Sport in Scandinavia and the Nordic Countries

Ken Green, Thorsteinn Sigurjónsson, Eivind Åsrum Skille, Ken Green, Thorsteinn Sigurjónsson, Eivind Åsrum Skille

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138052154
• eBook ISBN: 9781351684583
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Biological Sciences

The Scandinavian and Nordic countries have some of the highest participation rates in sport and physical activity in the world and are therefore important case studies across a range of subjects, from sport policy to physical activity and health.

This is the first book to bring together studies of all those countries in one volume, examining sport, physical activity and exercise, and exploring the factors behind such high levels of participation. Rich in empirical data, the book examines trends in sports participation, organisation and policy in each of the constituent countries, highlighting common themes and outcomes.

This is a valuable resource for students, researchers and academics working in the fields of sport, physical education, leisure, sport policy, sport development, the sociology of sport, and physical activity and health.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Ken Green, Thorsteinn Sigurjónsson and Eivind Åsrum Skille

The case for studying sport in Scandinavia and the Nordic region

At a time when governments across the developed world are showing growing interest in sport and physical activity (PA) as vehicles for combatting a range of so-called ‘lifestyle diseases’ (e.g. cardio-vascular disease, stroke, type-2 diabetes and cancer), increasing attention is being paid to the Nordic countries (where sports participation is high and health-related PA relatively commonplace) as models of ‘good practice’. Nowadays, governments of all political persuasions promote sport as a vehicle for public health gains but nowhere more so than in the Nordic region. Sports participation and PA have become important public health issues in all Nordic countries, especially in relation to young people (Stø ckel, 2010).

As Bairner (2010) has noted, the relative dearth of interest in Scandinavian and Nordic¹ sport (beyond the region itself) is, therefore, somewhat surprising given the seemingly high levels of participation and the particular features of Nordic sport – vis-a-vis Nordic societies – which may or may not be transferable. This collection seeks to address that omission.

As well as the prominence of health in PA and sports discourses, the propensity of young people and adults to take part is also an expression of the social significance of sport and physical recreation in the region: Bairner (2010, 736) talks of “the overwhelming sense that sport matters in those countries”. Nowhere, perhaps, better epitomises Crum’s (1991, 15) depiction of the ‘sportisation of society’ since the 1970s than the Nordic countries, where sport has gained enormous cultural traction (Roberts, 2016a). Cultural traction refers to the rootedness of sport in what sociologists might call the ‘group habitus’ or ‘natural attitude’; in other words, those aspects of physical culture deeply embedded in the everyday attitudes (or ‘second nature’) and practices of individuals and groups in particular societies and nations – the habits acquired (via socialisation) by Nordic peoples as a consequence of growing up and living in cultures within which sport and physical exercise are so common-place and so highly valued.

Nordic countries make a particularly interesting case-study of the cultural traction of sport, not least because their (sporting) cultures contain within them – in the form of friluftsliv – what, historically, has amounted to an almost ideal type or archetypal example of PA as a style of life. Literally translated as ‘free or open-air living’, but more generally and colloquially taken to mean outdoor life and activities, friluftsliv has been described not only as the Nordic way of outdoor recreation but also as a chief characteristic of the Nordic cultural legacy; as Meinander (2006, 6) has observed, “it is almost as if our national and Nordic existence is confirmed and embodied only through a physical pilgrimage back to nature”. In reality, rather than being a singular activity, friluftsliv has long been constituted of a relatively broad spectrum of outdoor pursuits, ranging from simply living or ‘being’ in the outdoors (camping, fishing, horse-riding, ‘berry and mushroom trips’ and so forth – the ‘pilgrimage’ activities), through what are often referred to as ‘adventure’ activities (skiing, climbing and mountaineering and kayaking, for example) to more-or-less common-place recreational activities (such as walking, cross-country skiing and cycling).

The social significance (or cultural traction) of sport and outdoor physical recreation in the Nordic region is, as one might expect, reflected in the sheer volume of participation. The highest proportion of regular sports participation (among young and old alike) in Europe, and probably across the developed world, is to be found in the northern countries of Europe, followed by the western and central European countries (European Commission, 2014; van Tuyckom, 2016).

The social significance of sport and the pervasiveness of sports participation in the region point to a further reason for a collection such as this – what Bairner (2010, 734) referred to as “evidence of a specifically Nordic and/or Scandinavian approach to sport” (our emphasis) that “continues to offer salutary lessons” (p. 734) not only about how to play but also, and crucially, how to organise and facilitate sport. This ostensibly Nordic and/or Scandinavian approach to sport points to the relationship between politics and sport in the region. In particular, it raises questions about the potential significance of welfare states in social democracies. Social democracy is the name given to those societies that have transformed free markets into social markets (i.e. economic systems that are more or less regulated by the state and underpinned by a universal welfare system that guarantees the welfare of its citizens). In the second half of the twentieth century, the Nordic countries built and retained the world’s strongest state welfare regimes (Roberts, 2012). Consequently, such social democracies, and their welfare states, “have been stronger and more comprehensive in Northern Europe than in most other countries” (Roberts, 2009, 315). In Esping-Andersen’s (1990a, 1990b) widely used (but also widely criticised)² classificatory system of welfare states, the Nordic countries are assigned to the category ‘social democratic’ wherein welfare services are almost entirely publicly funded (partly through relatively high personal taxes) and provide universal benefits across a wide range of areas while paying higher wages to workers (Roberts, 2012). In keeping with their standing as the foremost social welfare democracies, the Nordic countries tend to be proud of their welfare systems and Nordic governments have long viewed their welfare responsibilities as extending to leisure, including sport. It is interesting to reflect, therefore, on whether we can continue to talk, meaningfully, of a distinctly Nordic approach to sport – in, for example, participatory or policy terms – and, if so, what the common and distinctive features of such an approach might be, given that much has changed in the region in recent years in both socio-economic and political terms. What, if anything, we might ask, is Scandinavian or Nordic about Scandinavian and Nordic sport?

One noteworthy aspect of Nordic social democracies is the manner in which deliberate government intervention appears to have played a part in the creation of favourable conditions for sports participation. Combinations of equal opportunity legislation and policies alongside quota schemes have improved the socio-economic position of females, in particular, and influenced, among other things, attitudes towards equal opportunities in sports organisations (Ottesan, Skirstad, Pfister & Habermann, 2010). The Nordic countries of Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, for example, regularly occupy the top four positions in the Global Gender Gap Index (Hausmann, Tyson & Zahidi, 2012).

Increased social mobility is particularly significant for girls’ and women’s participation in sport. All countries recording high levels of sports participation, by definition, also record high levels of female participation (Coalter, 2013) and convergence between the sexes has been a feature of participation trends. Few countries can boast the levels of sports participation among women (young and old) of the Nordic countries and it is unlikely to be a coincidence that nowhere is women’s social status (as indicated by the percentage of women in legislatures and senior positions in business, the proximity of male/female incomes and the percentage of women completing higher education (Coalter, 2013)) of a similar standing to that of their male counterparts than in the Nordic countries. Gender has been re-shaped and is less significant for sports participation in the region than it was as recently as the 1990s. All-in-all, the significance of ascribed statuses has diminished in the Nordic countries as that of achieved statuses has increased markedly.

A commitment to gender equality is one manifestation of the strong egalitarian values common to the Nordic region (Skille, 2011). A particularly striking feature of Nordic policies towards sport has been their commitment to ‘sport for all’. The 1975 European Sport for All Charter (Council of Europe, 1975) – which posited a right to sport participation for every European citizen – reflected the growing prominence of sport in governmental policies across the Western world; nowhere more so than in Nordic countries, where universalist strategies and programmes have provided citizens with the kinds of economic and social security (Raphael, 2014) that serve to enable and facilitate sports participation.

All-in-all, the links between sport and politics have tended to be consistently closer in the Nordic countries than elsewhere. Fahlé n and Stenling (2015, 1), for example, talk of the “century-long relationship between national and local governments and voluntary, non-profit and membership-based club sport [in Sweden]” as an ‘implicit contract’ in which the government decides not only the extent of the funding but also its purpose(s), while the recipients, the national sports confederations, determine the details of its distribution – towards, among other beneficiaries, the well-established voluntary sports club sector.

Here again, however, we need to be mindful of difference as well as similarity. Bairner (2010) reminds us that similarities between the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden notwithstanding, “it would be misleading to ignore differences between these countries in terms of their approach to issues such as respective levels of state involvement, sources of funding and the role of the private sector” (p. 736). National differences notwithstanding, it is clear that across the Nordic region the sports movements in general and sports clubs in particular have benefitted greatly from state support, not least in terms of funding for the sports facilities that local government provide and voluntary sports clubs utilise.

Voluntary sports clubs are central to understanding Nordic sport. Bairner (2010) views the multi-sport community-based clubs in Scandinavia as having “contributed to the inclusive character of sport” (p. 736). He contrasts this with “most western societies … [where] there is no real sense of an overarching sports movement and clubs themselves tend to concentrate on single sports” and many sports clubs and associations are, as Roberts (2016b, 47) puts it, “aggressively independent”. For Fahlé n and Stenling (2015), however, the ‘wider social role’ (Coalter, 2007) often assumed for sport in Nordic countries – and that has gathered momentum with various Nordic governments’ adoption of quasi-neo-liberal policies in recent years – is testing the ‘implicit contract’ between the state and voluntary sport, as well as the sovereignty of the latter. Despite the quasi-autonomous position of the sports associations and their member clubs, governments in the Nordic lands are increasingly expecting clubs and associations to deliver on ‘performance outputs’ (usually in the form of ‘key performance indicators’), such as the previously highlighted public health goals.

The role of the voluntary sector in sport matters and not merely because, historically, sports participation has its roots in the voluntary sector – “Voluntary associations predate the development of welfare states in Western countries” (Roberts, 2016b, 42). Voluntary associations created and then ran most of the modern sports played in Scandinavia, as well as elsewhere. Sport not only developed from a voluntary base, but for the most part continues to be run by volunteers, acting as members of voluntary bodies. Until relatively recently, it has been the voluntary sector – aided by the public sector in the second half of the twentieth century – that has enabled sports participation in the Western world. Welfare states have not replaced the voluntary sector. Rather, they have provided improved outdoor and indoor sports facilities and amenities and made these available to voluntary groups. This is important because indoor sports provision increased markedly from the 1970s, becoming strongly associated with increases in participation in general and among females especially, such that girls and women now play indoor sports to a greater extent than boys and men.

Thus, the place of the voluntary sector in sport has not declined with the advent of provision, first by the state and more latterly by commerce, in the latter decades of the twentieth century. Overall, volunteering is flourishing rather than shrinking. The membership rates of voluntary associations in general are especially high in Scandinavian countries, at four out of every five adults (Roberts, 2016b). In the Nordic region this tends, more than anywhere else, to include sports clubs. Thus, people in Nordic countries are more likely to be involved in sport, not only as participants but also, and very often, as volunteers, than in other we...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Sports participation in Denmark
• 3 Sports participation in Finland
• 4 Sports participation in Greenland
• 5 Sports participation in Iceland
• 6 Sports participation in Norway
• 7 Sports participation in Sweden
• Conclusion
• Index