The interculturality of our group proved pivotal in terms of deciding on our research focus. As the initial aim of this seminar was to look at the people who are volunteering or working with refugees to aid their ‘integration’ process, we searched for different organisations with this aim and also thought at length about the kinds of organisations and activities that play a central role in Belgian communities. During one of the first meetings the non-Belgian members of the group put forward an observation about the seemingly central role of youth movements such as Scouts and Chiro in Flemish society. Indeed, even within our group almost every Flemish participant had a past in these organisations, although when it came to explaining what the Belgian phenomenon surrounding Scouting or Chiro exactly was, and why it played such a role in the lives of young people in Belgium it turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated.
This experience made clear to us how ingrained youth movements are in Flemish society. On the other hand, the Belgians in the group had to admit that their youth movement groups were not at all as diverse as they would like them to be and noted that in general their groups consisted of white, middle class Belgians. This combined with our brief to explore those working on the integration of refugees motivated us to start working around the topic of the participation of refugees in leisure activities. After consulting literature, we understood that people who were helping refugees to take part in this organised leisure activities, could contribute to their ‘integration’ in Flemish society. After contacting a number of organisations we decided to broaden our scope to organisations who tried to be open not only to refugees, but to everyone. We started to do research on laagdrempelige organisations.
The Flemish Context
Sport and leisure in organised clubs fulfil an important role in Flemish society (Seghers, Meganck & Scheerder, 2013). In 2009, for example, more than five million people below the age of eighteen years old were subscribed to some kind of sporting club in Flanders (Seghers et al., 2013) and involvement in these clubs is something upon which the Flemish government places a lot of emphasis. In fact, in the 1990s the government saw sport as an ideal way to ‘integrate’ newcomers into Flemish society, although the discourse has since changed from focusing on ‘integration’ to ‘participation’ of vulnerable groups (Philippaerts, 2011). However, there are multiple external variables that influence the level of participation of young people in these sorts of leisure clubs. Children whose parents are highly educated and/or earn a high income for example are more likely to be enrolled. The social network of children and parents also plays a role, in that the more people in leisure clubs you know, the greater the chance you will be involved (Vandermeerschen, Vos & Scheerder, 2015).
To tackle the different factors that prevent young people from engaging in sporting clubs, the Flemish government introduced the concept of 'Ethically Responsible Sporting' (Ethisch Verantwoord Sporten) in 2009. The clubs were asked to invest in six themes: Children rights within sport, inclusion, respect for diversity, fair play, the physical and psychical integrity of the individual and solidarity (Seghers et al., 2013). Whilst the vast majority of clubs readily acknowledged the need to work on this themes, only a few were actually able to act on them, with many clubs complaining about a lack of expertise to find solutions to these issues or government failure to give them sufficient guidance. Of all the themes, inclusion was the one which the clubs failed address the most and in 2013, only one fourth of clubs studied reported to have taken action in this field (Seghers et al., 2013).
It is not however just sporting clubs facing these issues, and whilst there is a dearth of information on the topic in a Belgian context, international research demonstrates that there is a strong connection between ethnicity, social class and participation in all kinds of leisure activities. There is clear evidence to suggest that people from minority groups tend to be less involved in organised leisure activities. (Marshall et al., 2007; Allison, 2000)
Our search for an organisation that was trying to combat these tendencies and encourage the involvement of newcomers in leisure activities brought us to OKAN-MijnLeuven. This organisation aims to include non-Dutch speaking newcomers into the existing leisure activities of Leuven. In a way it is a transit organisation: through OKAN-MijnLeuven young newcomers are able to get in touch with existing leisure organisations in the community. We found the principle of OKAN-MijnLeuven very interesting and valuable for our research but decided to focus on organisations who were not leading youth to other organisations, but were trying to include them within their own activities, but in a mixed group setting. Instead of focussing on an organisation that was trying to open up other existing structures, we wanted to research those organisations that explicitly aim to be open, to be laagdrempelig. The fieldwork and the conducted interviews with the professionals of Okan-MijnLeuven were however used to better get to know the mechanisms that are at play when looking at the level of participation of diverse groups in the context of Flemish leisure organisations.
Our conversations with the experts at our supporting actor taught us that clubs in Flanders are still struggling to include young people from more diverse or challenging backgrounds. Bruno even went as far as to describe the organisers at a lot of clubs as 'dinosaurs', older people who either fail or refuse to acknowledge the diverse society we now live in. By not actively searching to include the youth living next doors, the clubs are becoming unrepresentative of Flemish society today.
Our research is on the organisers at two organisations, that are trying to face these issues. They are trying to tackle the different barriers that come across by holding people from diverse backgrounds back from taking part in leisure activities. They want to be laagdrempelig and are thereby willing to offer chances to everybody who might be interested in taking part.
This context of a Flemish leisure landscape trying to be open to diverse groups but failing to do so, proves the relevance of our study. Through focussing on the methods and practices of the organisers who specifically aim to be laagdrempelig, we will contribute to a better understanding of open, inclusive leisure activities in Flanders.