Sociopolitical attitudes in organized sport (EiS)
Project data
Project management: Prof. Dr. Ulrike Burrmann, Prof. Dr. Sebastian Braun and Prof. Dr. Michael Mutz
Running time: 03/2024 – 12/2024
Project description
The project addresses the questions of (a) whether and to what extent sports clubs are
"schools of democracy" and "producers of social capital" that bundle and strengthen democratic and socially integrative attitudes, and (b) whether and to what extent sports clubs produce "antisocial capital" and specifically promote right-wing extremist and anti-human attitudes. In doing so, we will (b) systematically take into account the conditioning factors for corresponding attitudes at the individual and club level in order to be able to uncover systematic connections between conditions in the clubs and members' attitudes. The findings can (c) contribute to the empirical and theoretical sharpening of complex attitude constructs and syndromes (such as right-wing extremism or misanthropy) and (d) develop recommendations for action at the sports club and association level to strengthen club structures and cultures that promote democracy, are socially integrative and open, not exclusionary. On the basis of a nationally representative population survey of young people and adults as well as an "oversampling" of sports club members, reliable statements can be made about the attitudes addressed in the call for proposals. This will enable both differentiated statements about specific groups of sports club members (e.g. voluntary, honorary and fulltime members) and comparisons with the population as a whole, taking into account individual and structural conditional factors. The discussions on sports clubs as democratically constituted voluntary associations, on the socially integrative, community-building functions of sports clubs as well as on misanthropy and the devaluation and exclusion of social groups in sports clubs, which have so far been conducted rather independently of each other, are discussed in a complex context and underpinned with empirical results.
Funding notice
This project is funded with research funds from the Federal Institute for Sports Science based on a resolution of the German Bundestag.