May, Regan (2024) What Happens When Mainstream Sport Clubs Try to Promote Cultural Diversity? An Exploratory Case Study. Research Master thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

This project extends the work of Victoria University’s Change Makers program by exploring the question “what happens when mainstream sport clubs try to promote cultural diversity?” It explores the complexity of social inclusion and investigates celebrations of cultural diversity in research in the context of mainstream sport clubs. Two clubs were observed as they created, implemented, and evaluated a celebration of cultural diversity. Uniquely, data was collected from people with various positions and cultures in communication with one another. One club “succeeded” in organising a celebration of Australian Indigenous culture, while the other “failed” to organise anything. The pursuit of celebrating Indigenous instead of migrant culture raises the question of why this occurred. This was analysed by critiquing the club’s achievements to understand their underlying motivations. Additionally, Bourdieu’s notions of field and symbolic capital were used to understand how power structures influenced this conflation. The cases are then considered within the broader socio-cultural context and implications for promoting change are considered.

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