Abstract
The Sport for Development (SfD) framework understands sport as a tool for social and community development, and considerable attention has been paid to the notion of using sport as a vehicle for building social capital among disadvantaged groups. The chapter aims to encourage critical debate relating to social capital.
In particular, it explores to what extent development programmes at the community level assist in fostering the social capital of young women and girls. The exploration of outcomes of the initiatives was carried out through ethnographic research and interviews with representatives and female participants of a grassroots SfD organisation in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
The findings suggest that while more systemic and palpable structural changes were not experienced by the project participants and that access to the broader social benefits is gendered, young women enjoyed the programme's sporting opportunities, created new friendships, and gained skills through their sport participation. This study also suggests that although the wider gender inequalities limit how young women can be involved in, benefit from, and increase their social capital through participation in the SfD programmes, the findings revealed sports programmes' potential for greater positive outcomes in the future.