Promoting Acculturation Through Sport: An Ethnic-Cultural Identity Approach

Abstract

In the era of globalization, multicultural societies are common in most developed countries. As a consequence, new challenges at both national and international levels have become apparent, and successful adaptation to this new phenomenon of migration appears as a fundamental issue. Sport has traditionally been considered to be a vehicle for bringing people together (Eitzen, D. S., & Sage, G. H. (2003). Sociology of North American sport (7th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill), and recently there has been an increasing policy interest to use sport as a tool to promote integration in multicultural societies. Regardless of its political significance, research on the integrative role sport plays in our society is limited and findings are equivocal (Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Morela, E., Elbe, A. -M., & Sanchez, X. (2013). The integrative role of sport in multicultural societies. European Psychologist, 18, 191-202). In this chapter, we address these findings within the ethnic-cultural identity approach (Berry, J. W. (1980). Acculturation as varieties of adaptation. In: A. Padilla (Ed.), Acculturation: Theory, models and some new findings (pp. 9-25). Boulder: Westview; Immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. Applied Psychology, 46, 5-34). In particular, we discuss a number of studies that (1) have used a sound ethnic-cultural identity framework and (2) have attempted to identify variables that may influence the effectiveness of sport participation toward the goal of social integration. Lastly, we address future research venues and provide practical implications that can contribute to the further understanding of the potential role of sport in the promotion of social integration in today's multicultural societies. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.