Stratified Sports for All

This chapter unpacks the conceptual underpinnings of sports development policy – or “Sports for All” within the Flemish (Belgium) context. It illustrates how a policy designed to promote sports participation, particularly among underrepresented groups, paradoxically maintains exclusionary practices. By applying decolonial theory, we critique the role of the social sportscape in reinforcing social hierarchies through hegemonic discourses that focus on assimilation rather than transformation. This critique highlights how the policy framework, often framed as neutral, reproduces colonial structures by positioning “disadvantaged” communities as the “Other’ in need of adaptation. Through the adopted decolonial lens, this chapter concludes with avenues to rethink and reform the current sports development policy framework, ideology, and discourse.