Life Skills v Life Spaces in Sports and Development Work
The above image is from America Scores Bay Area affiliate and their 'Asphalt to Turf Campaign.' I first read about the initiative in Soccer America, and though I don't know much about the specifics I like the concept. America Scores is an interesting organization that tries to use soccer and writing as part of a vision to inspire "urban youth to lead healthy lives, be engaged students, and have the confidence and character to make a difference in the world." Nothing wrong with that in the abstract, but I do worry some about how that gets translated into practice--which, in the world of Sports for Development and Peace (SDP) and Sports-Based Youth Development (SBYD) Programs too often means a focus on 'life skills' rather than 'life spaces.'
The rhetoric of teaching 'life skills' is pervasive in youth sports programs, a modern proxy for the (disproven?) idea that 'sports builds character.' The idea of 'life spaces' is just me playing with language to try to come up with a pithy alternative. So I don't actually know of anyone that uses it in the way I mean it here: as an objective for sports and development work focused on providing opportunities, resources, and spaces that allow people to cultivate their own versions of 'life skills' and enhance their own community life. Because to me the problem with the pervasive emphasis in sports and development programs on developing 'life skills' is the implicit assumption that the problems of inequality are about psychological characteristics. The implicit logic seems to be that if poor and marginalized groups just developed high self-esteem, teamwork, or any of the other 'life skills' popularly (but erroneously?) associated with sports participation then they would be on their way up the socio-economic ladder. As it turns out, however, it is not entirely clear that 'life skills' are deficient in marginalized communities (depending on how we define 'life skills' they are often likely higher). And focusing on 'life skills' may serve to distract us from focusing on more serious structural inequalities such as access to quality schools, health care, child care, living wage jobs, and safe spaces for leisure and community.
Which takes me off my rant and back to the America Scores 'Asphalt to Turf Campaign' -- which strikes me as the relatively rare sports and development initiative that prioritizes providing 'life spaces' over proselytizing 'life skills.' Their brief fund-raising video even makes a nice case for why field space matters (though it also implicitly highlights the fact that even without safe spaces to play there is no deficiency of play in marginalized communities). I should emphasize here that I don't necessarily think 'life skills' are a bad thing--we all need to develop and cultivate personal traits the allow us to adapt and thrive. I even think that in the right context, with the right people and the right resources, sports programs can facilitate the development of 'life skills.' I just worry that a disproportionate focus on 'life skills' in sports and development work too often comes at the expense of attending to the importance of 'life spaces.' So programs like this help allay my worries.
(unfortunately, in this case, I also have a more pragmatic worry that those fields they are building are just too small...but I suppose that would require a different post...)