From how it is to how it should be - social justice in children’s sports using the capability approach

How it should be - social justice and capabilities

Social justice is a normative construct that describes how social conditions should be. Social justice is discussed both politically (e.g., SDGs) and academically (e.g., readings of justice). The capability approach is one theoretical interpretation of social justice (e.g., Sen, 2009). Capabilities are understood to be potential beings and doings that people need to have a fulfilled life. They are existing commodities that can be transformed into capabilities through several conversion factors. The more people have comprehensive capabilities, the more socially just a society is.

How it is - social conditions of children’s sports

Social inequalities describe social conditions that can be understood as a lack of capabilities. These also influence children’s sport. Children who are affected by poverty, are attributed a so-called migration background, are female, and/or grow up in deprived residential environments are underrepresented in extracurricular sports (Mutz, 2020). A lack of sports-related capabilities can be the reason for an insufficient fit between children and sports.  

From how it is to how it should be - Capabilities and Open Sunday

While these conditions cannot be directly changed, adaptive sports stagings are becoming relevant to justice from a (sports-) educational perspective. Social sports projects for children in precarious situations come into focus since their staging requires only minor conversion factors and, thus, generates capabilities. The conceptual talk illustrates this with the example of a project called Open Sunday (Edelhoff, 2021).

Literaturverzeichnis

Edelhoff, D. (2021). Ein Weg zu sozialer Gerechtigkeit. Forum Kinder- und Jugendsport, 2(2), 145–149. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43594-021-00046-5

Mutz, M. (2020). Sport- und Bewegungsaktivitäten von Kindern und Jugendlichen in Deutschland: Ein Update des Forschungsstandes. In C. Breuer, C. Joisten & W. Schmidt (Hrsg.), Vierter Deutscher Kinder- und Jugendsportbericht (S. 39-50). Hofmann.

Sen, A. (2009). The idea of justice. Allen Lane & Harvard University Press.