research | Chicago Neighborhood Soccer

2023

The rise of women’s football: a case study of Iceland

Vidar Halldorsson

Soccer & Society, 2023

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The women’s national football team of Iceland, from a population of 350,000, has written its name in the history books by qualifying for four consecutive European Championship finals (from 2009), reaching the quarter finals in 2013. However, the women’s team has stood in the shadow of the men’s national football team of Iceland, which has attracted international attention. Thus, in the male-dominated world of football, the success of the women’s team has largely gone unnoticed. This paper seeks to analyze a particular case of the rise of women’s football, as it sheds light on the development and success of Icelandic women’s football and frames this development in a socio-cultural context. More precisely, Icelandic women’s football is emerging from within: a relatively gender equal Nordic culture; increased sport professionalism; and general strong national sentiments among Icelanders, which, when combined, have made women players the new and emerging stars of Iceland’s football.

2022

Review of “Fútbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties”

Brian Tuohy

2022

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From the opening vignette that centers on the thrills and woes of a glorious missed goal scoring opportunity, David Trouille’s Fútbol in the Park beautifully uses soccer as a lens into the meaning and depth of the social world of a group of mainly immigrant Latino men who regularly play the sport at an upper middle-class neighborhood public park in West Los Angeles. Trouille takes us inside the world of these men (affectionately referred to as jugadores del parque) as they build relationships and experience a renewed sense of self-worth and community through regular “pickup” playing sessions. From over a decade of ethnographic research, Trouille successfully demonstrates the complexity of these men while highlighting the friendships, identities, and community they create through playing and talking about soccer as well as through fighting, drinking, and working with each other. The site of the ethnography is the Mar Vista Recreation Center which serves as a critical place of socializing and networking for the men and a key part of their social infrastructure. As a free, relatively safe, and familiar environment for socializing, the soccer field and surrounding park serve as the physical place for men to build relationships, establish reputations, and exchange resources. Trouille’s historical overview and qualitative work with park staff and local residents show us though that these men are far from welcome in the upscale park (171–176). This helps to make his powerful point that although these men and those like them are often welcome as workers in these neighborhoods, they are less welcome as people. Trouille’s engaging writing and in-depth immersion brings their stories to the forefront and humanizes an all-too-often stigmatized population.
Improving adult women’s emotional health in rural Kenya through community soccer and the role of social support: A mixed-methods analysis

F Barchi, MA AbiNader, SC Winter, and 4 more authors

Journal of Sport for Development, 2022

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This study examines the contribution of a recreational adult women’s soccer league in rural Kenya to the development goals of enhancing social support, building community cohesion, and improving women’s emotional health. Using a sequential explanatory mixed methods approach, 702 members of a women’s health and literacy program, 229 of whom played in the program’s soccer league, completed surveys about various aspects of their lives. A five-item scale, perceived support from friends (PSF), queried women’s access to emotional and instrumental support; an exploratory factor analysis confirmed this scale’s suitability as a single measure. Bivariate and multivariate analyses examined attributes associated with PSF. Based on these findings, a purposive sample of 229 soccer league members participated in focus group discussions. Women’s perceptions were examined using thematic analysis. Quantitative findings indicated that soccer league members had greater odds of reporting high social support than their non-soccer-playing peers. Qualitative findings from the final analysis sample of 201 women suggested that soccer provided a social space in which team members formed a network of friendships within and across villages, providing emotional and instrumental support they associated with decreased stress and improved well-being. Given the positive effects of soccer on adult women’s lives, similar programs, particularly in rural settings with limited resources, should be considered as development strategies.
Kickin’It in’The Hood:’Soccer and Social Inclusion in Global Toronto

Greg Yerashotis

University of Toronto (Canada), 2022

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This dissertation explores if, how, and why participation in a community-based soccer program affected the lives of marginalized immigrant youth in global Toronto. Situated in one of Canada’s most prominent ethnic communities (St. James Town), the researcher chronicles six years of immersive ethnographic fieldwork as a community soccer coach supervising a public intra-sectoral program partnership between a local community recreation centre and a high school. Emergent data was analyzed using a transdisciplinary theoretical approach based upon Affect philosophy’s permeation through diverse fields of social science literature, ranging from (im)migration/urban sociology, post-structural feminism, and post-subcultural youth studies. A Theory of Social Inclusion Through Sport was next advanced that was grounded in the program’s capacity to engage, develop, and integrate local youth in a manner that also facilitated diverse forms of belonging. Though ‘subjective’ (socio-emotional) aspects of inclusion were found to emerge from participation, findings regarding more ‘objective’ (socio-structural) components remained ambiguous. While engagement in programming made youth feel mostly included in their everyday lives, the localized character of their experiences limited community sport’s ability to iii attend to larger structural forces of exclusion from society. Thus, my findings call into question the capacity of community-based sport programs to facilitate immigrant youth’s full inclusion into society if not augmented by additional forms of social supports. Policy recommendations to attend to this limitation and bolster this program model are advanced in the final chapter. This study should be of interest to scholars within the international fields of sport-for-development and sport sociology who are increasingly examining how sport programs may impact the integration experiences of immigrant youth living ‘on the margins’ of ‘global’ cities.

2021

Fútbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties

David Trouille

2021

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Creating social capital on soccer fields: Immigrant opportunities and gendered barriers in adult soccer leagues

Edward Painter, and Marie Price

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2021

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2017

A Proposal for a Community Soccer Website for San Francisco Soccer Participants and Stakeholders

Christian Martin

2017

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Does soccer explain the world or does the world explain soccer? Soccer and globalization

Scott Waalkes

Soccer & Society, 2017

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2016

Live and let live: Diversity, conflict, and community in an integrated neighborhood

Evelyn M Perry

2016

2013

Can’t play here: the decline of pick-up soccer and social capital in the USA

Joseph M Ellis, and Hemant Sharma

Soccer & Society, 2013

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In this article, the authors argue that over-bureaucratization of the sport of soccer could have a deleterious impact on both the development of innovative soccer skills and the proliferation of beneficial social interaction – particularly for youth whose only exposure to sports is through pay-to-play leagues. This article relates these concerns to broader questions about democracy and grassroots interaction that have emerged in ‘social capital’ literature over the last twenty years. Curiously, while social capital advocates like Putnam posit a decline in formal participatory organizations, the number of organized youth sports leagues is in fact growing steadily. And, although Putnam would laud the merits of an increase in structured play, the authors highlight the negative repercussions of this occurrence. Specifically, the authors examine literature on the sociology of sport, as well as literature from public administration and political science, to explore the manner in which ‘pick-up’ games fit into the broader societal landscape. The authors then use this literature to construct a framework for comparing the Ghanaian soccer experience with that of the USA. Ultimately, this comparison reveals the differences in player development across the two cultures and crystallizes the implications that a decline in informal play poses for civic engagement in a democratic society

2012

Finding the Game: Three Years, Twenty-five Countries, and the Search for Pickup Soccer

Gwendolyn Oxenham

2012

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Every country has a different term for it: In the United States it’s "pickup." In Trinidad it’s "taking a sweat." In Brazil it’s "pelada" (literally "naked"). It’s the other side of soccer, those spontaneous matches played away from the bright lights and manicured fields―the game for anyone, anywhere. At sixteen, Gwendolyn Oxenham was the youngest Division I athlete in NCAA history, a starter and leading goal-scorer for Duke. At twenty, she graduated, the women’s professional soccer league folded, and her career was over. In Finding the Game, Oxenham, along with her boyfriend and two friends, chases the part of the game that outlasts a career. They bribe their way into a Bolivian prison, bet shillings on a game with moonshine brewers in Kenya, play with women in hijab on a court in Tehran―and discover what the world looks like when you wander down side streets, holding on to a ball. An entertaining, heartfelt look at the soul of a sport and a thrilling travel narrative, this book is proof that on the field and in life, some things need no translation.