Sport as Social Policy: Midnight Football and the Governing of Society

This book analyses the increasing use of sport in European and Western welfare states as a tool of social policy and its promotion as a solution to social problems.

Midnight Football is a sports-based intervention targeting social inclusion and crime prevention in young people aged 12-25 in Sweden. This book takes a close look at its organization, pedagogy and potential outcomes. Drawing on cutting-edge research into Midnight Football in Sweden, and exploring other community sport programmes including Midnight Basketball in the United States, this book shines new light on broader social transformations regarding urban segregation and social exclusion, social policy and the governing of welfare and social policy.

This book also offers new perspectives on how sport and the lives of young people intersect with and shape broader shifts in welfare and social policy in Western states, shifts that are manifested in increased inequality, social polarization and profound changes in urban geographies.

This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the relationships between sport and wider society, or in sport development, sport policy, social policy, public policy or youth and social work.

David Ekholm is Associate Professor in social work at Linköping University, Sweden. Ekholm’s main research interests are in the sociology of social work and social policy. This research is characterized by critical and constructionist perspectives on contemporary social policy transformations.

Magnus Dahlstedt is Professor of social work at Linköping University, Sweden. His research concerns the formation of citizenship in times of migration, welfare and social policy transformations. A particular focus is put on mechanisms of inclusion/exclusion, and the living conditions of young people in the context of a polarized urban landscape.