Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Lines

39

States that ‘when social cohesion is defined it is often conflated with individual-focused ideas about social capital’ . This statement needs to be clarified. What do the authors see as the difference between social cohesion and social capital? This is necessary as throughout the text processes are referred to which could easily be viewed as elements of social capital eg 313 ‘networks of mutual support’; 413 bridging capital 419 mutual help

81 and many other places.

Reference is made to ‘social relations’ as a core component of social cohesion (it is also central to social capital!). This is a generic term (which underpins much sociology) what is it about social relations which is significant? Its use throughout is descriptive and not analytical

446 ‘the development of social relations’ – what does this mean? What type of social realations?

There is conceptual ambiguity throughout – 432-433 social cohesion and social inclusion

115

What are the ‘structural components’ referred to? An illustration is required.

129

Reference is made to the ‘European Social Cohesion Project’. How was social cohesion defined in this project?

170-186

Use of the first person singular ‘I’ This is most unusual – what is the journal’s policy?

475 ‘I’ve’

196-197

Same as above – use of ‘me’ and ‘my’

Data Analysis

This would be improved by outlining Reflexive Thematic Analysis earlier- immediately it is referred to. Also, it states that it has 6 steps, but only 5 are illustrated.

299

‘transfer of social cohesion outcomes’. The precise meaning of this is unclear. There sems to be a displacement of scope in this analysis with no explanation how individual outcomes (micro level) can be transferred to the meso level

479

‘The organisation have adopted a fairly consistent view or definition of social cohesion’. It would assist the reader if this was outlined here.

485

Expect individuals to take responsibility for social cohesion’ What does this mean? What do the organisations expect individuals to do? Clarification is required.

505

 

What activities were ‘aimed at working beyond the individual level’?

Author Response

Please see attached file. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. It addresses an important subject and the effort to understand constructions of social cohesion from the ‘inside’ of particular sport-based projects is welcome.

 

The introduction is clear, well-written and draws on relevant sources. You state three research questions clearly. However, I am not sure that the article, in its current form, allows you to answer all of them. To take the first RQ first, although you do discuss the possibility of comparability and/or transferability later in the article, you do not set out clearly how far we can take the understandings of people within these three programmes to stand for ‘how social cohesion [is] understood within European sport for social cohesion programmes’. More specific discussion here is needed (more on this below). When it comes to RQ2 and RQ3, you do discuss both these aspects in your findings and discussion. However, you do not organise your findings and discussion sections around them. As it is, you mix up general comments from interviews about social cohesion, phrases from programme handbooks and presentations and observations of activities. This all adds to the richness of the findings, but it is not organised in a way that relates clearly back to your questions (again – more on this below).

 

Section 2 provides some useful background and draws on relevant sources. However, given that your article emphasises the lack of clarity in current uses of the term social cohesion, I would have expected a much more detailed section here. Although you do offer a critique of existing conceptualisation (or lack of conceptualisation), this is very general. There are no specific definitions here that you then pick apart. You do not contrast and compare specific definitions/conceptualisations of the term, in order to offer a very detailed picture. More precision here would strengthen your case and allow you to make a clearer contribution at the end of the article.

 

Section 3 is well written and clear. However, the final paragraph, where you discuss the possible transferability of the findings requires more elaboration. This relates to the comments on Section 2. Given that one of the main premises of your article is that there is fuzziness and a lack of precision around the term and concept of social cohesion, you need to work very hard to make sure you are as clear and precise as possible when claiming to provide more clarity. As you yourself note, these programmes are in different countries and in different settings. How exactly do they differ from one another? Are we to assume that the general identification of three main themes across three different programmes in three different countries stands for a general understanding of the term/concept? Of course, it is a challenge to make claims about transferability, but more precise discussion here and at the end would help. Otherwise, it is questionable whether you can be said to have answered RQ1.

 

Section 4 is detailed and useful. Although it is very helpful to the reader to have such a detailed methodology, I wonder if you could make some of this a bit more concise. I say this only in case you need to make changes and add material elsewhere in the article. Often reviewers suggest adding material without suggesting areas you could reduce. To me, this is a candidate section for (slight) contraction.

 

Section 5 is interesting. It is tricky to make comments here, because you need to maintain a balance between exploring nuance and differences and identifying the major common themes. This relates to the comments about Section 3, i.e., where you introduce the programmes. At the moment, the findings section collects together interview quotes, observations and snippets from programme documents in relation to each of the three main themes. This suggests a more-or-less cohesive picture among all three programmes and all those sources. That is to say, the emphasis in your findings is the commonality among programmes. You do note there are some differences, but you do not explore these systematically. Presumably, your analysis suggested the common picture was more apparent than a large variety of slightly differing understandings of social cohesion. In this sense, the three themes dominate as the structuring elements of your analysis. This generally works well and you write a convincing narrative to present and link them. However, as noted earlier, this does not quite ‘match’ with your research questions, in that you do not clearly and separately address the practices and activities and then the assumptions. Perhaps you could either reformulate your research questions, so there is more coherence across the article, or specifically address them in your discussion. In addition, within Section 5, it would make sense to note the role of the person when quoting directly. This saves flicking back up to the table to find out who is talking.

 

Section 6 pulls the threads together well. As noted above in relation to Section 5, you may wish to more explicitly address your RQs here (unless you opt to reformulate them slightly). In addition, you could offer some more specific examples in some of the discussion. One of the major points you wish to make in the article is that current programmes are too focused on individual-level understandings of social cohesion and individual-level activities. The paragraph on page 11, line 511 to 533, discusses the need for more structural approaches. This is welcome. However, at the moment, it is very general and quite abstract. What could programmes actually do? Currently, you suggest they could ‘interrogate and foreground power relations in policy and practice’ and ‘understand how those receiving funding reflect on, adjust to and challenge the assumptions embedded within these funding programmes and associated policies’. But in a more tangible way, what could they do? More specific discussion of more structural approaches to addressing a lack of social cohesion would really help.

 

Overall, the article is well conceived and well written. It draws on relevant sources and makes a convincing argument that there is currently a broadly individual-level understanding of social cohesion (and associated activities), whereas a more structural understanding (and associated activities) would help. More precision around all this would really strengthen the paper – more precision around existing conceptualisations and your critique, the extent to which your findings are transferable and what a more structural approach would look like in practice.

 

Minor notes:

 

p. 2, line 54: Insert (1) before ‘how is social cohesion understood’

p. 4, line 184: typo – remove the number 7

p. 7, line 302: typo – change cobmine to combine

Author Response

Please see attached file. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The changes are appropriate and acceptable

Author Response

Thank you for the prompt and positive feedback!