ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the potential challenge that rather than lacking a sound theoretical foundation sports development policy and practice has over the years been influenced by a number of theoretical constructs. A brief review of each of these theories concludes that their application to the public policy domain of community sport development is a not a perfect fit. The ‘sport theories’ are orientated towards elite sport success and associated talent identification, development and pathways and say little about the determinants and influences that lead to inactivity, drop out from sport at an early age or a failure to sustain sporting activity through the life-course. The theories borrowed from the wider health and physical activity public policy domains have their strength in being grounded in the more fundamental drivers and determinants of behaviour change but lack the cultural and institutional specificity that distinguishes sport from informal exercise and activity in everyday life. The chapter concludes that an effective theory of sporting behaviour and its determinants must embed the very nature of sport as a synthesis of the physiological, psychological and social realities that shape an individual’s sporting behaviours within the cultural context in which they live.
