Tenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Sport has been widely credited as a mechanism for facilitating the growth of interpersonal bonds and the inclusion of population groups that may otherwise be marginalized or less likely to participate in their community activities. Given that Canada is poised to increase the number of immigrants arriving annually, understanding the lived experiences of new immigrants into Canadian communities is important for contemporary Canadian society. These experiences will depend upon pathways to integration and innovative approaches that create opportunities for immigrants to participate in community life in their respective locales. In this paper, we use a phenomenological approach to explore how organized youth sport programming is implicated in the integration experiences of new Canadian immigrant families. Data collected from semi-structured interviews with parents and guardians who have at least one dependent family member currently enrolled in an organized youth sport program in communities within the City of Toronto. Data was analyzed thematically, and our discussion will explore the role of sport within the complexities of the immigrant experience during the settlement process, the sociocultural environment of sport in a large Canadian city, and the constraints to participation in sporting activities that immigrants face on the field of play and within their communities. Our discussion has implications for academics, practitioners, and policy makers interested in sport programming in and for diverse community contexts.