Linköping Studies in Arts and Science, Dissertation No. 687, 2016 Da vid Ek ho lm S po rt a s a M ea ns o f R es po nd ing t o S oc ial Pr obl em s 20 16
Sport as a Means of
Responding to Social Problems
David Ekholm
FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCE
Linköping Studies in Arts and Science, Dissertation No. 687, 2016 Department of Social and Welfare Studies (ISV)
Division of Social Work Linköping University SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden www. liu.se
Rationales of Government, Welfare and Social Change
The thesis explores how sport is constructed as a means for the welfare state to promote social change and as a method for responding to diverse social problems. It highlights the position of sport in promoting citizenship and the inclusion of youths at risk of exclusion and delinquency by means of shaping them to become active, responsible and self-governing citizen subjects. It also examines the formation of community as a basis for intervention and for shaping social cohesion as well as the meaning attributed to the geographical place of intervention. The thesis furthermore demonstrates and discusses important tendencies of mutating governmental rationality of the Swedish welfare state and of the politics of social work in relation to the responding technologies of social change promoted.
David Ekholm is a researcher at the Department of Social and Welfare Studies. He holds a master’s degree in sociology. Sport as a Means of Responding to Social Problems is his doctoral thesis in Social Work.
