FDY3004
Advancing Your Academic Skills
Portfolio
Date for Submission: Please refer to iLearn for date of submission
(The submission portal on iLearn will close at 14:00 UK time on the date of submission)
Assessment Brief
As part of the formal assessment for the module Advancing your Academic Skills, you are required to submit the assessment that is described in this assessment brief.
Learning Outcomes:
After completing the module, you should be better able to:
1. Use appropriate language and structures when composing common academic texts
2. Write from academic sources with confidence, adhering to the values associated with academic integrity
3. Demonstrate the ability to interpret numerical data when presented within a subjectspecific context
4. Graduate Attribute 4: ‘Professionally knowledgeable in the subject area’. Describe key academic conventions that are associated with their subject area and discipline.
All learning outcomes must be met to pass the module.
Guidance
Your assignment should include a title page containing your student number, the module name, the submission deadline, the exact word count of your submitted document, the appendices, if relevant, and a reference list (see referencing section for more information). You should address all the elements of the assignment task listed below. Please note that tutors will use the assessment criteria below to assess your work.
You must not include your name in your submission because Arden University operates anonymous marking, which means that markers should not be aware of the identity of the student. However, please do not forget to include your STU number.
Maximum word count: 2000 words
Please refer to the full word count policy, which can be found in the Student Policies section here: Arden University | Regulatory Framework.
Please note the following: Students are required to indicate the exact word count on the title page of the assessment.
The word count includes everything in the main body of the assessment (including in text citations and references). The word count excludes numerical data in tables, figures, diagrams, footnotes, reference list and appendices. All other printed words ARE included in the word count.
Students who exceed the wordcount up to a 10% margin will not be penalised. Students should note that no marks will be assigned to work exceeding the specified limit once the maximum assessment size limit has been reached.
Assessment Overview
This assessment requires you to practice the research, reading and writing you will do throughout your degree. In summary, you will need to:
• Read at least 3 sources of information provided to you on a given topic
• Write an academic response to a question on the given topic
• Refer to the 3 sources in your written response, adhering to standards of academic integrity (applying AU Harvard Referencing)
Aims of the assessment
We are assessing your ability to read, understand and then respond to these sources in your own words, writing in the academic style you have learned on this module. It is crucial that you
a) use the sources we provide to you to learn about the topic and then answer the question and
b) write in your own words, paraphrasing and summarising the key ideas you have taken from the sources.
You can find the sources in the module iLearn site, under the ‘My Assessment’ tab and at the end of the assignment brief.
Assessment Tasks:
Portfolio Task A: Essay (1500 words) (LOs 1, 2 and 3)
Social Sciences Pathway:
Referring to the viewpoints expressed in the three sources in the given source pack, write a short essay answering this question:
• To what extent does sport unify people?
Leadership and Technology Pathway:
Referring to the viewpoints expressed in the three sources in the given source pack, write a short essay answering this question:
• To what extent is hybrid-working beneficial to employees?
In Task A, you must answer one of the two questions provided above. It is advised that you respond to the assignment question relating to your Foundation Year pathway. You must present your essay according to the structure and academic writing skills you have developed throughout the module. This includes:
• Providing an introduction, main body and conclusion
• Using the ‘PEEL’ method (Point, Evidence, Explain, Link)
• Referring to, interpreting and evaluating numerical data to develop your argument as per LO3 in the Assessment Criteria
• Paraphrasing and summarising information from sources
• Using linking words
• Using cautious language (or ‘hedging’)
• Referencing and citation in line with AU Harvard
You must also:
• Refer to the three mandatory sources in the relevant source pack provided in the appendix and on iLearn under the ‘My Assessment’ tab.
• Provide in-text citations and full references for all sources in AU Harvard Referencing Style.
Portfolio Task B: Commentary (500 words) (LOs 1 and 4)
In this task, you will comment on the development of your academic writing skills. To complete this task, follow these steps:
1. Choose one paragraph from your Task A essay that you believe best demonstrates two writing skills taught on the module (see list below)
2. Copy and paste the paragraph so that it is the first paragraph of your Task B response. This does not contribute to the word count of your submission.
Then, refer to your example paragraph to comment on how you use these two writing skills.
Choose two writing skills from the list below:
• Using the ‘PEEL’ method (Point, Evidence, Explain, Link)
• Presenting and interpreting numerical data
• Paraphrasing and summarising information from sources
• Using linking words
• Using cautious language
Guidance
✓ You can use the personal pronoun ‘I’ in your commentary.
✓ Make the commentary personal to you. How have your writing skills developed throughout the module and writing your essay?
✓ Refer to the assessment criteria on pages 11 and 12 of the brief.
You do not need to provide further academic sources in your commentary.
3. Provide a full reference list at the end of your assignment in alphabetical order by surname.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. When is the deadline for the assignment?
Please check the ‘My Assessment’ tab of your module on iLearn for the assignment deadline.
2. What do I include on the first page of my assignment?
Include a cover page. Download the cover page template on iLearn under the ‘My Assessment’ tab. Complete it and add it to the first page of your assignment.
3. Do I include my name?
No, do not include your name. Include your STU number on the cover page.
4. Do I need to answer every task in the assignment brief?
Yes, you must attempt every task.
5. How do I submit my formative draft assignment?
Submit your assignment as a Microsoft Word document to the FORMATIVE submission portal on iLearn under the ‘My Assessment’ tab of the relevant module.
6. How do I submit my formative draft assignment?
Submit your assignment as a Microsoft Word document to the FINAL submission portal on iLearn under the ‘My Assessment’ tab of the relevant module.
7. What file format should my assignment be?
Upload your assignment as a Word document (.docx).
8. Do I include the word count on the cover page?
Yes, provide the exact word count of your final submission.
9. What exactly is included in the word count?
The word count includes all text in the main body of the submission. This includes titles, headings, subheadings and in-text citations.
10. What exactly is not included in the word count?
The cover page and reference list are not included in the word count. The example paragraph of your work used in Task B is also not included.
11. How is my work assessed?
A lecturer will assess your work using the Assessment Criteria. Read these criteria carefully to understand how your work is assessed.
12. Can I apply for an extension?
Yes, you can apply for a 7-day extension. If you need longer, you will need to apply for extenuating circumstances. Access extension forms under ‘E’ of the A-Z key information on iLearn.
13. Can I resubmit my assessment if I fail?
Yes, you will need to resubmit your assignment if you fail. Read Lesson 10 on your module’s iLearn page for further information.
14. What happens if I commit academic misconduct?
If your assignment is referred for academic misconduct, you may be invited to attend an interview with an Academic Integrity Officer to discuss the allegation. For further information on the consequences of academic misconduct, refer to Arden’s Academic Integrity and Misconduct Policy.
Assignment Checklist
Use the checklist below in preparation to submit your work.
Task A: Essay (1500 words) (LOs 1, 2 and 3) Yes No
Have I included an introduction, main body paragraphs and a conclusion?
Have I referred to the viewpoints expressed in the three sources in the given source pack?
Have you presented and interpreted numerical data?
Have you provided in-text citations and full references for all sources in AU Harvard Referencing Style?
Have you presented your essay according to the structure and academic writing features given in Task A?
Task B: Commentary (500 words) (LOs 1 and 4) Yes No
Have I copied and pasted one paragraph from my Task A essay to comment on in Task B?
Have I commented on the development of two writing skills listed in Task B?
Have I included a full reference list in alphabetical order by surname?
Final Check Yes No
Have I edited my submission and proofread for punctuation, grammar and spelling mistakes?
Have I included a completed cover page?
Have I uploaded my submission as a Microsoft Word document to the correct module submission portal on iLearn?
Final portfolio submission
Assessments submitted late will not be accepted.
Please submit your assignment as a Word document to the ‘Assignment’ submission portal available under the ‘My Assessment’ tab on iLearn. A template is provided on the module iLearn site.
(Please ensure you DO NOT submit your final assessment to a ‘formative (draft)’ portal).
You must ensure that the submitted assessment is all your own work and that all sources used are correctly attributed. Penalties apply to assessments that show evidence of unfair academic practice. (See the Student Handbook which is available on the A-Z key information on iLearn.)
If submitting multiple files, you must name each document as the question/part you are answering along with your student number, i.e. Task A STUXXXX. If you wish to overwrite your submission or one of your submissions, you must ensure that your new submission has exactly the same file name as the previous one for the system to overwrite it.
Assessment Support
We strongly encourage you to engage with our assessment support options as you work through your assessment task(s):
• View the week 10 iLearn lesson ‘General Assessment Advice and Guidance’ (for information about resits, extensions and extenuating circumstances)
• Book a tutorial with a Foundation Year lecturer
• Academic Skills Team – book an appointment with a tutor here
• Academic Skills Team – book a workshop
• Academic Skills Team – view resources
• For support with English language, visit the English Language Hub
Formative Feedback
You can submit a full/partial draft of your work for formative feedback in Week 4 (Blended Learning) or Week 5 (Distance Learning) to the correct formative assessment portal on iLearn. The formative assessment portal is located under the ‘My Assessment’ tab and is ‘red’ labelled ‘formative assignment’. Please DO NOT submit your final assignment to this portal.
Formative tasks give you the opportunity to check your understanding of key concepts, and therefore help you prepare for the final portfolio submission.
Your lecturer will provide verbal/written feedback to help you improve your assessment.
Assessment Criteria: FDY3004 Advancing Your Academic Skills
Level 3
Level 3 prepares students to function effectively at Level 4. Criteria for assessment at Level 3 reflect the preparatory nature of these modules. Students are expected to demonstrate the acquisition of generic learning skills appropriate for self-managed learning in an HE context. Students are expected to demonstrate that they have acquired the underpinning discipline-specific skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to undertake a programme of higher education.
Band and Categorical Marks
Outstanding 80+
(85 / 90 / 95 / 100)
Excellent 70 – 79
(72 / 75 / 78)
Very Good 60 – 69
(62 / 65 / 68)
Good 50 – 59
(52 / 55 / 58)
Satisfactory 40 – 49 (42 / 45 / 48)
Marginal Fail 30 – 39 (32 / 35 / 38)
Fail < 29
(0 / 5 / 15 / 20 / 25)
Task A: Essay (1500 words) (LOs 1, 2 and 3)
LO1: Use appropriate language and structures when composing common academic texts An outstanding use of language and structures appropriate to an academic essay. There is an outstanding use of sentence functions and a varied and nuanced use of linking words and cautious language. The register is fully
academic throughout and outstandingly clear to understand. An excellent use of language and structures appropriate to an academic essay. There is excellent use of sentence functions and a varied and nuanced use of linking words and cautious language. The register is almost fully academic throughout and excellently clear to understand. A very good use of language and structures appropriate to an academic essay. There is very good use of sentence functions, a wide variety of linking words and cautious language. The register is generally academic throughout and generally very clear to understand. A good use of language
and structures appropriate to an academic essay. There is good use of sentence functions, a variety of linking words and cautious language. The register is somewhat academic throughout, though there are
numerous lapses. The text is clear to und A satisfactory use of language and structures appropriate to an academic essay. There is satisfactory use of appropriate sentence functions, linking words and some cautious language. There is some use of academic register, and the text is generally clear to understand. A limited use of language and structures appropriate to an academic essay. There is limited use of appropriate sentence functions, linking words and cautious language. There is limited, infrequent use of academic register, and the text is often not clear to understand. A poor composition featuring language and structures that are not appropriate to an academic essay. There is no use of appropriate functions, linking words and cautious language. The register is not academic, and the text
is not clear to understand.
LO2: Write from academic sources with confidence, adhering to the values associated
with academic integrity
(Includes referencing and citation) The essay refers to all three sources from the source pack and includes additional secondary sources. Paraphrasing and reporting verbs are used to outstanding success. The essay critically considers the sources to an outstanding degree. References and
citations fully adhere to AU Harvard. The essay refers to all three sources from the source pack and includes additional secondary sources. Paraphrasing and reporting verbs are used to excellent success. The essay critically considers the sources to an excellent degree. References and citations almost entirely adhere to AU Harvard aside one or two errors in punctuation. The essay refers to all three sources from the source pack and more than one secondary source. Paraphrasing and reporting verbs are used to very good success. The essay critically considers the sources to a very good degree. References and citations are consistently accurate according to AU Harvard, despite minor errors. The essay refers to all three sources from the source pack and one secondary source. There is a good attempt to paraphrase, and reporting verbs are used to good success. The essay engages with the sources to a good degree. References and citations are mainly accurate according to AU Harvard, though errors persist. The essay refers to all three sources from the source pack. There is some attempt to paraphrase, though no attempt to include secondary sources. Reporting verbs are used to some success. References and citations are somewhat accurate according to AU Harvard, despite numerous errors. The essay refers to one or two sources from the source pack. There is no attempt to include secondary sources There is a limited attempt to paraphrase
and a limited demonstration of referencing and citation according to AU Harvard. There is no reference to sources from the source pack. There is no attempt to include secondary sources or paraphrase, nor any attempt to reference or cite secondary material.
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Arden University © reserves all rights of copyright and all other intellectual property rights in the learning materials and this publication. No part of any of the learning materials or this publication may be reproduced, shared (including in private social media groups), stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or means, including without limitation electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of Arden University. To find out more about the use and distribution of programme materials please see the Arden Student Terms and Conditions.
LO3: Demonstrate
the ability to interpret numerical data when presented within a subject-specific context There is an outstanding attempt to refer to numerical data. The
interpretation of data demonstrates an outstanding degree of evaluation and insight in a highly sophisticated manner. There is an excellent attempt to refer to numerical data. The
interpretation of data demonstrates an excellent degree of evaluation and insight in a sophisticated manner. There is a very good attempt to refer to numerical data. The interpretation of data demonstrates a very good degree of evaluation and insight. There is a good attempt to refer to numerical data. The interpretation of data demonstrates a good degree of evaluation, and implications of the data are considered. There is a satisfactory attempt to refer to numerical data. The data is interpreted to satisfactory success, though the interpretation lacks depth. There is a limited attempt to refer to numerical data.
However, the data is not interpreted or evaluated. There is no presentation of numerical data.
Task B: Commentary (500 words) (LOs 1 and 4)
LO1: Use appropriate language and
structures when
composing common
academic texts An outstanding use of language and structures appropriate to an academic commentary. There is an outstanding use of appropriate sentence functions, linking words and paragraphs. The commentary is very effective and provides an individual perspective in response to the task. An excellent use of language and structures appropriate to an academic commentary. There is excellent use of appropriate functions, linking words and paragraphs. The commentary is very effective and generally provides an individual perspective in response to the task. A very good use of language and structures appropriate to an academic commentary. There is very good use of appropriate sentence functions, linking words and paragraphs. The commentary is very effective in demonstrating the development of academic writing. A good use of language
and structures appropriate to an academic commentary. There is good use of appropriate sentence functions, linking words and paragraphs. The commentary is effective in demonstrating the development of academic writing. A satisfactory use of language and structures appropriate to an academic commentary. There is satisfactory use of appropriate sentence functions, linking words and paragraphs. The commentary is somewhat effective in demonstrating the development of academic writing. A limited use of language and structures appropriate to an academic commentary.
There is limited use of appropriate sentence functions, linking words and paragraphs. A poor composition featuring language and structures that are not appropriate to the academic commentary. There is no use of appropriate sentence functions, linking words and paragraphs.
LO4: Graduate Attribute 4: ‘Professionally knowledgeable in the subject area’.
Describe key academic
conventions that are associated with their subject area and discipline An outstanding description of two key
academic conventions
listed in Task B, utilising various meta-language. The commentary is highly sophisticated in exploring the implications of utilising these conventions in academic writing. There is an outstanding understanding of the development of academic conventions in the example paragraph. An excellent description of two key academic conventions listed in Task B, utilising various meta-language. The
commentary explores the implications of utilising these conventions in academic writing and demonstrates an excellent understanding of the development of academic conventions in the example paragraph. A very good description of two key academic conventions listed in Task B, utilising various meta-language such as
‘topic sentence’, ‘thesis statement’ or ‘reporting verb’. The commentary demonstrates a very good understanding of the development of academic conventions in the example paragraph. A good description of two key academic conventions listed in Task B, utilising some meta-language such as
‘topic sentence’, ‘thesis statement’ or ‘reporting verb’. The commentary is directly related to the example paragraph. A satisfactory description of two key academic conventions
listed in Task B. An example paragraph from Task A is provided, and the commentary is generally related to the example paragraph. A limited description of the key academic conventions listed in Task B. An example paragraph from Task A is provided, though the commentary is largely unrelated to the example paragraph. The commentary does not describe any key academic conventions listed in Task B. There is no example paragraph from Task A provided. The commentary is unrelated to the example paragraph.
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Arden University © reserves all rights of copyright and all other intellectual property rights in the learning materials and this publication. No part of any of the learning materials or this publication may be reproduced, shared (including in private social media groups), stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or means, including without limitation electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of Arden University. To find out more about the use and distribution of programme materials please see the Arden Student Terms and Conditions.
Arden University Generic Assessment Criteria
Level 3 prepares students to function effectively at Level 4. Criteria for assessment at Level 3 reflect the preparatory nature of these modules. Students are expected to demonstrate the acquisition of generic learning skills appropriate for self-managed learning in an HE context. Students are expected to demonstrate that they have acquired the underpinning discipline-specific skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to undertake a programme of higher education.
Grade Mark Bands Generic Assessment Criteria
First
(1) 80%+ Outstanding performance which demonstrates an outstanding knowledge base, supported with wider reading and the ability to begin to analyse the subject area. The work draws widely on relevant theory and shows awareness of any relevant ethical considerations. The work shows an outstanding level of competence and confidence in managing appropriate sources and materials, initiative and excellent academic writing skills and professional skills (where appropriate). The work is accurately and consistently referenced throughout.
70-79%
Excellent performance which demonstrates an excellent knowledge base the ability to begin to analyse the subject. The work draws on relevant theory whilst showing some awareness of any relevant ethical considerations. The work shows a high level of competence in managing sources and materials, initiative and excellent academic writing skills and professional skills (where appropriate). The work is consistently referenced throughout.
Upper second
(2:1) 60-69%
Very good performance which demonstrates a sound understanding of the content and some ability to analyse the issues with reference to theory. The work shows a very good level of competence in managing sources and materials and some initiative. Academic writing skills are very good, and expression remains accurate overall. Very good professional skills (where appropriate). The work is referenced throughout.
Lower second
(2:2) 50-59%
A good performance which shows a decent understanding of the content and makes some reference to theory. The work shows a sound level of competence in managing basic sources and materials. Academic writing skills are generally good, and expression remains accurate overall although the piece may lack structure. Good professional skills (where appropriate). There is some attempt to reference the work.
Third
(3)
40-49%
A satisfactory level of understanding in which there are some gaps in knowledge of the subject, its underpinning theory, and ethical considerations. The work shows a basic use of sources and materials. Academic writing skills are limited and there are some errors in expression and the work may lack structure overall. There are some difficulties in developing professional skills (where appropriate).
Marginal
Fail 30-39%
A limited level of knowledge in which there are clear omissions in understanding the subject, its underpinning theory, and ethical considerations. The work shows a limited use of sources and materials. Academic writing skills are weak and there are errors in expression and the work may lack structure overall. There are difficulties in developing professional skills (where appropriate).
Clear fail
29% and
Below
A poor performance in which there are substantial gaps in knowledge and understanding. The work shows little evidence in the use of appropriate sources and materials. Academic writing skills are very weak and there are numerous errors in expression. The work lacks structure overall. Professional skills (where appropriate) are not developed. The work is imitative.
Assignment Source Packs
Access the assignment source packs for each Foundation Year pathway below.
Leadership and Technology (FLT) Pathway
Source 1: ‘Hybrid working makes employees happier, healthier and more productive…’ (Campbell, 2024)
Source 2: ‘The perfectly imperfect reality of hybrid work’ (Christian, 2023) Source 3: ‘Remote Working Downsides’ (Naseer, 2023)
Social Sciences (FSS) Pathway
Source 1: ‘Sport is the most unifying tool for peace in the world’ (Lemke, 2022)
Source 2: ‘Sport and the power of conflict’ (Butterworth, 2021)
Source 3: ‘Sport, unity and conflict: an enduring social dynamic (Dolan and Connolly, 2016)
Source 1: Leadership and Technology Pathway
Hybrid working makes employees happier, healthier and more productive, study shows
Denis Campbell
Sun 16 Jun 2024 12.26 BST
Three-quarters said going back to working five days a week in an office would damage their wellbeing
Hybrid working improves job satisfaction and makes no difference to productivity, research shows. Photograph: J_art/Getty Images
Hybrid working makes employees happier, healthier and more productive, according to research among UK staff who divide their working week between home and the office.
Three-quarters of those who work flexibly found they felt less burnout than when they spent their whole week in the office.
Hybrid working brings a huge range of benefits for employees’ sleep, eating habits, stress levels and overall sense of wellbeing, according to a survey of 1,026 people who work that way.
Large majorities reported feeling less drained (79%), less stressed (78%) and less anxious (72%) as a result of spending part of the week working from home.
Meanwhile, 86% said the increase in the amount of free time they had from no longer having to travel to work every day improved their work/life balance and helped them feel they could cope better with the challenges of daily life, the International Workplace Group (IWG) survey found.
Hybrid workers cited benefits including:
• better quality of sleep (68%)
• more exercise (54%)
• healthier meal preparation (58%)
• better health overall (68%)
Three-quarters said that going back to working five days a week from a central office would damage their wellbeing.
“Little has done more over the years to depress, stress and irritate workers than the daily commute. It separates families, fractures communities, pollutes the environment and wastes vast amounts of time and money,” said Mark Dixon, IWG’s chief executive.
The research, by Mortar Research, “shows the substantial health and wellbeing benefits to those working in the hybrid model, with workers using the time saved from commuting less to enjoy an improved quality of life and work/life balance.
“Employees are now significantly healthier and happier and feel more in control of their lives.”
Crucially, the survey also found that about three in four hybrid workers felt they were more productive (74%) and more motivated (76%) because of splitting their week, while 85% said it had improved their job satisfaction.
The findings tally with research published last week in the scientific journal Nature by Nick Bloom , a Stanford University professor of economics and expert in home working.
Hybrid working improves job satisfaction, makes no difference to productivity and reduces quitting by staff – especially women, non-managers and those with a long commute – by a third, Bloom found after studying 1,612 staff at a Chinese technology company.
In addition, 395 managers in the study who were initially negative about employees working from home two days a week switched to being positive overall about it when they saw how it worked.
Dr Jen Rhymer, an expert in the future of work in University College London’s school of management, said IWG’s findings underline how “unsurprisingly, a hybrid work arrangement is the most in-demand benefit” that people request before taking a job.
“Numerous studies have demonstrated that remote and hybrid work is as or more productive than fully in-office work,” she said. “It has also been shown to improve job satisfaction and retention. Work stress and exhaustion is reduced with working from home, increased autonomy being a key factor in this.”
Organisations that offer flexible working are more likely to attract younger staff and be less affected by the labour shortages that have become common in recent years, Dixon said.
“This study also shows the vital importance of hybrid working for firms aiming to attract younger employees who favour the flexibility it offers,” he added.
“Offering a mix of remote and in-office work, companies can provide the sought-after work/life balance that enhances employee wellbeing and productivity.”
IWG are a leading provider globally of hybrid working set-ups. The 1,026 participants in their survey were representative of the UK population by region and gender.
Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, said: “Despite recent changes in legislation employers still have free rein to turn down any and all requests for flexible working. And people are often too scared to ask for flexible working at job interviews for fear of being discriminated against.”
But, he added: “Labour’s new deal for working people will strengthen flexible working rules by making flexible working a default right from day one.”
Campbell, Denis., (2024). Hybrid working makes employees happier, healthier and more productive, study shows. The Guardian [online]. 16 June 2024. Hybrid working makes employees happier, healthier and more productive, study shows | Working from home | The Guardian [Accessed 16 April 2025].
Source 2: Leadership and Technology Pathway
The permanently imperfect reality of hybrid work
Hybrid work ticks many boxes – but it’ll never be a one-sizefits-all solution for every worker and company.
fter a few years of post-pandemic confusion, the debate over return-tooffice seems to have landed on widespread hybrid work. Throughout 2023, organisations tried a largely new way of working at scale – whether that’s a common model of a fixed three days in office with two at home, or other flexible patterns.
Workers are generally in favour of hybrid work. For example, in a September 2023 survey of 2,428 global workers by employee-experience research firm Leesman, seen by the BBC, 94% reported liking hybrid working – in principle. November 2023 data, surveying 141,793 US workers, also shows employees now want to work from home an average of around 2.75 days a week, approximately only a half-day more than employers intend.
But while more workers and companies are becoming accustomed to hybrid working, some consistent issues have emerged in these nascent set-ups. Some of them may merely be teething problems, while others appear to perhaps be more systemic – and threaten to become endemic.
Old and the new
A key argument for hybrid working is that it provides in-person office days for teams to collaborate, while still offering employees the autonomy of working from home.
But that flexibility isn’t necessarily being split equally. Leesman’s data shows that mandatory office attendance skews towards younger workers. “The younger the worker, and the shorter tenure, the more likely it is they’ll have more office days than older, more experienced colleagues,” says Tim Oldman, founder and CEO of Leesman, based in London. “There’s an element of trust: the data suggests you seemingly have to ‘earn the right’ to work remotely more often.”
There can be a natural tendency for more experienced workers to be afforded greater flexibility than junior employees. But this presents challenges to the success of hybrid working writ large, says Oldman. “A strong case for in-office days is that less experienced workers are able to learn more quickly. But if their likely mentors are working from home more often, that poses a problem. So, there’s this tension between the accessibility of experienced colleagues, versus their expectation of greater
flexibility.”
There’s an element of trust: the data suggests you seemingly have to ‘earn the right’ to work remotely more often – Tim Oldman
Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager, security and collaboration, at digital communications technology firm Cisco, in California, says unless this issue with hybrid work is addressed, younger workers risk stunted career development. “It’s really important they’re mentored by seasoned employees who’ve been in the workforce for a while. But that needs to be balanced against the needs of, say, a single parent able to participate in the workforce, who would’ve previously been prohibited working in fulltime office patterns.”
While this issue can perhaps be solved by fixing teams’ in-person days, stricter protocols can lead to greater problems, says Patel. “When you begin mandating how people work, rather than what you’re working on and outputs, you run the risk of getting into a dangerous spot of making employees feel you don’t trust them.”
Consequently, some leaders are choosing to encourage employees to come to the office without necessarily enforcing attendance. This isn’t without its challenges either, says Patel.
“Rather than mandating top-down, our model is that the team is given autonomy to decide how they want to work, so they create the norms themselves. Where it can be tricky is if not enough people go in to create a network effect. Otherwise, folks may not find value in going to work.”
But it’s not just leaders encountering issues with hybrid on-the-fly – employees can be left feeling dissatisfied as well.
According to Leesman’s survey, around 40% of workers find it difficult to participate with others in hybrid meetings, whether they’re an in-person participant or virtual.
Oldman says it’s a problem that may be here for the foreseeable future. “It’s not just a software issue – most workplaces aren’t yet equipped for hybrid meetings, and making people truly feel they’re in the same meeting. The work we do has advanced so much in less than five years, but we’re still operating in offices designed for the pre-pandemic era.”
And while workers cherish flexibility, this too can sometimes come at a cost. Leesman’s data shows that workers with the fewest in-person days reported the greatest work-life balance; conversely, 42% said they feel sometimes or frequently socially disconnected from colleagues on their remote days.
“It seems the office still provides the social fabric of the organisation,” says Oldman. “It’s an issue that employers and employees will need to navigate going forward.”
Is it worth it?
A subsection of bosses remain fundamentally sceptical of hybrid working, says Johnny
C Taylor Jr, the president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), based in Washington, DC. In some cases, they may prefer their employees revert to full-time office settings – suggesting they may be ready to ditch, rather than fix, hybrid.
“CEOs have told me they’ve generally accepted that hybrid is the new way of flexibility moving forward, but they’re also frustrated by it,” says Taylor. “Some have concerns over how it affects employee experience, engagement and culture.”
Indeed, more companies, including Disney, and investment-management firm
Blackrock, are implementing four days in-office. Nike has announced it will do the same in 2024. Some experts believe executives are slowly shifting back towards full-time office returns in all but name.
CEOs have told me they’ve generally accepted that hybrid is the new way of flexibility moving forward, but they’re also frustrated by it – Johnny C Taylor Jr
But despite some frustrations, hybrid working is set to remain in the vast number of cases, given it’s now reached a critical mass, says Taylor. “The horse is out of the barn when it comes to flexibility. There is now enough of the workforce that expects hybrid arrangements, and if they’re required to go back to the office full-time, they’ll refuse – or quit.”
Tanuj Kapilashrami, chief human resources officer at Standard Chartered Bank, in London, believes many of the challenges with hybrid work can be solved. In an industry notorious for in-person working, her company took a close look at how different teams functioned. It’s been able to implement flexible working for 65,000 employees across 47 markets by analysing which roles can be done remotely, having employees submit preferences, and then tasking managers to hold one on one conversations with their direct reports before setting individual guidelines.
Kapilashrami says this set-up has helped to soothe hybrid working’s early problems. “Our approach doesn’t mean an employee wakes up and decides where they’ll be that day. Instead, through a structured framework, we can leverage data to help overcome common arguments against hybrid working – for example, we’re able to see if certain working arrangements mean someone is more likely to be promoted. It takes the emotion out of the debate.”
In total, of those able to work flexibly, 71% of Standard Chartered’s global employees choose to work hybrid, with only 2% opting to be fully remote. Kapilashrami says the best way to tackle hybrid is by taking its challenges head on. “It goes beyond hybrid being how many days a week someone works from a certain location – it’s fundamentally redesigning how people work. Flexibility is here to stay, so rather than worry about culture being eroded, it’s finding ways to make hybrid work better.”
Regardless, re-configuring decades-long working practices will require time. Oldman says we’re still in the early stages of a live global experiment: there are issues with hybrid working that will inevitably arise over time, and it’s largely too early to say which ones are truly unsolvable.
“We’re only a year into post-pandemic life in real terms, but hybrid working will have to be running decades before we’re able to learn the real impact it has on organisational culture, learning and career development,” he says. “The reality is that the work we do has advanced so much in less than five years – we’re all still playing catch-up.”
Christian, A., (2023). The permanently imperfect reality of hybrid work. BBC Worklife [online]. 11 December 2023. Available from: The permanently imperfect reality of hybrid work – BBC Worklife [Accessed 16 April 2025].
Source 3: Leadership and Technology Pathway
Remote Working Downsides
The work landscape has been remodeled with a strong orientation toward hybrid and remote work, but the switch is not without its detractors. The pros of remote working are easy to see but there are a few realities about remote working that should be considered in order to optimize the benefits for both employer and recruiter. The very rapid shift to working remotely has not, in my view, taken account of the basics of behavior. Remote and especially hybrid working can be very successful ways of organizing work; however, just doing what used to be done but moving that to being remote is not the best model, either for managers or workers.
Managing remote working means understanding a number of risks: behavioral, psychological, and organizational. This can be successfully done, but with such a dramatic shift to this style of working, this needs a lot more work to get it right.
So, what are the pitfalls with remote working? Increased use of the technology and reduced in-person contact underpin many of the behavioral changes that create potential problems. We behave very differently working from home to the way we would if we were sitting in an office with other people. A virtual office is not a real office.
It is widely acknowledged that a very significant problem could be loneliness and isolation. The very environment that is considered important to successful home working—a dedicated space without interruption from other people—could, ironically, create a sense of isolation and potentially have a negative impact on mental health. Some people deal well with being totally cut off, but most of us need to interact with others to maintain good psychological health. Interacting online cannot fully replace the genuine interaction we have when in the physical presence of colleagues. Work is where many people have the bulk of their social interactions, and with far fewer opportunities to meet people in the real world even in the years prior to Covid because of life moving increasingly online, we were already starting to feel lonelier.
The increasing prevalence of poor mental health and resilience among younger people prior to Covid was already being blamed on the growing isolation people have from each other. Increasing dependency on social media is the driver for an unrealistic image of how life is supposed to be, and this can leave people feeling inadequate and lonely. It can also lead to expectations of instant gratification and a reduced ability to deal with emotions.
If people do not have an opportunity to form real work relationships and friendships from an early stage in their career, it is far from certain that the gaps will be filled by outside work relationships and people may suffer in terms of poor mental health without even recognizing that it is because of social and work isolation.
At a time when social resiliency is ebbing, increasing remote work might further fracture bonds in a work community. For some people, having no sense of work community may be a serious detriment to mental health, perhaps only noticeable when an individual is confronted by a challenge in a work or nonwork situation. Isolation can have an insidious effect that is often not noticeable until something reminds people of how things used to be and they can compare their pre- and postisolation feelings and behavior. The inability to cope can be linked to loneliness and isolation.
This is not to say that everyone that works remotely will feel lonely or isolated, but this can become a problem even for people who initially see remote working as an ideal work scenario for themselves. Some people find that after a period of time without actively going into work and mixing with other people, they can start to behave in uncharacteristically insecure ways.
Often, you don’t know that something is wrong until you can contrast it with something better. During lockdown, when working at home became compulsory for many people, the negative side effects of working remotely gnawed away at some people without them realizing. Distress can build up over time without our conscious awareness and it is when we feel happy, or creative or positive again when we are back with other people that we can see that being cut off from work colleagues and environments may have a dark side. During lockdowns, the initial gratitude to be able to work, or to help society, was not enough to counter the natural need that we had for human companionship and connection: pretty soon many people started to get cabin fever. For people with a good social network, the impact may have been less, but for the many people living alone, or with people with whom they did not get on too well, remote working became the source of isolation and stress. Where people lived influenced the response to remote working too: if you lived in a peaceful and green area, remote working (interspersed with walks in the countryside) was probably less of a burden than for people living in a congested apartment in a dense city without access to a garden. However, whatever the character of your surroundings, working where you live, with few opportunities to physically mix with other people, could become an express route to loneliness, the hidden epidemic behind the pandemic.
It is a fact that remote work causes loneliness. In research about remote work among journalists conducted more than a decade before the pandemic, the organizational psychologist Lynn Holdsworth found that full-time telework increased loneliness over office work by 67 percent.1 In new sectors (such as working with social media) where remote work was already fairly popular before the pandemic, loneliness was already identified as a major side effect of working remotely. Loneliness can have business impacts, including employee burnout and turnover, so the implications of getting things wrong with managing remote work can be serious from both a personal and organizational perspective.
It matters whether you self-select into remote work or not. People who thrive on flexibility and have an existing active social and professional network are more likely to relish remote working than those who have not previously had the opportunity to form face-to-face relationships with colleagues. One of the main gaps is the absence of much of the regular opportunities to create a sense of belonging. When we move around a workplace, we do more than get from A to B. The paths that we take when going to get a coffee from the kitchen or on the way to a meeting create functional inconvenience that give us a chance to catch up informally with others. It is these encounters that, over time, make us all feel a bond with our colleagues. Even if we don’t really like some people, this familiarity is comforting at a deep, psychological level. Think of all the times you’ve shared a knowing look with a workmate when someone has behaved in a predictably embarrassing way, and you will understand that these acquired understandings develop over time and mean a lot. If people don’t feel a sense of belonging where they work, they are more likely to consider leaving and going elsewhere. In a world where loyalty to an employer is diminishing generally, this is another blow to the challenge of retaining the best workers.
Poorly managed, working remotely can be the slippery slope to people
“disappearing.” Being out of sight, it is very easy to be “out of mind” which carries many potential risks, from shirking work and working to a poor standard because of a lack of guidance or interest on the part of management, to serious mental health issues.
It is not impossible to build work relationships in an online-only environment; it is just a lot more difficult. Relationships are hard enough to build and maintain in traditional working environments. When relationships are moved, online relationship-building becomes very much harder. If colleagues are dotted all over the world and therefore not likely to ever meet face-toface, it is easy to see that there may emerge a hierarchy of affiliation to colleague relationships based on factors such as physical proximity that might not be great for work outcomes. The more remote we are from other people in terms of identity the more we tend to discount their views rather than respect them. This lack of empathy can be damaging both for workers and organizations.
Misunderstandings can arise when we don’t have the nonverbal cues in a conversation and remove the potential for new ideas to be sparked by face-to-face conversations. It is as well to remind ourselves of some of the reasons why people have resisted remote working in the past— the social benefits of interacting with people in the office and the risk of working long hours at home without the moderating influence of a set time to physically leave a workplace.
When you are not physically with your work colleagues, it can be difficult working out whether you can trust them. Online, most of us try and put on a professional persona and we are usually some distance from being ourselves. Of course, face-to-face, people can also hold back, but it is a lot easier to determine if someone is being genuine, if they are on our wavelength and on our side about matters than when interaction is online. Online encounters feel, by necessity, suspicious and bland. Because we tend to be more cautious online, we spend a lot of time secondguessing whether we can trust others (reinforced by general messages we internalize about the dangers of online information), so it is very hard to work out who your real allies are. Work is where we regularly need allies to back us in all sorts of scenarios, from the trivial to the important. Without the feeling of security knowing that we can rely on specific people for support brings, we are far less likely to say what we mean or take reasonable work risks. Coupled with the misunderstandings that may arise out of online messaging, you can easily see the problem of not knowing where you stand with your remote work colleagues.
Working remotely has unlocked the potential of video chat and meetings, predominantly over platforms like Zoom, Teams, or Skype. This has heralded the existence of so-called Zoom fatigue where we feel drained after a succession of video meetings. The reason for feeling so done-in is that we actually use a lot of processing power to watch and understand everything that is going on in video calls, and our brains can’t help but try and take in the huge amount of visual information present. Unconsciously “looking too hard” not only drains your brain, it can also cloud your judgment as you react to how people look rather than what they are saying. This is also a well-recognized risk in face-to-face encounters of course, and we should be using opportunities to reduce appearance bias in any way we can.
A range of other communications problems can present themselves when we switch to mainly online messaging as our main method of work communication. Team chats/Slack, and so on can become repositories of online low-level cyber-bullying when people are left out of conversations or become subject to spite, sometimes even through the use of emojis. The potential for misunderstandings in online chat can be very high, and there is a possibility that this leads to poor personal and working outcomes.
Although productivity is generally not an issue when working remotely, some people might struggle. The fundamental way we work is increasingly dependent on being multiplatform, multinetwork, and multimedia. Without proper training and management, we can fool ourselves into thinking that the more browsers we have open at once the more productive, important, and dynamic we are. This becomes an issue when working remotely as we can fall into a trap of appearing to be productive rather than actually being productive using “evidence” of having lots of tabs open and looking like we are doing “stuff.” Coincidentally, it has been proved that genuine multitasking is not possible: your brain can only focus or concentrate effectively on one thing at a time—filtering out all the other “noise.” Asking your brain to do more than this means that performance drops across all the tasks we try to do simultaneously.
Concentration is another attribute that has the potential to be profoundly affected by the switch to tech-led remote work. Technology has enabled us to access more information than ever before and zip between different information, often presented in potted snippet form, for ease of use. This conditions us to switch off and stop concentrating much sooner than with in-person events. Already our concentration has been waning as we instinctively seek out shorter and shorter ways to receive information. We tend to switch off after about 10 minutes, meaning that we struggle to maintain attention on video calls.
This brings us to the subject of validation. We need validation at work of course. Without the positive reinforcement that people get from being around other people at work, there is a risk of people clinging to the sort of validation that might result from Teams’ chat emojis rather than something more meaningful. Validation at work needs to be carefully considered so that it does not revert to a social-media scenario of anticipating and counting “likes.”
Remote work must deal with the inevitable problems that come with technology breakdown. From not being able to operate a microphone on a Zoom call to a complete hardware failure, there will regularly be IT problems. This creates stress. There are few things as stressful as being on an important call and you lose connection, even the most seasoned professional will feel some embarrassment and the repercussions could be serious work-wise. Learning how to be resilient when faced with these kinds of issues is an important feature for remote workers. When technology malfunctions, we exhibit all the frustrations that our brains have evolved to display as part of the drive to discover solutions. The problem is that often we can’t find solutions to technology problems ourselves, or even know how to fill the time usefully when a problem occurs—often leaving us floundering around waiting for help rather than doing something constructive.
Finally, there are some practical outcomes that working remotely can have. Work has traditionally been imbued with subtle rituals that reinforce our sense of self-esteem and clarify that we have a purpose and routine to our day. Although parodied, not having to make an effort to get dressed to go to work can leave people feeling slovenly and affect mood. Dressing smartly has a positive effect on morale and helps people to value themselves and look forward to meeting others. Making an effort is something that we enjoy doing.
Working at home all day means that we may not have the need to do the exercise we used to as part of our regular working day: the walking to transport or around the office. It also means that we have access to any goodies hiding in our kitchen cupboards or fridge. Both of these situations can result in us losing fitness and potentially putting on weight—as many people did during the first UK lockdown when working at home was compulsory for many.
For some people, there are fewer distractions at home, but for others, there are more. Working remotely needs self-discipline and self-motivation to focus, to avoid distractions and to be productive. Distraction can range from the banal to the harmful. Being out of sight can trigger other habits that are potentially harmful. Lockdown ushered in a new breed of armchair “investor” putting their money into risky assets via commission-free apps. This type of investment is part of a wider shift to financial investment egalitarianism in that anyone can do it without financial advice or knowledge. Unfortunately, investing in this way, like gambling, is risky and can be addictive. Having the technology, the time, and the privacy to take risks with money has resulted in serious financial loss for some remote workers.
Other people have stumbled into home-office-based drinking or smoking, watching porn, or other illicit activities that presumably they would not have undertaken in their regular workplace. Though rare, these behaviors can be reality when remote work is not thought through and managed well.
Our brains work in primitive ways; we can’t help subconsciously reacting to our environment in ways that are outside our control. Remote working runs counter to our human trait to need company and can lead to pernicious loneliness and depression. Left to our own devices, we can also fall into bad habits—from being slovenly to becoming addicted to various vices. Perhaps, the office really does have something going for it after all?
1 Mann, S. and Holdsworth, L., (2023). The psychological impact of teleworking: stress, emotions and health. New Technology, Work and Employment [online]. 18(3) pp. 46-53. [Accessed from: The psychological impact of teleworking: stress, emotions and health].
Naseer, N., (2023). At Home with work: Understanding and Managing Remote and Hybrid Work [online].
New York: Business Expert Press, p. 35-43
Source 1: Social Sciences Pathway
Sport is the most unifying tool for peace in the world
Wilfried Lemke
Wed 6 Apr 2016 11.29 BST. Last modified on Wed 19 Oct 2022 17.09 BST
From the Olympic truce to table tennis tournaments for disabled people in
Nepal, sport can bring millions of people together to achieve social good
A boy plays football in front of two UN peacekeepers outside Mali’s Mamadou Konate stadium
during an event organised to promote peace among young Malians. Photograph: Marco
Dormino/UN Photo
In September 1991, Moldavia was hit by floods that killed hundreds of people. I was general manager of the German football club Werder Bremen at the time, and we were about to travel to Romania for a European Cup match against Bacău. On learning of the disaster, we decided to charter a truck with relief and medical supplies. Football helped to bring a glimmer of hope to the people affected by the flooding.
Not for the first time in my life, I was struck by the thought that sport is the most unifying and inspiring development and peace tool in the world. No other social activity brings people together in such great numbers, and with so much passion and enjoyment. This conviction has since been reinforced by the work I have done around the world as special adviser to the UN secretary general on sport for development and peace.
Regardless of age, gender or ethnicity, sport is enjoyed by all; its reach is unrivalled. More importantly, though, sport promotes universal values that transcend language and culture. I saw this at first hand during a visit to Rwanda in 2011, when I attended the Four Countries 4 Peace football tournament, an initiative to promote reconciliation and dialogue between young people from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. Each team had an equal number of boys and girls, but only the girls were allowed to score goals. In the absence of a referee, the players were responsible for resolving any disagreements. By playing together, these young people were unwittingly learning the universal values of respect, tolerance and fair play. It was a victory for sport.
Moments like these show that sport has huge potential to effect social change. Sport and physical activity improve individual health and wellbeing, both physically and mentally, and teach important values and social skills. But sport doesn’t just empower on an individual basis; it also unites and inspires people collectively, which builds communities. According to Made By Sport, three fifths of surveyed UK citizens associated a local sports team with the idea of community, while 75% believed that sport is crucial for young people in the development of life skills for education and employment.
In many countries, however, opportunities to participate in sport are limited by significant infrastructural, social and political barriers. For example, people with disabilities are marginalised in many societies, preventing their involvement in sport. A report by the Department for Education published that less than 30% of wheelchair users took part in team games at school. There is also growing concern that children are leading increasingly sedentary lives, with approximately 80% of 13 to 15 year olds throughout the world not meeting the recommended 60 minutes per day of high-quality exercise. Given the personal and social development benefits sport offers, increasing access and participation is a development goal.
For this reason, the UN office on sport for development and peace has been running a youth leadership programme since 2012, with the aim of empowering young leaders from disadvantaged communities to use sport as a tool for progress. The initiative has enjoyed some notable successes. In 2014, a young
Paralympic athlete, Maclean Dzidzienyo, from Ghana, participated in the Berlin
YLP camp. He has since reached the B-standard qualifying time for the Paralympics. He is working towards qualification for the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro in September.
In August 2013, the UN general assembly adopted a resolution establishing 6 April as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. The day offers a natural focal point for the movement, which was buoyed by sport’s recognition in the sustainable development agenda adopted by the UN last year. The day encourages people to participate in sport, and aims to raise awareness about sport’s potential as a development tool, and promote grassroots projects and organisations.
This year, a campaign has been launched encouraging people and organisations involved in sport for development and peace to share a picture or video on social media, highlighting the sustainable development goal to which they are contributing. The campaign, Let’s play for the sustainable development goals, has enjoyed heartening support from partners and participants alike.
A sporting tournament in a protection of civilians site in Juba, South Sudan. Teams of residents and NGOs played football and volleyball. Photograph: JC McIlwaine/Unmiss
On 6 April I will be in Nepal for the inauguration of the Table Tennis For NepALL project, which aims to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities. It is a great example of how sport can foster social development, by changing perceptions about people with disabilities as well as providing them with an opportunity to participate in sport despite significant barriers. In particular, after the devastating earthquake in Nepal last year, sport can give a sense of normalcy and self-efficacy for the many survivors.
Our international day has grown every year, strengthening the network of organisations and people using sport for development. I am immensely proud that this year we are celebrating the third international day. It has served well as an awareness-raising and network-building tool, with the number of internet users reached on Twitter and Facebook increasing from 5.5 million people in 2014 to 7 million in 2015.
It is now important for this reach to be transferred into action. Partnerships – between governments, NGOs, sports federations and domestic organisations – need to be strengthened, with further projects implemented on the ground. The forthcoming Rio Olympics highlight how sport can bring the world together, exemplified by the Olympic truce adopted by the UN.
Lemke, Wilfried., (2016). Sport is the most unifying tool for peace in the world. The Guardian [online]. 6 April 2016. Sport is the most unifying tool for peace in the world [Accessed 16 April 2025].
Source 2: Social Sciences Pathway
SPORT AND THE POWER OF CONFLICT
Michael L. Butterworth | 16.09.2021
Sport brings the world together – or not? Incidents at the Olympic Games, Euro 2020 and other events have lately shown us the other, divisive side of sport.
At the Closing Ceremony for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach praised the triumphant staging of the Games in the midst of a global pandemic. “This is the unifying power of sport,” he declared. “This is the message of solidarity, the message of peace and the message of resilience. This gives all of us hope for our further journey together.”
Bach’s words echo common declarations about sport’s ability to “unite” people across a range of divisions. From everyday fans to world leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama, there is a belief that sport can mend broken relationships, create identifications among different groups, and heal communities affected by tragedy.
“Unfortunately, the story we tell ourselves about sport’s capacity to bring us together is too often an illusion.”
Indeed, the presumed power to unify is among the most compelling reasons to love sport in the first place. Unfortunately, the story we tell ourselves about sport’s capacity to bring us together is too often an illusion, and it is one that regrettably allows the maintenance or even expansion of the very problems it claims it helps us overcome.
Case Studies around the World
In Japan, as much as the Olympic athletes impressed and inspired, going forward with the Tokyo Games in the midst of the pandemic challenged the notion that sport exists to bring people “together.” More than 80 percent of the Japanese public opposed proceeding with the spectacle; although opposition appears to have softened over time, considerable ambivalence remained. After all, in addition to surging rates of COVID-19 infections, the Olympics also carried a recordbreaking cost of at least $15 billion and proceeded with competitions despite dangerously high temperatures.
In Europe, the Euro 2020 tournament commenced after also being delayed by the pandemic. In the championship match decided by a penalty shoot-out, a long-tortured England squad faced off against Italy. Three English players missed their shots—Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka—each of whom is Black. Significant social media criticism of the team’s failure was directed at these players of color, much of it characterized, in UEFA’s terms, as “disgusting racist abuse.” The abusive commentary shows how these athletes might be considered “British” at times of triumph and “Black” in moments of struggle. It calls to mind the case of Germany’s Mesut Özil, who left Die Mannschaft in 2018 feeling he was seen as “German when we win, but an immigrant when we lose.”
In the United States, the unique relationship between sport and higher education was transformed by new legislation permitting college athletes to earn money based on their “name, image, and likeness” (NIL). While this permits new rights to those who supply the primary labor for college athletics, the rule changes have prompted renewed conflicts among players, coaches, administrators, fans, and media, many of which are based on the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) carefully managed interpretation of terms such as “amateurism” and “student-athlete.”
In Colombia, citizens beleaguered by rising taxes, police violence, and a poor response to the pandemic have increasingly taken to the streets in protest. As a symbol of their solidarity against the
government, many protestors have begun wearing the yellow jersey of the Colombian national football team. What is designed to stand in for “the nation,” then, is instead being used to dramatize the exclusions many feel within it.
Meanwhile, leagues around the world must reckon with the abusive and, at times, criminal behavior of male superstar athletes. Over the course of 2021, DeShaun Watson of the National Football League (NFL) was accused by more than 20 women of sexual harassment and assault; Trevor Bauer of Major League Baseball (MLB) was suspended by the league after allegations of abuse and rape; the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League (NHL) were criticized for drafting Logan Mailloux, who had distributed a nude photograph of a woman without her consent; and, Cristiano Ronaldo, one of his sport’s greatest players of all time and the current athlete with the most followers across all of social media, transferred to Manchester United of the English Premier League (EPL). The move was interesting in football terms, but it also resurfaced concerns about a rape allegation from 2009.
In the UK, football is renowned for its ongoing association with incidents of anti-social behaviour, violence and disorder. According to a report by the UK Home Office, 1,621 football banning orders were imposed in 2020, with over 1,089 football-related arrests in England and Wales. Moreover, the National Centre for Domestic Violence reports that incidents of domestic violence increase up to 26% if England play in a World Cup match. This figure can rise as high as 38% if England lose.
However, football hooliganism is not solely restricted to the UK: in Italy, banning orders continue to rise year-on-year, with 849 cases of football-related public disorder and violence recorded in Poland in 2018. Moreover, a study in Germany in 2023 observed that violent crime and hooliganism increased throughout the country by 63% during prominent rivalry games.
The True Power of Sport
Together, these examples demonstrate how fraught sport can be with division and politics. However, while they may be equally important, they do not reflect conflict in the same way. While we should unequivocally condemn racial and sexual abuse and question the wisdom of holding sporting events during a global public health crisis, we should also be heartened by empowered athletes and citizens.
In short, not all conflict is negative or to be avoided. Indeed, sport itself is built on conflict (competition) and its place in our societies gives it a platform for showcasing inequities and cultivating meaningful dissent. Sport’s power, then, lies in its ability to craft a better world, not necessarily a united one.
Butterworth, M., (2021). Sport and the Power of Conflict. De Gruyter Conversations [online]. 16 September 2021. Available from: Sport and the Power of Conflict – De Gruyter Conversations [Accessed 16 April 2025].
Source 3: Social Sciences Pathway
Sport, unity and conflict: an enduring social dynamic
Paddy Dolana and John Connollyb
aDublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland; bDCU Business School, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
The concepts of unity and conflict appear as common concerns across various sociological specialisms, particularly the study of sport. Indeed, social policy research often aims to evaluate the effectiveness of state programmes and NGOs in encouraging greater sports participation among the population. Aside from the health benefit of such potential outcomes, participation is also seen as a way of bringing people together, of strengthening communities, or, in short, as a mechanism of unification.
The history of sport, or the process of sportization (Elias & Dunning, 2008), concerns the long process of unifying different versions of various pastimes within a particular territory, usually under the governance of emergent organizations. It is a standardization process as well, enabling more and more people to play the same game, thus unifying people around common practices. However, this process has been uneven and incomplete for many sports, with various forms of resistance throughout history producing new variations and fragmentations. Unification processes bring much conflict within particular boundaries, and can amplify or reinforce conflict between groups organized as cities, regions or nation states. Processes of social integration involve both inclusion and exclusion, and these boundaries shift over time. While sport is more often presented as reflecting these social boundaries, representing group symbolism (and charisma), sport has also been instrumental in boundary maintenance by providing visible evidence of group existence and efficacy in emotional rituals underpinning social solidarity. The lines of battle or conflict serve to shape feelings associated with group identification, strengthening solidarity in the face of real or imagined antagonistic outsiders.
Sport serves as a metaphor for conflict, precisely because of its development from battlelike encounters towards mock-battles and beyond. This is perhaps why sport continues to hold a deep emotional significance, even in contexts that depart further and further from the notion of conflict and competition. Collins (2008, p. 283) affirms this theory, stating that, ‘At the centre of sports is its emotional appeal.’ This is often forgotten or simply taken for granted in much of the sociology of sport literature, but for the question of the relationship between sport, unity and conflict it is useful to recall the development of sport in the context of wider social changes and the perceived need to channel aggression in new exciting, but safer, ways. This is of course not simply a concern lost over time, but continues in many sport programmes aimed at showing youth an alternative path and building cross-community solidarity (Bairner, 2013; Sugden, 2010; Sugden & Bairner, 1992).
To further this idea, Sugden (2010, p. 259) reprises George Orwell’s famous quote that sport is ‘war minus the shooting’. While many sports avoid the charge of being war-like, certainly some of the more popular sports in terms of both participation and spectatorship are structured in terms of oppositional conflict, or at least competition. Giving historical context to this theory, Elias (2008) used the phrase ‘parliamentarisation’ to refer to the changing nature of social conflict in England following the wars and upheavals of the seventeenth century. Increasingly politicians were expected to settle their differences through rhetoric in parliamentary assemblies, unlike the former tendency towards physically violent combat in order to seek advantage over rivals. Consequently, with increasing shame attached to violent practices, people exercised a more even and automatic self-control. This reduction in aggressive physical conflict had its social benefits of course, but also left many people feeling starved of emotional excitement. Collins (2004) argues that people seek out the most emotionally satisfying situations in their everyday lives. So various leisure pursuits developed in order to regenerate excitement and emotional drama. This in itself proved contentious as groups of players from different regions had acquired varying sensitivities to acceptable levels of aggression in games. Team sports, in particular, attracted local community sport, and over time certain clubs attracted wider and wider appeal. These club fans came to constitute another form of inter-group rivalry, which sometimes descended into violent conflict. Spectators and players can form at different levels of social integration, which can in turn be in conflict with one another. Antagonistic club supporters continue to join forces in support of national teams, though differing on the relative emotional significance of each social level.
Many emphasized and continue to emphasize national identification, though perhaps there is a growing tendency of some supporters to value their club identification ahead of other levels.
Within sports clubs, though sometimes imagined as internally harmonious sites of solidarity, there is considerable scope for conflict precisely due to the functional interdependence between players, coaches, owners and spectators. Indeed the higher the level of interdependence, and particularly with functions performed on both a professional and voluntary basis, the greater the potential for conflict within the same sporting organization (Amis, et., 1995). Supporters can be in conflict not only with those of rival clubs but also among each other on the basis of their commitment to the cause or perceived ‘authenticity’ by virtue of their residential proximity to the club stadium and devotion in terms of attendance and degree of vocal support at the stadium. While ‘core’ supporters bemoan the intermittent interest of more peripheral fans, they also rely upon them to bolster their own status as unshakeable and total fans. The supporter status hierarchy enables relative positions. Unlike an actual league table, fans also get to argue over the relative significance of the various attributes connoting status. These internal conflicts differ across sports and some sports are unifying due to their historical significance for a nation state. For example, the Gaelic games of football and hurling in Ireland are highly associated with national identification, and so the balance between conflict and unity may lean more towards the latter. (Connolly & Dolan, 2010).
Conversely, the migration of people from one place to another not only brings different sporting traditions, but can also generate antagonisms and conflict (for an obvious example, think of the football matches in Scotland between Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers, though even here the intensity of feeling is uneven and continues to change). Unity and conflict are relational, and rituals such as sport re-energize this dynamic, though in new ways with each generation (King, 1995, p. 650), recasting social boundaries and emotional intensities as the scope of identification shifts.
In addition, Collins presents sport as a ritual that builds emotional energy and social solidarity. Indeed, a mutual focus of attention, combined with the exclusion of outsiders, thereby heightening the inclusive experience, produces feelings of collectiveness, which in turn nourishes solidarity and gives the group a stronger sense of identity. These social and psychic processes depict many sporting events. If the rituals produce group symbols, such as the presentation of flags at a football game, this may also enhance solidarity. Furthermore, in the context of sport encounters, Collins also highlights the significance of maintaining team solidarity in order to maintain emotional dominance. Breaks in the solidarity of one side provides opportunities for the other. Emotional domination by one side leads to the demoralization of the other. As such, emotional domination and submission cannot be reduced to mere physical strength and stamina. The feeling of gaining the upper hand (dominance) charges up collective energy and saps the energy of the opposing group.
Furthermore, Sassatelli (2014) addresses the themes of unity and conflict, but in the context of more individualized leisure pursuits such as fitness work in the gym. Gym consumers still rely on others within the gym of course, but they are expected to develop and impose a specific relation to themselves and their bodies. For Sassatelli, the commercialization of the fitness field brings new pressures on the gym consumer or fitness enthusiast. People are increasingly expected to use their leisure in a therapeutically active way. Though this may be presented as being ‘true to oneself’, this internalized pressure often leads to inner conflicts, potentially resolved through the very practices complicit in the feelings of conflict. Through techniques of body discipline aimed at controlling population health, individual consumers must negotiate the ideals of rationality and fun in their fitness practices. Variety is structured to maintain novelty; martial arts and other fighting techniques are domesticated, much like the sportization processes discussed above. Though gym users are subject to competitive displays and status hierarchies within the gym, the principle of unity is extolled through the maxim that ‘all can succeed’. Moreover, the gym is presented as ‘time for oneself’ – as an imaginary domain free of conflict and a site of potential self-unity. Echoing Elias and Dunning’s (2008) concept of the ‘sparetime spectrum’, women in particular are expected to work on their bodies in their supposed ‘free’ time. The body is treated as a machine to be productive, demonstrating the hidden continuity between work and leisure. Healthy bodies are positioned as crucial in order to ‘get more done’ and thereby reduce the time conflicts experienced through multiple pressures and priorities. The elevation of consumption and individualism means each consumer is expected to show pleasure in his or her commitment to the routine of the workout.
While the value of sport has traditionally been espoused in the name of unity, in its imagined capacity to bring people together whatever the politics of the day, its function as a source of drama and excitement means that conflict cannot be banished altogether. Indeed the laudable efforts in promoting sport for the development and peace in troubled and contested territories (Sugden, 2010) must still channel the competitive spirit immanent in sporting practices, which continue to embody this enduring dynamic between unity and conflict.
Notes on contributors
Paddy Dolan is a sociologist at Dublin Institute of Technology. He is co-editor of the European Journal for Sport and Society and editorial board member (and book review editor) of Human Figurations. His research interests include figurational sociology, sport, childhood, emotions, and national and cosmopolitan identities. His work has been published in Sociology, British Journal of Sociology, History of Education, Sport in Society, Organization, and Media, Culture & Society, amongst others.
John Connolly is a Senior Lecturer at Dublin City University. His research has examined the sociology of sport, advertising, and organizational change from a figurational perspective. His work has been published in journals such
as Sociology, Organization, Sociological Review, Culture & Organization, Current Sociology, International Journal of the History of Sport, and Media, Culture & Society, amongst others.
Adapted from:
Dolan, P. and Connolly, J., (2016). Sport, unity and conflict: an enduring social dynamic. European Journal for Sport and Society [online]. 13(3), pp. 189-195 [Accessed from Sport, unity and conflict: an enduring social dynamic].
References
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Connolly, J. and Dolan, P., (2010). The civilizing and sportization of Gaelic Football in Ireland: 1884–2009. Journal of Historical Sociology [online]. 23(1), pp. 570-598.
Collins, R., (2008). Violence: A micro-sociological theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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