_find_us/routes_to_preston.php 

The seminars, free of charge, will all commence at 3 pm. The location of the seminars will be rooms in Greenbank Building (GR) - see below. 

2013

Wednesday 30 January 3:00 pm, Greenbank Building, Room GR 350

Fred Coalter - 

Game Plan and The Spirit Level: the class ceiling and the limits of sports policy? Is laughing at Vicki Pollard related to sports participation?

Abstract
Using material from The Spirit Level (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009) the presentation will question the UK Government’s Game Plan strategy and its use of certain Scandinavian countries as comparators and as a basis for setting aspirational targets for sports participation. The robust and consistent relationship between sports participation and social class in the UK will be illustrated and the importance of sports clubs and provision in explaining different levels of sports participation will be questioned. I will illustrate the substantial differences between these countries and the UK on key factors such as the distribution of wealth, income inequality, general inequality, educational access and social mobility and gender. These data will be used to argue that such differences mean that such countries are not true comparators, and that economic and social features in these countries, which may help to explain the higher sports participation rates, are well beyond the control of sports policy. No immediate solutions for sports policy will be offered.


Wednesday 20 February 3:00 pm, Greenbank Building, Room GR 357

Fabiana Rodrigues de Sousa-Mast (University of Basel, Switzerland) – 

Sport spaces for low-income communities: a case study of Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro

Abstract
Brazil has excelled on the world stage as a country of sport mega-events. In 2007 Brazil held the biggest multi-sport event in the Americas, the Pan American Games, and in the following decade it will host two of the largest sports events in the world: the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. These events demand large scale investments in order to reach the infrastructural standards expected from host cities. Thus, great amounts of public money have been allocated to renew or to build some sport venues and also to regenerate the cities that will hold these events in order to fulfil FIFA’s and the International Olympic Committee’s requirements. This presentation will discuss how the Brazilian government has been delivering sport and physical activity facilities and opportunities for low socio-economic groups of the Brazilian society, and how people living in a marginalised community have benefited from the current scenario of massive sport investments. In order to do this, the talk will analyse sport and physical activity projects and programmes supported by different levels of the Brazilian government in Rio de Janeiro, as well as sport facilities and public areas available for sport practices in the community of Cidade de Deus, one of the most populated favelas in Rio de Janeiro, and it is in close proximity to the 2016 Olympic Park, which will host most of the competitions of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. It is therefore a community that will likely be impacted significantly, positively or negatively, by the hosting the Olympics.

Wednesday 13 March 3:00 pm, Greenbank Building, Room GR 278

Dr Jonathan Grix (University of Birmingham) – 

'Image’ Leveraging and Sports Mega-Events:  Germany and the 2006 FIFA World Cup 

Abstract 
The broader setting for this presentation is the increase in the willingness of governments of all political hues to stage sports mega-events. It starts from the observation that many states have and do instrumentalise sport to promote their country's image or 'brand' and attempt to gain prestige. It argues that in 2006 Germany employed a deliberate leveraging strategy to improve their nation's (poor) image abroad. How did Germany do this? This study focuses on three aspects that were central to Germany's leveraging tactics: a series of long-term, carefully co-ordinated campaigns; the focus on a 'fan-centred' approach to the organisation of the event and the creation of a 'feelgood factor' around the tournament. More broadly, the presentation seeks to contribute to the nascent literature on leveraging sports mega-events by employing Chalip's 2004 model of leveraging legacies as an organising principle and focusing on strategies to improve a nation's image used by Germany.

Please contact me via email ([log in to unmask]) for further details.

John Horne AcSS
Professor of Sport and Sociology
Director, International Research Institute for Sport Studies (IRISS) 
School of Sport, Tourism and the Outdoors
Greenbank Building
University of Central Lancashire
Preston
PR1 2HE
United Kingdom

http://www.uclan.ac.uk/schools/ssto/research/iriss/index.php