Sport Policies in Active Cities - An international comparative governance perspective

Although there is an increasing amount of literature on public sport policies, most of this research concentrates on high performance and elite sport, national sport systems and sport organizations. Even with the significant changes and challenges that the urbanization process brings to planners, administrators and policy-makers and the emergent use of the term 'active cities' by local governments and organizations, most of the investigations in this issue is related to physical activity, health and urban studies, but not to sport practice. For those reasons, it seems to be innovative and of great social relevance to study the concept of Active Cities from the perspective of sport policies.

In this context, the research question can be formulated as “which elements of sports public policies can foster a sporting culture in Active Cities?”. The objectives of the research are: (i) to understand how international sports organizations recommendations and programmes can improve physical activity and sports public policies and an active lifestyle among urban citizens; (ii) to analyse existing sports policies in different Active Cities and to make an international comparative research between Latin American, African and/or European cities; (iii) to identify key-elements for success in those Active Cities; (iv) to identify individual, community and structural barriers that limits sport practice and an active lifestyle; (v) to investigate the challenges and the opportunities for local sports policy-makers in the context of COVID-19.

The methodology proposed for this research is a mix of both quantitative and qualitative analyses and consists of: (a) Mapping and document analysis – literature review on local sports policies, Active Cities and active living, and an analysis of international organizations documents related to sporting culture, active lifestyle, cities and sports; (b) semi-structured interviews with local public authorities and other key stakeholders of each selected city, that may include Latin American, African and/or European cities, and will be defined later; (c) data collection through the application of questionnaire among citizens and sport practitioners of the cities to identify socioeconomic profile, sportive and cultural aspects; (d) comparative analysis of case studies, including challenges and opportunities for the development of Active Cities. If possible, a participant observation will be included in the research project.