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Our State of the Art report on Spain, Türkiye and Poland finds that traditional games lack not cultural recognition but integration into education systems.
We have analysed the situation of traditional sports and games in Spain, Türkiye and Poland, and the conclusion fits in a single sentence: the problem is not a lack of cultural awareness, it is a lack of systemic integration. And we now know where to start.
The transnational State of the Art report that we consolidated in April 2026 brings together three national studies. It does not describe a forgotten heritage, but a recognised heritage for which nobody has built a way into the education system.
Three systems, the same closed door
In Poland, traditional sports and games are entirely absent from the national curriculum and from teacher training. Their transmission depends on local initiatives and on particular individuals who choose to keep them alive. When those people step back, there is no structure to take up the baton.
Of the three, Spain is the most advanced in terms of institutional recognition, and the Basque Country proves it: here traditional sports are regulated and culturally rooted. But that recognition does not translate into educational pathways or certified training. A discipline can have a federation, competitions and social prestige and still not have a single hour of lessons or an accredited course for those who want to teach it.
Türkiye has the strongest cultural and federation structures of the three countries, with heritage recognition mechanisms linked to UNESCO. Even so, traditional games remain marginal within the education system. The heritage is protected; its teaching is not.
All three share the same diagnosis:
no curricular integration
a lack of structured, accredited training pathways
weak alignment between education, sport and cultural heritage
fragmented policy and no cross-sector working
Policy confirms it: Poland has no specific framework; Spain offers regional recognition with no national strategy linking play, education and inclusion; and Türkiye protects its heritage without connecting it to its education and sport policies.
Who plays and who is left watching
Look at who is on the pitch and the pattern repeats in every country, each with its own nuance. In Poland, participation by women and by people with disabilities is below the European Union average, and the available data on migrants are limited. What is not measured is not planned for either.
In Spain overall participation is relatively high, but young women show significantly higher levels of inactivity. Migrants face economic and linguistic barriers and social exclusion that are not solved by opening the sports centre doors and waiting for them to come in.
In Türkiye inequalities are more pronounced and more systemic. Female participation is much lower, and the gap extends to the governing bodies of sport, where decisions are made about what is offered and for whom.
The barriers are the same in all three countries: economic barriers, access to facilities, a lack of inclusive and adapted programmes, sociocultural norms and institutional capacity. None of them can be solved in isolation. That is why our target of at least 40% of participants coming from vulnerable groups is not window dressing: it is the project's acid test.
The health alarm is already ringing
Health data add urgency. In Poland only a limited proportion of young people meet the World Health Organization's physical activity recommendations, while sedentary behaviour and overweight are on the rise. Spain has high levels of childhood obesity, low compliance with physical activity guidelines and screen time far above recommended levels.
Türkiye shows the most critical situation, with very high levels of youth inactivity. And one finding runs through all three reports: physical activity is associated with better psychological well-being, lower stress and anxiety, and stronger social connection.
Here lies the missed opportunity. In none of the three countries is sport used in a structured way as a tool for young people's mental health. A traditional game played in a group, with no expensive equipment and with rules negotiated among the players, is the exact opposite of a screen in isolation.
The digital gap and its double risk
In Poland, digital tools dedicated to traditional games are practically non-existent. In Spain the available resources are informational or media-based, with no structured educational function. In Türkiye there is content, but it is fragmented and unstandardised.
In all three cases transmission remains oral and community-based, there is no digital learning ecosystem, and WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards are not systematically addressed. This creates a double risk: knowledge is lost because nobody documents it, and people with disabilities are excluded because the few existing formats are not accessible.
Digitising badly is as exclusionary as not digitising at all. A video without subtitles or a document that a screen reader cannot interpret shuts out the very person you claimed to want to include.
What we are doing with these findings
The findings shaped the design of the work, not the other way round. We are building a structured training curriculum rather than one-off workshops, with four documented games per country, twelve in total. Each sheet includes historical and cultural context, step-by-step instructions, safety notes, learning outcomes and adaptations for people with disabilities, for migrants and refugees, and for gender equality.
To tackle the digital gap, we are developing an accessible toolkit on the project's open platform, with self-learning modules, a games library, subtitled videos, easy-to-read documents and support in Spanish, Polish and Turkish. In September we will train the first cohort of trainers from the three countries in Biga.
One last finding explains why it is worth it: existing initiatives address cultural preservation, sports participation or digital tools separately, and very few combine all four pieces. We are working in a low-saturation area with unmet needs.
Read the report and put it to work
If you are a teacher, a municipal officer, a coach or a researcher, this report gives you the arguments for what you already suspected: traditional play does not need more admiration; it needs timetabled hours, accredited training and accessible formats.
Browse the materials and follow the progress of the curriculum and the games library at https://i-play.abarka.org. If you work with young people in your municipality, get in touch: the next twelve months will be written with everyone who wants to play.