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Sport Volunteerism in Canada

Do Linguistic Groups Count?

York University, Canada, psafai{at}yorku.ca

Jean Harvey

University of Ottawa, Canada

Maurice Lévesque

University of Ottawa, Canada

Peter Donnelly

University of Toronto, Canada

Given the importance of volunteerism to Canadian sport, and the need for research to understand the characteristics of sport volunteerism, a pilot study was carried out to explore the experiences of volunteers in sport. The study focused on two different sport associations (one individual sport and one team sport) in two majority linguistic localities (one predominantly francophone in Québec and one predominantly anglophone in Ontario). Language is a key element of community membership, and this article pays specific attention to the relationship between language and sport volunteerism in Canada. The results indicate that there are some different patterns of sport volunteering between the two different (official) linguistic communities, and suggest that the experiences of Canadian sport volunteers in relation to linguistic community membership have implications for the recruitment, training, and retention of volunteers in sport, and warrant further research.

Key Words: language • linguistic communities • sport volunteerism

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International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 42, No. 4, 425-439 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1012690208089835


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Safai, P. Articles by Donnelly, P. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?