Social Inclusion Through Soccer In Global Toronto

This book tells the story of how participation in a community soccer program helped to facilitate the social inclusion of immigrant youth living on the margins of ‘Global Toronto.’ The central questions it seeks to answer are: Did sport participation affect the everyday integration experiences of these youth? If so, how, and why? And how were these experiences unique for different genders? To answer these questions, the author chronicles eight years of ethnographic immersion (from 2012–2020) as a community soccer coach in Toronto’s marquee immigrant reception site—the neighbourhood of St. James Town. The book reveals how community-based sport participation positively influenced immigrant youth’s sense of social inclusion in multicultural Canada. This ‘theory of social inclusion through sport’ was advanced based on the capacity of the program to facilitate engagement, personal development, bonding and belonging in youth’s lives. These forms of inclusion into Canadian society were at times contradictory, contested, and eclectic, but always personal, agentic, and meaningful to youth. The findings of this investigation will be useful for policy makers and community based practitioners who recognize the importance of positive reception contexts on immigrant integration, and the influence of localized social service provisions therein. The book will also interest scholars working within the international fields of sport-for-development and sport sociology, who have begun exploring how sport programs may impact the integration experiences of immigrant youth living in diverse urban contexts. It also provides up to date and engaging examples for teaching on sport, gender, health, and inclusion in a variety of disciplines.