TRENDS IN COMMUNITY SPORT PARTICIPATION AND …

CENTRE FOR SPORT POLICY STUDIES WORKING PAPER SERIES

TRENDS IN COMMUNITY SPORT PARTICIPATION AND COMMUNITY SPORT

ORGANIZATIONS SINCE THE 1990s: IMPLICATIONS FOR WEST VANCOUVER

Richard Gruneau Simon Fraser University

February, 2010 CSPS Working Paper No. 3 sportpolicystudies.ca

The Centre for Sport Policy Studies (CSPS), in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto, is engaged in empirically-based research in the service of sport policy, monitoring and evaluation studies, and education and advocacy for the two most important ambitions of Canadian sport: `sport for all' (widespread grassroots participation) and healthy high performance in elite-level sports. The Working Papers represent an important part of the work of CSPS.

Working Papers Editor: Peter Donnelly (Director, Centre for Sport Policy Studies) peter.donnelly@utoronto.ca

Gruneau, Richard. (2010). Trends in Community Sport Participation and Community Sport Organizations Since the 1990s: Implications for West Vancouver. Centre for Sport Policy Studies Working Paper Series, No. 3. Toronto: Centre for Sport Policy Studies, Faculty of Physical Education and Health, University of Toronto.

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Copyright for this paper: Richard Gruneau (gruneau@sfu.ca)

Centre for Sport Policy Studies Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education 55 Harbord Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2W6 sportpolicystudies.ca

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CSPS WORKING PAPER NO. 3: Editor's Introduction

In something of a departure from his previous work in media studies, and in sport and social theory, Rick Gruneau's Working Paper strays into what is often thought of as `sport management'. However, many of the main themes of Gruneau's work on sport and theory are evident in the paper (e.g., social structure, social inequality), and there are also connections to CSPS Working Paper No. 1 (Donnelly & Harvey, 1996) in terms of his concern with the social determinants of participation.

Although Trends in Community Sport Participation and Community Sport since the 1990s: Implications for West Vancouver is a discussion paper, prepared for the West Vancouver Parks and Recreation Department and the West Vancouver Sports Forum in 2010, it also makes an important addition to the CSPS Working Paper series. The paper uses (mostly) high quality census and survey data to outline trends in sport participation in Canada over the past 20 years, contextualizing those trends in terms of the context of Canadian society (e.g., immigration, increasing income polarization, demographic changes, neoliberal governance, and so on).

Those trends are then applied to the case of community sport in West Vancouver, with important insights in terms of planning and facility use offered to the municipal government and the city's Sports Forum. However, the paper also makes an ideal model for studying community sport, and for examining community sport in context. The Centre for Sport Policy Studies plans to use Rick Gruneau's paper as a model for contextualized studies of community sport in Southern Ontario, and we hope that its appearance here will stimulate community studies of sport in other regions of Canada.

Editor's Introduction, May 2011

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CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. The Postwar Growth of Youth Sport

Postwar Lives and the Organization of Childhood Attractions and Potential Benefits of Postwar Sport

3. Demographic and Socioeconomic Trends in Sports Participation in Canadian Communities Since the 1990s

The Enduring Presence of Sport in Canadian Communities Declining Participation Rates in Sport: National Data for Adults and the Upper

Teen Years, 1992-2005 Explaining Declining Adult Sports Participation Changing Participation in Sport from Age Five through the Early Teen Age Years,

1992-2005 Explaining Changes in Youth Sport Participation

4. Changing National Patterns of Choices of Sports Participants

Late Teen and Adult Participation in Canada's Most Popular Sporting Activities Changes in Participation Rates in Canadian Youth Sports (Ages 5-15)

5. The Changing Organizational Context of Canadian Sport Participation

Community Sport and the Canadian Voluntary Sector New Pressures and Demands Facing Community Sports Clubs Community Sport and the Growth of the Cultural Economy Increasing Costs of Community Sport Participation

6. Some Implications of the Trends for Community Sport in West Vancouver

The Significant Role of Sport in West Vancouver Implications of Broader Trends for Local Facilities and Sport Services Conclusion: Sport and Community Development in West Vancouver

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1. INTRODUCTION

This discussion paper highlights trends that have been affecting sport and community sports clubs in Canada over the past two decades. My focus is deliberately broad and I have not undertaken detailed research on the situation in the lower mainland, nor, more specifically, in West Vancouver. Nonetheless, useful inferences can be made about local trends by considering patterns evident in national data and evaluating these patterns in the context of the specific demographic and socioeconomic composition of West Vancouver. Unfortunately, there are only limited national or regional statistical data on Canadian sport participation between 2005 and the present day so, in many instances, I have had to project inferences from five-year-old data.

In the past five years Canada has continued to undergo substantial demographic and socioeconomic changes: including the ongoing aging of the Canadian population; a boom in immigration from non-European countries; and a persisting, and in some regions growing, gap between high and low income Canadians. Inferences about local trends affecting youth sport, and community sport clubs, can be made with confidence by blending an analysis of Statistics Canada data up to 2005, with a consideration of these and other national and regional demographic and socioeconomic changes. In preparing this discussion paper I have also drawn on recent academic literature on sports organizations as well on numerous informal discussions that I had with sports administrators and coaches in the lower mainland of British Columbia in 2009.

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