Miscommunication in Sport for Development and Peace Programs

• In Event: 41.083 - Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: 41.083-23 - Perspectives in Peace Education

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a phenomenon by which SDP (Sport for Development and Peace) programs' participants exert dramaturgical energy to gain short term benefits but at a price of not communicating discrepancies in goals and practices. Thus, high ideals of peace, co-existence and development are lowered to a mere token of recreational sport. This dynamic is demonstrated through a qualitative analysis of a politically sensitive Jewish-Arab SDP case in Israel. If SDP programs' potential for peace education is to be realized fully we need more qualitative research of the multitude meaning making processes within these programs, uncover deep-seated hidden discrepancies regarding goals and practices and devise frameworks for discussing them constructively.

Author

• Hillel Wahrman, Oranim Academic College of Education