Narrowing the Gap through Sport, Education and Social Capital?

Abstract

First paragraph: In addressing the promise and possibilities of sport, education and social capital this chapter begins by making a number of introductory remarks. First the notion that a relationship between sport and education may contribute to impacting upon people’s life chances may be unfamiliar to some. At the heart of this approach is the simple recognition that individuals, groups and even nations located or born into different circumstances face different chances of enjoying desirable outcomes and differential life chances. In the UK one in five children is still growing up in poverty and young people from different backgrounds continue to have unequal chances of enjoying good health, living in a secure environment or doing well at school. More than 11 million live in poverty. One of the most intransigent aspects of twenty-first century welfare reforms in Britain is that the poorest 15 per cent cannot afford to put cash aside to save for retirement- because they lack capital either in terms of savings or real estate (Rutherford and Shah, 2006:11). Africa, the world’s second largest continent, at the beginning of the 21st Century contained 18 0f the top 20 countries worldwide with the highest infant mortality rate. Sixteen African countries are in the top 20 poorest in the world, with 70% of Africa’s population surviving on less than $2 a day (Jarvie, 2007: 24). The first point then is that a gap exists both within countries and between countries in terms of life chances, the reasons for this gap are complex, differentiated, relational and in many cases unjust. Despite almost a decade of progressive policies in the UK the gap in life chances between disadvantaged children and their peers has failed to narrow significantly since 1997 (Fabian Society, 2006: xiv).