Sport Without Stereotypes

Background The project was born from a consortium of highly specialised subjects on sport, youth and gender issues, focusing on a particularly underestimated issue, namely that of gender discrimination based on sexist stereotypes that typically affect the choice and practice of sports towards young. The topic was addressed by a highly qualified partnership made up of universities, sports associations, youth associations and entities engaged in pedagogical research. Objectives The objective was to create a methodologically based tool to allow sports associations to carry out a self-assessment with respect to their gender sensitivities and the practices implemented to fight against sexist stereotypes at all levels: internal organisation; roles and responsibilities; external communication; train the trainers continuous activities, etc. A set of collateral tools and extensive promotion and dissemination activities were further conducted. Implementation The project took place as planned from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2023.Despite taking place during the pandemic period and being affected by further lockdown situations, the project was carried out excellently, reaching all the expected objectives. In some cases it was necessary to internally reassign the tasks assigned to the various partners to rebalance the workload. Some human resources were replaced or added during the project in order to guarantee the highest quality of the staff. Achievements Compared to existing tools, the SWOST self Assessment tool was based on extremely in-depth preliminary research and analysis work and is now able to guarantee an excellent variety of results as demonstrated by the important piloting work conducted during the project. Today a self-assessment tool in 9 European languages is available free of charge to all sports associations aimed at evaluating their gender practices and acquiring information and guidance to improve their future policies.