sport participation of people from cald backgrounds in australia
TRANSCRIPT
Sport participation of people from CALD backgrounds in Australia
Why don’t they participate and how can we encourage them to play?
Wilson Li
Table of content
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1
Report headlines ............................................................................................................. 2
People from CALD background in Australia – key facts .............................................. 3
How does sport participation facilitate social inclusion? .............................................. 6
Theoretical framework – three elements influencing people from CALD backgrounds not to participate in sport ........................................................................ 10 Why are community sport clubs unable to engage effectively with people with CALD backgrounds? ................................................................................................... 12
Why do governing bodies fail to effectively engage people CALD backgrounds to participate in sport? ...................................................................................................... 13 Why don’t participants from CALD backgrounds play sport in clubs? ...................... 14 My suggestions ............................................................................................................ 15
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Introduction Sport, in my life, brings me lots of good memories. Because of sport, I was able to bond with my family and relatives. Because of sport, I felt proud to invite my friends to come play with me. And because of sport, I was led to study in Australia. The study in Australia has inspired me to become one of the leading professionals to utilise sport participation to enhance social inclusion of people from CALD backgrounds to the local community in Australia. This report aims to share my knowledge of sport participation in the Australian community. I have gained this knowledge through my study, my experience in participating in sport, information gathered from club members and committee members, and information gathered from my professional network. During my life experience in Australia as a person from CALD background, I saw sport participation could become a main channel to me to seek inclusion to the local community. However, there were not too many people from CALD backgrounds appeared to be able to seek inclusion to the local community through sport participation. Hence, this report discusses the factors of people from CALD backgrounds failed to engage with the local community through sport, from the perspectives of community sport clubs, governing bodies, and people from CALD backgrounds. Afterwards, this report makes suggestions to local community sport clubs, governing bodies, and people from CALD backgrounds on encouraging and enhancing sport participation. I am happy to discuss the content of this report with you constructively. In addition, if you like this report, please feel free to share with your friends and peers. Last but not least, I would like to thank Associate Professor Popi Sotiriadou from Griffith University for her great mentoring during my research journey in Australia. Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilsonkcli
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Report headlines • The growing number of people from CALD backgrounds leads the growing
importance of engaging them. • Sport can facilitate social inclusion of people from CALD backgrounds in the
local community: ABS revealed. • Governing bodies, local community sport clubs, and participants from CALD
backgrounds are mismatched: sport participation initiatives are ineffective to engage people from CALD backgrounds.
• Suggestions offered to encourage people from CALD backgrounds to
participate in sport.
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People from CALD background in Australia – key facts ABS (2013) have demonstrated that the consistent increase of migrants in Australia. In the 2006 Census, there were 24.6% (or about 5,031,600 people) born overseas. Then, in 2011 Census, the percentage of people born overseas increased from 24.6% to 26.9% (or about 6,018,200 people). See table 1 for the comparison of Australia born and overseas born people in Australia.
Table 1 – Comparison of Australian born and overseas born people in Australia ('000) Year Australia born Overseas born Total population Percentage 2006 15419.3 5031.6 20450.9 24.6% 2011 16321.8 6018.2 22340.0 26.9%
Growth 902.5 986.6 1889.1 2.3% Furthermore, the percentage of Australian people born overseas was increased from 23.6% in 2003 to 27.6% in 2013. This has shown the trend of migration in Australia is growing steadily. See table 2 for the percentage of Australian people born overseas between 2003-2013.
Table 2 – Percentage of Australian people born overseas (2003-2013)
Year Percentage 2003 23.6% 2006 24.6% 2011 26.9% 2012 27.3% 2013 27.6%
In relation to people born overseas, although the UK, New Zealand and China remain the top three countries over the last two Census, the component of countries of birth changes significantly (ABS, 2013). Comparing to 2006 Census, the 2011 Census have revealed that the decline of the European countries in country of birth, and Asian countries have recorded a strong growth. In particular, Greece have been dropped out from top 10 countries of birth, which is replaced by Malaysia, which is ranked 11th in 2006 Census (see table 3a).
Table 3a - Top 10 overseas country of birth ('000): 2006 and 2011 Rank 2006 2011
1 United Kingdom (1133.5) United Kingdom (1196.0) 2 New Zealand (437.9) New Zealand (544.0) 3 China (252.0) China (387.4) 4 Italy (218.0) India (337.1) 5 Vietnam (171.0) Vietnam (207.6) 6 India (169.7) Italy (201.7) 7 Philippines (141.9) Philippines (193.0) 8 Greece (129.0) South Africa (161.6) 9 Germany (124.7) Malaysia (134.1) 10 South Africa (119.5) Germany (125.7)
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Furthermore, comparing to 2006 Census, the 2011 Census have shown that the significant increase of Asian countries, when the European countries have recorded only a steady increase. The 2011 Census have revealed that India (49.7%), China (35%) and the Philippines (26.5%) are the top three increase of countries of birth in Australia. Meanwhile, European countries such as the UK (5.2%) and Germany (0.8%) have grown slowly. In particular, despite Italy is ranked 6th in the overseas country of birth in the 2011 Census, it has recorded 8.1% decrease comparing with the 2006 Census. Thus, the 2011 Census may deliver a message that the population of Australia become more culturally diverse (see table 3b).
Table 3b - Top 10 overseas country of birth ('000): 2006 and 2011 Census comparison
2011 Rank 2006 Rank 2006 - Census 2011 - Census Growth % United Kingdom 1 1 1133.5 1196.0 5.2%
New Zealand 2 2 437.9 544.0 19.5% China 3 3 252.0 387.4 35.0% India 4 6 169.7 337.1 49.7%
Vietnam 5 5 171.0 207.6 17.6% Italy 6 4 218.0 201.7 -8.1%
Philippines 7 7 141.9 193.0 26.5% South Africa 8 10 119.5 161.6 26.1%
Malaysia 9 11 105.7 134.1 21.2% Germany 10 9 124.7 125.7 0.8% ABS (2013) have projected the population growth when reaching 2061 and 2101. The projection has demonstrated that the influence of migrants will become significant in the Australian community. In 2061, it is projected that that 38% to 42% of people in Australia are migrants and their next generation (see table 4a and figure 1). In 2101, it is projected that 60% to 62% of people in Australia are migrants and their next generation (see table 4b and figure 2). Hence, migrants, including people migrating from the other countries and their next generation born in Australia, will become the majority of Australia population. Thus, implementing policies which accommodating people from CALD backgrounds become more important.
Table 4a – Australia population projection in 2061
Migrant + next gen (millions)
Total population (millions) Percentage
Highest projection 21.1 48.3 44% Medium projection 17.3 41.5 42% Lowest projection 14.1 36.8 38%
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Figure 1 – Australia population projection in 2061 (ABS, 2013)
Table 4b – Australia population projection in 2101
Migrant + next gen (millions)
Total population (millions) Percentage
Highest projection 43.6 70.1 62% Medium projection 33.0 53.6 62% Lowest projection 25.3 42.4 60%
Figure 2 – Australia population projection in 2101 (ABS, 2013)
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60
Highest projection
Medium projection
Lowest projection
Australia population projection in 2061
Migrant + next gen (millions)
Total population (millions)
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20
30
40
50
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Highest projection
Medium projection
Lowest projection
Australia population projection in 2101
Migrant + next gen (millions)
Total population (millions)
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How does sport participation facilitate social inclusion? ABS (2012) have reported that there were about 16,788,200 people in Australia age 15 or above. From this group of people, there were 74.2% (or 12,458,700 people) have participated in sport and physical recreation activities, and 25.8% (4,329,400 people) have not (see table 5).
Table 5 – Total population aged 15+ ('000) Sport
participants Non-sport
participants Total population aged 15 or above
Sport participants %
Non-sport participants %
12458.7 4329.4 16788.2 74.2% 25.8% The same report (ABS, 2012) have reported that people participated in sport more likely to establish trust to the other people (see table 6a and figure 3). Comparing with people who did not participate in sport (see table 6b and figure 4), people participated in sport have tended to agree that they are able to establish trust with other people (45.9% of sport participants comparing with 37.5% of non-sport participants). Moreover, sport participants are less likely to disagree that they can establish trust with other people (18.8% and 7.8% of sport participants somewhat disagree and strongly disagree, comparing with 21.7% and 11.7% of non-sport participants somewhat disagree and strongly disagree).
Figure 3 – Feeling of trust: sport participants (ABS, 2012)
Strongly agree 10%
Somewhat agree 46% Neither agree
nor disagree 17%
Somewhat disagree 19%
Strongly disagree 8%
Feeling of trust: sport participants
Table 6a – Feeling of trust: sport participants ('000)
Category Participants Total Participants Percentage
Strongly agree 1285.7
12458.7
10.3% Somewhat agree 5724.4 45.9%
Neither agree nor disagree 2110.2 16.9% Somewhat disagree 2336.9 18.8% Strongly disagree 971.5 7.8%
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Figure 4 – Feeling of trust: non-sport participants (ABS, 2012) Despite both sport (see table 7a and figure 5) and non-sport participants (see table 7b and figure 6) mainly establish their friendship within the same ethnic group, sport participants are more likely to establish friendship from the other ethnic groups than non-sport participants (ABS, 2012). Almost half of the sport participants (49.4%) have responded that most of their friends are coming from the same ethnic background. Comparing to non-sport participants, there are only 39% of non-sport participants stated most of their friends are coming from the same ethnic background. Furthermore, there are about a third (33.1%) of the non-sport participants have responded that all of their friends are coming from the same ethnic background. Comparing with sport participants, there are only 23.1% of sport participants have stated that all of their friends are coming from same ethnic background. This statistics have brought a message that sport participation has the potential to encourage cross-cultural communication.
Strongly agree 10%
Somewhat agree 37% Neither agree
nor disagree 19%
Somewhat disagree 22%
Strongly disagree 12%
Feeling of trust: non-‐sport participants
Table 6b – Feeling of trust: non-sport participants ('000)
Category Participants Total participants Percentage
Strongly agree 443.7
4329.4
10.2% Somewhat agree 1625.5 37.5%
Neither agree nor disagree 813.1 18.8% Somewhat disagree 939.7 21.7% Strongly disagree 507.4 11.7%
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Table 7a – Proportion of friends of same ethnic group: sport participants ('000)
Category Participants Total Participants Percentage All 2925.3
12458.7
23.5% Most 6151.9 49.4%
About half 1665.7 13.4% Few 1143.3 9.2% None 470.6 3.8%
Don't know 26.3 0.2% Not available 75.8 0.6%
Figure 5 – Proportion of friend of same ethnic group: sport participants (ABS, 2012)
Table 7b – Proportion of friends of same ethnic group: non-sport participants ('000)
Category Participants Total Participants Percentage All 1433.7
4329.4
33.1% Most 1686.6 39.0%
About half 407.9 9.4% Few 361.9 8.4% None 259.2 6.0%
Don't know 49.5 1.1% Not available 130.5 3.0%
24%
49%
13%
9% 4% 0% 1%
Proportion of friends of same ethnic group: sport participants
All Most About half Few None Don't know Not available
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Figure 6 – Proportion of friends of same ethnic group: non-sport participants (ABS, 2012)
33%
39%
10%
8%
6% 1% 3%
Proportion of friends of same ethnic group: non-‐sport participants
All Most About half Few None Don't know Not available
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Theoretical framework – three elements influencing people from CALD backgrounds not to participate in sport There are three main elements influencing people from CALD backgrounds not to participate in sport. They are: (a) governing bodies; (b) local community sport clubs; and (c) people from CALD backgrounds themselves (see figure 7).
Figure 7 – Three elements influencing people from CALD backgrounds not to participate in sport The first element is the sport governing bodies. The governing bodies are attempting to engage with people from CALD backgrounds. However, policies and implementations seem to be ineffective and misplaced. The second element is local community sport clubs. Despite local community sport clubs have attempted to engage with people from CALD backgrounds, they seem not to have a clear direction
Governing bodies
• Slogan instead of advocacy • Expect every competition is
under their roof • Missing opportunities to
engage with general public • Having fun becomes being
unfair
People from CALD backgrounds
• I’m here for fun, not to win • Familiarity with sport • We want to play with our
own people • No one inviting me • I can’t get there
Local community sport clubs
• Clubs are not fairly valued and supported
• Sponsorship and funding • Unclear direction to enhance
social inclusion • Play but never pay • Emerging competition from
commercial sport providers
People from CALD backgrounds are discouraged to participate in sport with locals
The importance of sport participation to enhance social inclusion decreases
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on engaging with people from CALD backgrounds, and their efforts are ineffective due to funding, internal operations, and external competition issues. The third element is people from CALD backgrounds themselves. They find local community clubs and the governing bodies organising competition do not meet their aims to participate in the sport. Moreover, issues such as familiarity, without anyone inviting them, and unable to access to the venue by public transport hinder people from CALD backgrounds to participate in sport.
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Why are community sport clubs unable to engage effectively with people with CALD backgrounds? • Clubs are not fairly valued and supported – clubs find the governing body
over-value the elite sport development and ignore the needs to develop their sport in community level. Clubs criticise that governing bodies do not realise they can play a more important role to attract and retain general public, including people from CALD backgrounds to participate in their sport.
• Sponsorship and funding – clubs find difficult to seek funding and
sponsorship from governing body and commercial sectors, so clubs shift to seek financial support from participants. Hence, clubs may intend to increase the registration fees from participants to compensate. As a result, clubs find more difficult to attract and retain people, including people from CALD backgrounds to participate in their sport.
• Unclear direction to enhance social inclusion – club committee members
realise sport can stimulate social inclusion. However, they do not have solid structure and method on enhancing social inclusion through their sport. Despite clubs put their best efforts to include people from CALD backgrounds, it appears that clubs are unable to optimise their efforts to attract and retain more people from CALD backgrounds to participate in sport.
• Play but never pay – clubs realise pay as you play and payment instalment
plans can attract and retain participants, particularly to participants from CALD backgrounds. However, both clubs and participants are likely losing track on payments. In some extreme cases, participants may escape payments. To ensure receiving payments in full, clubs may discontinue the pay as you play and payment instalment plans at the upcoming competition season. Hence, people from CALD backgrounds are more unlikely to participate in sport through traditional community sport clubs, as they are unlikely to pay the registration in full at once. Instead, people from CALD backgrounds may prefer participating the sport through commercial sport providers as these providers offer more flexible options on payments.
• Emerging competition from commercial sport providers – clubs lose their
members as commercial sport providers are able to offer more flexible options to participants. Commercial sport providers tend to offer pay as you play strategies to attract and retain participants in terms of flexible schedule and affordable price. As people from CALD backgrounds may hesitate to commit the sport in long term due to time and cost, they may tend to participate in sport through commercial sport providers.
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Why do governing bodies fail to effectively engage people CALD backgrounds to participate in sport? • Slogan instead of advocacy – governing bodies expect or even push
community clubs to welcome and include every participant around their local area. In particular, governing bodies highly encourage clubs to welcome and include people from CALD backgrounds to participate in sport. However, governing bodies do not offer any solid and practical instructions to clubs to follow. Without solid and practical instructions, clubs are unable to implement tailor-made strategy to attract and retain people from CALD backgrounds to participate in their sport regularly.
• Governing bodies expect every club and competition is under their roof –
some organisations (e.g., churches and commercial providers) have resources and willingness to organise unofficial social competitions to accommodate newcomers and beginners. These newcomers and beginners include people from CALD backgrounds. However, governing bodies tend to sanction all sport competitions under their governance. This may discourage the organisations to continue to organise competitions in long term to attract and retain people from CALD to participate in their sport.
• Governing bodies miss the opportunity to engage with the people from
CALD backgrounds in general public – governing bodies are over-relying on community clubs to support their sport, as they believe clubs play an important role to stimulate the growth. For example, governing bodies may ask sport club members to buy match tickets, to be a match day volunteers, and to promote matches to participants. However, governing bodies appear to ignore the interests of general public, including people from CALD backgrounds. This results the governing bodies exhaust the clubs’ resources and manpower, when people from CALD backgrounds in general public are unlikely to realise the existence of the sport. Thus, people from CALD backgrounds are unlikely to participate in their sport.
• Having fun becomes being unfair – governing bodies are unlikely to divide
teams based on skill level. Governing bodies would like to include every participant, regardless their skill level, to compete matches in the same division to remain the ‘fun’ factor. Instead, governing bodies divide teams based on geographic location for minimising traveling distance to attract and retain more participants, including participants from CALD backgrounds. However, this results the wider gap of skill level within the same division. Thus, strong teams are likely to be apathetic and ordinary teams are suffering from difficult matches. In particular, as participants from CALD are unfamiliar with the sport, they likely feel disheartened during the competition due to difficulties they encounter. Thus, they may discontinue to participate in the sport.
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Why don’t participants from CALD backgrounds play sport in clubs? • I’m here for fun, not to win – participants from CALD backgrounds prefer
participating sport with health, fitness and social purposes instead of competition purpose. Moreover, as these participants are not committed to competition, they are unlikely to participate in sport through clubs because clubs may require them to attend the training regularly. Instead, participants may prefer joining commercial sport providers as these providers offer social oriented competition environment.
• Familiarity with sport – some people from CALD backgrounds are likely
unfamiliar with Australian sport, particularly in terms of game rules, even they have already settled in Australia in long period of time. As they are unfamiliar with local sport, people from CALD backgrounds tend to seek the sport they usually play in their home country because they are familiar with the sport. Meanwhile, local people are unlikely to be familiar with the sport which people from CALD backgrounds usually play. This leads to people from CALD backgrounds to lose the common channel to communicate with local people. Hence, people from CALD backgrounds are less likely to seek inclusion from sport participation.
• We want to play with our own people – people from CALD backgrounds
prefer forming teams with the same ethnic background, and unlikely to accept people from their other cultural backgrounds. People from CALD backgrounds are able to communicate with local people in fluent English, and they are happy to communicate with local people in other occasions. However, they prefer using their mother language to communicate on the field. This is because people from CALD backgrounds find easier and more convenient to communicate with their teammates with mother language.
• No one inviting me – people from CALD backgrounds need local people to
invite them to participate in sport. This is because people from CALD backgrounds do not prefer to participate in sport uninvited. Moreover, people from CALD backgrounds are unlikely to have knowledge of the local community. Hence, people from CALD backgrounds may not realise the existence of the sport locally. Thus, people from CALD backgrounds are unable to utilise sport as a channel to seek inclusion to the local community.
• I can’t get there – people from CALD backgrounds are likely to encounter
issue of accessibility. People from CALD backgrounds are unlikely to afford their private transportation due to the high cost to purchase a private vehicle, as well as they maybe unlicensed to drive. As some match venues are located in remote suburbs where public transportation is unable to access, people from CALD backgrounds may not prefer regular participation in the sport through clubs.
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My suggestions To the community sport clubs: • Be creative on seeking incomes – clubs can be more creative to expand their
source of income. Initiatives such as sausage sizzle and trivia night can generate income. As the source of income expands, clubs can alleviate financial burden of participants from CALD backgrounds in order to attract and retain them.
• Out of the field activities – clubs can organise activities such as Halloween
party, Christmas barbeque and post-season presentation night to enhance the loyalty of participants from CALD backgrounds. As these participants grow their loyalty to the club, they are likely to feel included in the team. Hence, participants from CALD backgrounds are more likely to participate in the club sport continuously.
• Advanced players mentor beginners – as advanced players have experience
on the sport, so that they are able to interpret the game rules and jargons to participants from CALD backgrounds, whom are most likely beginners. Meanwhile, advanced players may act as an interpreter to assist participants from CALD backgrounds to communicate with local team members. Through more effective communication, participants from CALD backgrounds are likely more encouraged to play sport with other local team members.
• Give them a ride – participants from CALD backgrounds may find hard to
access to the venue due to inability to access private transportation. Club committee can organise more structure car pools to accommodate these participants. Club committee members can encourage club members who have private vehicles to pick up members living nearby to them to the training and to the match on regular basis. Hence, participants from CALD backgrounds are able to overcome the constraints of accessibility to participate in the sport on regular basis.
• Encourage participants to pay in full – clubs can offer small discounts to
encourage participants from CALD backgrounds to pay the registration fee in full, given the discount does not impact the income of the club significantly. Meanwhile, clubs should remain pay as you play method and payment instalment plans to provide flexibility to participants from CALD backgrounds.
To the governing bodies: • Consider unofficial organisers as partners – governing bodies should realise
that unofficial organisers can offer a ‘first bite’ to the participants from CALD backgrounds before they commit the sport in long term. For example, governing bodies can offer guidance and suggestions to unofficial organisers to organise informal, social based, and short-term competitions during the season break to attract participants from CALD backgrounds. After these
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participants are interested to the sport, they are more likely to participate through governing bodies sanctioned competitions when the season starts.
• Consult with local community groups – these community groups include, but
not limited to churches, ethnic community groups, and ethnic based sport groups. Governing bodies are able to gain the insight knowledge of the needs of the people in CALD backgrounds, so that governing bodies can initiate solid and practical instructions to community sport clubs to engage with participants in CALD backgrounds.
• Skill based division instead of geographic based division – governing bodies
should realise that skill based divisional competition is the right way to maintain the ‘fun’ factor, because participants can receive optimal experience when competing with someone with similar level of skill. Governing bodies may use the match results and competition ladder from the previous season to grade teams, such as reserve grade for beginning level, and premium grade for advanced level. Thus, participants from CALD backgrounds may participate in reserve grade to compete, so that they can seek enjoyment with minimal competition pressure.
• Utilise Internet channels to promote sport – There are various options to
promote the sport with a low cost. For example, social media such as Facebook and YouTube can attract wider audience to view the sport. Meanwhile, people from CALD backgrounds tend to view sport through Internet. Thus, people from CALD backgrounds are more likely to get to know the sport through Internet than traditional television and radio.
To people from CALD backgrounds: • Join the local community groups – people from CALD backgrounds can
build friendship through local community groups, such as churches, ethnic based community groups, and university interest groups. Members of these local community groups are able to share the knowledge of local sport to people from CALD backgrounds, and invite them to participate in the local sport. Moreover, local community groups may organise the social based sport activities. Thus, people from CALD backgrounds may gain interest to the sport before committing in the competition level.
• Be proactive to join the outside the field activities – clubs are keen on
welcoming and including participants from CALD backgrounds. Activities such as Christmas barbeque, Halloween party, and post-season presentation night aims to include all participants within the club. Thus, participants from CALD backgrounds are encouraged to proactively join these activities to seek inclusion in order to enhance the experience of participating in club sport.