Integration by Sport and Physical Activities? Comparing European Perspectives

Over the last ten years, Europe has experienced an increase in the number of migrants, coming from the Mediterranean Sea and the Balkans. The new arrivals mainly come from Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This phenomenon has had very important political and social consequences, starting with a difficult question: how to welcome and facilitate the integration of migrants? Despite the ongoing debate, Europe - now the European Union - has by no means adopted common policies of solidarity and hospitality, although some European countries, including Italy and France, have given rise to initiatives that cover various sectors such as education, employment, active participation and social inclusion to help newcomers integrate. However, it is well known that the social integration of immigrants is not always easy and automatic. In response to the fragmentation of the national community announced or observed in Europe, sport has often been presented as a powerful cement or at least a model of integration for "young peo-ple from the suburban" (Gasparini, 2008), and an instrument of citizenship for foreign populations. Sports activities allow intercultural dialogue without requiring perfect knowledge of the language of the host country. In this way the learning difficulties decrease, while opportunities for socialization emerge. Sports associations as well as sports NGOs have in fact promoted numerous mechanisms open to immigrants, but their positive effects are often unknown to the general public and researchers. Starting from the simultaneous growth of the sociology of migration and the sociology of sport, the dossier aims to investigate, on the one hand, the processes that lead to the creation of integration pro-grams for newly arrived migrants who practice sports and physical activities, and on the other hand, to understand the meaning of the actions and the effects they produce both with respect to migrants and the host society. In a context that is changing very quickly, and in which the global pandemic has drastically re-duced sports and physical activity initiatives, the following question emerges: is sport always an indis-pensable tool for intercultural dialogue and integration? If so, how and what effects does it produce? In the face of the constant and considerable migratory flows arriving in Europe, it is legitimate to investigate how European countries deal with "diversity", and how sport can still be considered a way of access to the civil community, sharing its practices and values. But above all, it is useful to under-stand if participation in sports and associative activities allows migrants to become an active compo-nent, well accepted and inserted in the receiving society.