Chapter 1. Ethnicity and membership in Dutch amateur football 11 which in turn constrain the opportunities for mixing through organized sports. Additionally, sports may themselves be used by participants as an ethnic marker. For example, Allison (1982) suggests that ethnic minorities in the United States participate in sports in a way that fits and reinforces their particular ethnic identities rather than suppressing them. Thirdly, organized sports may also act as arenas for interethnic tensions and conflict. When questioned, ten percent of players in sports clubs reported to have either experienced of witnessed discrimination based on skin colour, culture or religion (Schipper-van Veldhoven & Steenbergen, 2015). Additionally, studies by Van Slobbe (2019) and Krouwel et al. (2006) have demonstrated that ethnic differences can provide a basis for aggression or even violence within and between sports clubs. Furthermore, an extensive body of literature has time and time again affirmed what has become known as the homophily principle. This principle dictates that people who are similar are far more likely to form and maintain ties with each other, especially with regard to ethnic background (McPherson et al., 2001). Given that sports clubs are voluntary associations and homophily seems to have an especially pronounced effect on membership ties in civil society (McPherson et al., 2001), there is strong reason to believe that ethnic background at least partly acts as a social fault line in organized sports. Sports clubs may thus not be such unproblematic sites for interethnic mixing after all. Ethnic groups can experience barriers to participate in organized sports, and ethnic diversity in clubs, especially when forced, may put memberships under strain, resulting in weaker and more fleeting ties. This can have adverse consequences for sports clubs because they ultimately depend heavily on members’ willingness to continuously invest time and resources in the organization. 1.2 Aims and research question Up until now, researchers have predominantly studied the interrelations between ethnic background and sports club membership qualitatively. This has yielded rich and valuable insights in, for example, how in certain contexts ethnicity may shape members’ experiences and relations, or how sports clubs may deal with the inclusion or exclusion of members with different backgrounds. A limited number of quantitative studies have explored ethnic differences in sports participation and
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw