Young Australians using local sport for local transformation

This paper reports on doctoral research undertaken by the author that set out to examine the possible connections between sports and meaningful civic engagement by young males. The research was a phenomenological study of the experiences of sports participation and civic engagement as related by twelve young males' aged seventeen to twenty-three. It was informed by an eclectic range of sociological approaches such as functionalism, interactionism, and critical social theories including Gramscian thought. The study utilized semi-structured interviews conducted with the young men together with thematic analysis on the data in a constant comparison approach. There were some clear indications that for these young men, participation in local sports presented opportunities for developing a sense of belonging to community and a sense of contribution to community. Furthermore, this participation and immersion opened a pathway for engaging in social change and resistance. One of the valuable contributions of this research was that it demonstrates these processes to be occurring not just at the elite levels of sport. Even at the local level, known in Australia as "grass-roots", sports are providing opportunities for key dimensions of social transformation.