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IntroductionMost research concerning the socially disadvantaged and participation in sports and physical activity is based on quantitative research methods, demonstrating a significant social inequality in this area. Substantial evidence confirms that socially disadvantaged groups do not participate in sports and physical activity to the same extent as the average level of participation among the general population (Pedersen, Holst, Davidsen & Juel, 2012).

The accessibility to sport within socially deprived residential areasThe aim of the analysis is to highlight the significance of ‘accessibility’ to sport for children’s sports participation in deprived residential areas. A distinction is made between three dimensions of ‘accessibility’: Physical accessibility, organizational accessibility and psychological accessibility. The analysis is based on a comprehensive study of sport participation and sports facilities in six deprived neighborhoods. The study includes children’s responses to a questionnaire, observations and interviews. As regards the physical accessibility the analysis cannot identify a clear correlation between the number of facilities in or close to the residential area and the proportion of children who participate in sport. The study however shows that physical closeness to major facilities like swimming pool and multi-purpose indoor facilities have a significant impact on the participation in sport. The analysis of the organizational accessibility shows very clearly that participation in sport in an association depends on the existence of sport clubs near residential area. It is perhaps not surprising, but it’s probably much more important for the children of parents who do not have many resources and do not know associational life – and therefore not are able to help the children to go to sport in clubs outside the residential area. The psychological accessibility, ie. the experience of a sports facility as safe place, seems to depend on whether the place where the facility is located, is perceived as a safe place. Facilities at schools and sports clubs that kids feel great confidence in, are perceived as safer than facilities, which the children do not know well and primarily use for self-organized activities.

It is widely acknowledged that the substance of collaboration between public sector and third sector has changed over the last decades. But how does this change affect the understanding of concepts like volunteering, citizen and the relation between state and citizens? This article explores political discourses regarding the relation between the two sectors. The theoretical outset is in anthropology of policy and its understanding of policy as a construing praxis that produces and defines meaning of and in the social world. The empirical data consists of 30 interviews with local politicians and senior administration officials from five Danish municipalities. Based on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the analysis shows how political discourses produce an ideal citizen identity and an understanding of the municipality as a consensus-based community, legitimizing these through idealized expounding of common cultural and historical symbols.