Sport as a means of immigrant youth integration: An empirical study of sports, intercultural relations, and immigrant youth integration in Switzerland

Makarova, Elena; Herzog, Walter (2014). Sport as a means of immigrant youth integration: An empirical study of sports, intercultural relations, and immigrant youth integration in Switzerland. Sportwissenschaft, 44(1), pp. 1-9. Hofmann 10.1007/s12662-013-0321-9

Text art%3A10.1007%2Fs12662-013-0321-9.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (701kB) | Request a copy

The objective of this paper is to examine the role of sport in immigrant youths’ integration into a host society. The analyses are based on a survey of 454 first-generation immigrant youths from secondary, vocational, and pre-apprenticeship schools located in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. In short, our results indicate that for most immigrant youth sport is an important part of their free time, even though the proportion of female immigrant youth doing sports in sports clubs is twice as low as that of male immigrant youth. Our findings also illustrate that female and male immigrant youth who do sports in clubs have considerably more personal contact with Swiss peers during these sporting activities. Moreover, those young people who have frequent personal contact with Swiss peers during sporting activities reported having considerably more intercultural contacts in their free time and among their close friends. Finally, immigrant youths’ contacts with Swiss peers during sporting activities increase their feeling of being integrated in Switzerland.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

2 since deposited on 09 Jan 2015
0 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item