Unconditionality and its influence on the social inclusion of young people in socially vulnerable positions in and through community sport.

It has been argued that sport participation can lead to social inclusion of young people in socially vulnerable positions youth through enhancing their personal and social development (e.g. Sherry et al., 2016). In Flanders, community sport initiatives are perceived as valuable contexts for the personal development of these young people. However, despite these popular beliefs and well-meant interventions that have been set up, there remains lack of knowledge about the underlying mechanisms that can explain why and how certain aspects of community sport can have an influence on social inclusion of young people in socially vulnerable positions (e.g. Collins and Kay, 2014). Resulting from qualitative research conducted in three Flemish community sport initiatives, we identified “unconditionality” as a key mechanism in terms of promoting social inclusion through personal development. This unconditionality becomes visible in community sport in two ways: (1) unconditional access and (2) unconditional positive regard. The working ingredients of unconditionality as a key-mechanism seems to lie in community sport staff’s respect for the life-worlds, values and agency of young people in socially vulnerable positions and by enabling young people to become co-creators in their own personal and social development. This conflicts with other interventions aiming at the social inclusion of vulnerable groups, that often start from an inverse rationale, by stressing people’s problems and shortcomings, and working with towards externally defined outcomes.