Despite the many benefits of club-organized sports participation for children, sports participation is lower among children from low-income families than among those from middle- or high-income families. Social safety experienced by parents from low-income families is an important facilitator for parents to request financial support for their children’s sports participation. Therefore, the first aim of this study was to better understand parental social (un)safety in the context of acquiring financial support for children’s sports participation and how to create a safe social environment for low-income parents to request and receive this financial support. The second aim was to describe the co-creation process, which was organized to contribute to social safety solutions. To reach these goals, we applied a participatory action research method in the form of four co-creation sessions with professionals and an expert-by-experience, as well as a group interview with parents from low-income families. The data analysis included a thematic analysis of the qualitative data. The results showed that from the perspective of parents, social safety encompassed various aspects such as understandable information, procedures based on trust, and efficient referral processes. Sport clubs were identified as the primary source of information for parents. Regarding the co-creation process, the study found that stakeholders tended to overestimate parental social safety levels. Although the stakeholders enjoyed and learned from the sessions, differences in prior knowledge and a lack of a shared perspective on the purpose of the sessions made it challenging to collaboratively create solutions. The study’s recommendations include strategies for increasing parental social safety and facilitating more effective co-creation processes. The findings of this study can be used to inform the development of interventions that contribute to a social environment in which parents from low-income families feel safe to request and receive financial support for their children’s sports participation.
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Research to indicators to build a typology of virtual communities in organized sports.
For twenty years, typical outdoor lifestyle sports like rafting, snowboarding and rock climbing, which used to be exclusively practised in natural environments, are being offered in controlled artificial settings. This process can be described as 'the indoorisation of outdoor sports'. With this development, questions of authenticity arise. Are these new, commercial forms still authentic lifestyle sports? And can we consider the participants in these indoorised lifestyle sports as authentic? There has been a discussion about authenticity in lifestyle sports since its worldwide popularisation and it is worth to reconsider this discussion against the background of new, commercial versions of lifestyle sports. Therefore, in this paper a qualitative analysis is offered about the consumption of a constructed authenticity in a cultural context increasingly characterized by artificialization.
Het doel van het project is om inzicht te krijgen in praktische en commerciële haalbaarheid rondom de Aquabooster van het bedrijf Wabbi dat eigendom is van studentondernemer Faik Durmus. Het onderzoek waaruit de Aquabooster is ontstaan is gedaan door studenten van de opleiding Biologie en Medisch Laboratoriumonderzoek aan de Saxion Hogeschool. Daarmee borduurt dit project voort op praktijkgericht onderzoek vanuit een kennisinstelling. De Aquabooster is het enige product van het bedrijf Wabbi. De Aquabooster reinigt herbruikbare flessen (zoals de Dopper®) van consumenten met als doel de levensduur te verlengen en de afvalberg te verlagen. Hiermee hoopt Wabbi bij te dragen aan SDG12: ‘Responsible consumption and production’. De belangrijkste projectactiviteiten om het doel te realiseren omvatten: a. Het bouwen van meerdere prototypes; b. Validatie van de prototypes in relevante fieldlabs teneinde feedback uit de markt te krijgen; c. Onderzoek naar Intellectueel Eigendom; d. Schrijven van een businessplan. Deze activiteiten moeten er toe leiden dat er een beeld ontstaat over de potentie van Wabbi met haar Aquabooster. Het project duurt 9 maanden en het budget bedraagt conform begroting €40.000. De projectpartners zijn: Wabbi, Het Saxion Centrum voor Ondernemerschap (penvoerder), de lectoraten Mechatronica en Industrial Design en een partner ten aanzien van het onderzoek naar Intellectueel Eigendom (wordt nog gezocht). Aanvullend worden studenten ingezet om feedback uit de markt te krijgen en deelsystemen te ontwikkelen.
