Professor Tess Kay

International Presentations and Invitations

• 'Researching sport and development: beyond M+E’; Keynote presentation to the Power of Sport International Conference, Boston June 2010
• Member, Committee of the International Sport for Development and Peace Association
• Visiting lecturer, Griffiths University, Brisbane and La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, 2010
• 'Integration and Migration - Gymnastics and Sports with and for Immigrants’; Keynote to the 1st International Sports Science Congress of the German Gymnastics Federation (DTB), Frankfurt, June 2009
• Hallman Visiting Professor, Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, Canada April 2009

Additional Academic Activities

Editorial board membership:

• International Journal of Sports Policy
• European Physical Education Review
• World Leisure

External examiner roles:

• Edinburgh University – BA (Hons) Sport and Recreation Management
• Birmingham University, 2010, PhD.
• University of Leicester, 2009
• University of Waterloo, Ontario 2009
• Brunel University, 2008

Research Interests

I joined the School of Sport and Education at Brunel in September 2010 after several years as a sports academic at Loughborough University. I am a multi-disciplinary social scientist who has been working in sport and leisure research since the 1980s. My primary focus is on the experiences of individuals and social groups, and much of my work addresses aspects of disadvantage and exclusion - initially in the UK and Europe, and more recently in international development contexts. Over the course of my career I have had the opportunity to undertake a broad range of sports research, and also to participate in a wider range of studies within the social sciences. This has included several years working in comparative European social policy research, and also longstanding involvement in the international leisure studies research community. The majority of my research reflects this background, and addresses social policy agendas that stretch beyond sport to include issues such as multiculturalism, health and well-being, and education. I enjoy the opportunity to work with academics and policymakers in multidisciplinary collaborations to address research issues within and around sport.

For the last six years my primary focus has been on youth sport, including analysis of young people’s sport in the context of their family circumstances. I have led more than 30 projects in the area of young people and physical activity, youth sport volunteering, girls and sport, sport and youth inclusion, and support for talented young performers, and have undertaken a number of national and international evaluations for policymakers. These projects have been undertaken for a wide range of funding agencies including national sports agencies, government departments and commercial sponsors - e.g. the Department for Education, the Department of Culture Media and Sport, Youth Sport Trust, the European Social Fund, Nike, sportscotland, Sport England and UK Sport. Within youth sport my personal specialist areas are (i) sport and family, (ii) sport, poverty and exclusion, and (iii) sport and international development. Since 2007 I have been especially involved in researching the use of sport in international development contexts, and have received more than £300,000 from UK Sport, British Council, UNICEF and the European Union for research in Brazil, India, the West Indies and Zambia. As with my UK and European research, my focus is on sport within its wider context, including whether and how sport can contribute to the Millennium Development Goals of raising education levels, addressing gender inequity, and countering the HIV-AIDS pandemic.

Research Centre

Publications

Journal Papers

(2012) Kay, T., Accounting for legacy: the role of monitoring and evaluation in sport in international development, Sport in society 15 (6) : 888- 904

(2012) Kay, T. and Spaaij, R., The mediating effects of family on sport in international development contexts, International Review for the Sociology of Sport 47 (1) : 77- 94

(2009) Kay, TA., Developing through sport: Evidencing sport impacts on young people, Sport in Society 12 (9) : 1177- 1191

(2009) Kay, T. and Bradbury, S., Youth sport volunteering: developing social capital?, SPORT EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 14 (1) : 121- 140