ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the protean nature of sports development as its policy and practice are viewed through three distinctive lenses: political ideology, functionalist social theory and community development. Sports development in the United Kingdommirrors its instrumental and global use as an expressed panacea for many social ills. Sport policy and practice are often driven by potential benefits that may accrue to social groups, whether they be local, national or transnational, elite performers or the more marginal disaggregated and unhealthy individuals suffering various forms of social exclusion. This chapter emphasises different political roots of sporting discourses and in particular aligns mainstream sports development with functionalist arguments that emphasise sport’s role in sustaining diverse externalities. The chapter will further problematise some of the conservative domain assumptions of functionalism as they apply to power relations, ideas of community and diverse practices of sports development.
