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Despite the strides made toward gender equity in sport-science academia, significant challenges persist, particularly in leadership representation and career advancement for women. Although women constitute a substantial portion of postgraduate and PhD students in this field, their presence in senior…
Rationale/Purpose: Little research has been completed in a New Zealand sport context exploring the industry-academic nexus. The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of a collaboration between a sport organisation and researchers to provide insights learned from…
This paper provides insight into the evolution of a project designed to address longstanding adult attitudes and behavioural issues in junior and youth sport in New Zealand. The project was funded by Sport New Zealand (Sport NZ) and implemented by…
The elimination and subsequent reinstatement of five varsity sports at the University of California, Berkeley during the 2010-11 academic year may provide a modern success story in college sports, but the events which transpired at Berkeley also exposed many of…
Global well-being (GWB) is a complex, multi-dimensional, and multi-faceted construct that can be explored from two different, but often overlapping, complementary perspectives: the subjective and the objective ones. The subjective perspective, in turn, is comprised of two dimensions: namely, the…
The purpose of this study was to examine the development of six leader-athletes. In-depth qualitative interviews were used to explore the various activities that leader athletes engaged in from an early age as well as the roles and influences that…
The frequency of involvement in sports often has been concurrently and longitudinally associated with higher self-esteem. The interpretation of this association consistently has been framed as involvement in sports leading to higher levels of self-esteem over time (i.e., socialization effect),…
Despite widespread anecdotal accounts of coaches’ emotional abuse in intercollegiate sports, empirical literature is lacking. To address this gap, the present exploratory study was designed to explore how former intercollegiate student-athletes interpreted experiences of emotionally abusive coaching. Former female NCAA…
Although much has been said about football concussions in the media, academic inquiry into the National Football League’s (NFL) strategies for containing critique and shaping public discourse remains limited. I investigate the league’s multi-sided “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) campaign, which…
Football is the most popular sport in Zimbabwe and across the globe. It has been asserted elsewhere that the game is not limited to scoring goals on the pitch but that this also occurs in politics and power struggles. This…
Sport is among the most potent institutions in the production, maintenance and contestation of race in the modern world. The last decade has witnessed a significant increase of sport-based research on the cutting edge of theorizing race and racism in…
This paper explores the role of recreational sport as a means and marker of social integration by analysing the lived experiences of Somali people from refugee backgrounds with sport. Drawing on a three-year multi-sided ethnography, the paper examines the extent…
This work contributes to an understanding of college athletes’ experiences with campus climate and its relationship to perceptions of their academic success. This work extends race work to include Latina/o and Asian and Pacific Islander college athlete populations across multiple…
This article adopts the theory of social practices as a critical lens for understanding computer game consumption as multiple ‘nexuses of doings and sayings’, which represent the elements of and are situated within the broader context of consumer culture. Specifically,…
Gramsci’s theory of intellectuals is widely cited but rarely closely studied. This article makes a case for a rereading of this theory. This is both desirable and necessary because, as the article shows, it is a more nuanced and yet…
Drawing on a case study involving mediated vitriol targeting cheerleaders, this article identifies two potentially problematic aspects of the media studies concept of anti fandom. First, it critiques the classification of vitriolic texts produced by anti fans as belonging primarily…
Sports provide one of the most prominent fields in which one can study the interaction between globalization and glocalization processes. Drawing on recent theoretical developments in globalization theory and on both primary and secondary data, the present article examines the…
The purpose of this paper was to explore the benefits and barriers influencing participation for athletes with disabilities from a developing country (Malaysia). Two independent studies were undertaken: Study 1 included a sample of 123 athletes (95 males, 28 females)…
During the 1970s, a new corporal and aesthetic standard emerged in women’s artistic gymnastics. No longer was grace and elegance the main feature, but acrobatic and somewhat robotic performances. These exercises were increasingly performed by highly trained and sexually immature…
‘Being while black’ is ultimately an ‘everyday revolution’, Despite the fact that people manage themselves by their own choosing, especially as their desires are being shaped (Foucault, 1977), their selves remains the basic revolutionary unit. Foucault’s oeuvre on power and…
The purpose of the current study was to examine how head coach–player racial dissimilarity was associated with negative treatment from the head coach. Data were collected from 212 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I women’s basketball players (124 Whites,…
This article reports findings from a study designed to examine cricket’s role as an international development tool – with a particular focus on how decisions are made at the highest institutional levels to support cricket-related development initiatives. Data for the…
Football supporters worldwide organise protests, petitions, campaigns, workshops and congresses and are engaged in political lobbying. These expressions of supporters’ activism are nourished by both discontent with developments in football culture and an effort to change them. The aim of…
This article explores how the global revival of roller derby as an alternative sport for women has been mobilised through online social networks, league promotion and fan sites that create imagined communities of ‘roller grrrls’. In the creation of sport…
Ethnographic data have frequently been used to examine socialization, but rarely to ground theories of socialization. This paper is an exception. Interest in indigenous representations emerging in situations involving socialization has led to the building of a relational model of…
The article shows how young men who take part in a ‘feminine’ sport — rhythmic gymnastics — construct their masculine identity. In order to be considered as men, boys performing rhythmic gymnastics have to work to construct their identity, a…
The aim of this article is to examine a meeting between discourses of gender and age at the macro-level, applying an intersectional research approach. The discussion of intersecting discourses is based on empirical material from Poland. It refers to the…
In this paper we examine how practices and logics associated with the cultural ‘outsider’ underpin one particular fusion of contemporary art, alternative sports, and marketing interests which are endemic to post-Fordist economies. We describe a skateboarding-infused art exhibit, Beautiful Losers,…
Football hooliganism, defined as episodes of crowd trouble inside and outside football stadiums on match days, is commonly perceived to have adverse effects on the sport. We are especially interested in the effects of football-related fan violence on a club’s…
This study examines sport as a source for youth popularity, and its variation by gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status and grade level, using a nationally representative U.S. sample of 2,185 3rd—12th graders. Results indicate athletes are more likely than non athletes…
Taking inspiration from Nikolas Rose (2007a, 2007b) and feminist new materialists, this paper creates space for athletic women’s voices of their biological and social bodies, and particularly their interactions with the medical professions and biomedical technologies. Drawing upon interviews with…
The purpose of this study was to explore participants’ academic experiences and confidence about their academic achievement. Participants (N = 27) consisted of high-achieving African American male student—athletes from four academically rigorous American Universities in the Pac-Ten conference. Most of…
Within the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Division I men’s basketball many profit-athletes travel to Predominantly White Institution (PWI) work sites for “pre-professional” sport opportunities. At most PWIs the Black male student population is less…
Although seatbelts save lives, adolescents may be disproportionately likely to omit their use. Using data from the 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a national survey of more than 16,000 U.S. public and private high school students, the authors employed a…
Few studies have examined how groups of individuals enact different patterns of gender relations within and across contexts. In this article, I draw upon nine months of fieldwork and 15 semistructured interviews conducted with eight- to 10-year-old swimmers on a…
As one of the world’s most recognizable athletes, Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James is emblematic of the modern athlete-activist; as such, it is important to understand how the media frame him in the context of a controversial issue. In recent…
Sport is often perceived as healthy and safe. However, research has demonstrated that problems involving sexual, psychological, and physical abuse exist in this context and that very few protection measures are available in sport organizations. Quebec’s sport organizations are not…
Do digital games and play mean the same things for different people? This article presents the results of a 3-year study in which we sought for new ways to approach digital games cultures and playing practices. First, the authors present…
This paper explores three female swimmers’ relationships with their male coaches and the body practices they were exposed to within Australian swimming. Particular attention is given to how the relationships and practices might relate to gender. Additionally, the article examines…
On the fiftieth anniversary of the International Sociology Of Sport Association and the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, the three guest editors for this special fiftieth anniversary issue of the IRSS, current ISSA president, Elizabeth CJ Pike, the…
On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, Cora Burnett, one of the world’s leading scholars on studying the ways that sport has been used for development, considers the trajectory, challenges and future for understanding sport’s role in conflict…
On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, Jay Coakley, a foundational scholar in the development of the sociology of sport, reflects on the lasting power of the Great Sport Myth (GSM) to shape cultural understandings of sport. Situated…
This article presents an assessment of the relative influences of time spent participating in organized sports and informal sports during childhood with respect to the development of general creativity. In this study, 99 upper-division undergraduate and graduate students completed a…
This article examines British newspaper representations of the ‘Team GB’ athlete Mohamed ‘Mo’ Farah during the 2012 London Olympic Games. In particular, attention is given to examining how representations of Farah were related to discourses on British multiculturalism. A brief…
In this coda, I consider the oncoming and already-present “crises” (see Giardina & Laurendeau, this issue) which threaten to unsettle the Enlightenment (and its hermeneutic legacies) substrata scholars of sport and the active body rest their work upon. In so…
The present study employs critical race theory in a critical discourse analysis of intercollegiate athletic departmental directives for high-profile National Collegiate Athletic Association member programs. Consideration of institutional integrity from critical perspectives can advance a nuanced understanding and gain further…
The purpose of this paper is to respond to the papers presented by Petr and McArdle (2012) and Paskus (2012). The author questions whether the appropriate issues are being addressed in broader academic reform efforts, and whether the data collected…
Researchers commonly use sports betting lines as predictions of the outcome of sporting events. Betting houses set betting lines conditional on bettors ex ante beliefs about game outcomes, which implies that the predictive power of the sports betting market could…
While college sport can impact a campus’ sense of community (Clopton, 2007), no empirical research has established a connection with college sport and social capital, an increasingly researched social phenomenon defined as the sum of trust and reciprocating relationships amongst…
In recent years it has become widely accepted that one of the greatest demographic challenges facing most developed societies is the shift to an ageing population. Older people are often constructed as dependent and over-burdening societal resources, with many consequently…
Although most sport organisations are encouraged to better manage the relationships they maintain with fans, little is still known about the types of relationships that fans want to establish with sport organisations. Also, as most suggested management and marketing practices…
This article explores how sport, frequently seen as the foremost meritocracy in New Zealand, is a site that can produce and reproduce social class-based distinctions. Specifically, we explore how participation in youth sport is connected with the consolidation of social…
This article explores the reasons behind the expression of anti-English sentiment by Scots in relation to both sporting and wider social contexts, whilst also considering the impact of migration to England on the attitudes expressed by members of the Scottish…
Blood sport—the practice of pitting animals against each other (or against humans) in bloody combat to the death—is a tragic form of human entertainment that has been resilient since antiquity. While animal blood sport is a form of human driven…
Recently, sociologists have argued in high-profile journals that racial categories are linked to genetically distinct clusters within the human population. They propose theorizing race as a socially constructed categorization system that is related to biological groupings within our species. This…
This article seeks to expand the conceptual boundaries of sport media research by investigating the utility of a postfeminist sensibility for analyzing depictions of women in sport. Rosalind Gill’s (2007) notion of a postfeminist sensibility is situated within UK-led feminist…
This article presents qualitative findings which cast light on experiences of job-related geographical relocation for professional footballers and their families. Job relocation is an issue for players and partners, as labor market migration is commonplace in this profession. Although cultural…
This paper features a critical examination of recent legislation banning cosmetic pesticide applications in the province of Ontario, Canada. It focuses in particular on the exemption of golf courses from the province’s Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act of 2009. Drawing from…
Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) refers to the use of sport to promote varied outcomes beyond the playing field and has been defined as ‘the intentional use of sport, physical activity and play to attain specific development objectives in…
The use of mega sporting events to achieve social goals for socially excluded groups is heavily contested. Comparative evidence regarding the effects of the Olympic Games for these groups is scarce, and there is an even greater dearth of studies…
This article examines the growing diversity of participation and achievement in the Olympics. A wide set of socioeconomic variables are correlated with medaling, particularly with respect to the Summer Games and women’s events. Host advantage is particularly acute in judged…
This qualitative pilot case study focuses on black male athletes at a major university in the United States of America (USA) and utilizes critical race theory (CRT) to understand their perspectives on race and athlete activism in the context of…
In this article, I use Featherstone’s concept of calculated hedonism to analyse consumption of alcohol amongst Ultimate Frisbee players. Drawing on a multi-year ethnographic project, I examine Ultimate players’ reasons for drinking and contextualize this drinking within Ultimate’s broader lifestyle.…
The main focus of this study is the analysis of the link between sport, leisure and the behavior, and phenomenon of religion. From the qualitative point of view of social anthropology, fieldwork has been carried out with different informers from…
Formal contractual agreements between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) evince the closer relationship that has been negotiated in recent times between the governing bodies of the Olympic and Paralympic sporting movements. This article explores the…
Against the common perception that media consumption engenders inactivity, in recent years the technology sector has developed an extensive catalogue of games for bodily and cognitive exercise. Despite their popularity, however, and despite their potential ability to affect perceptions and…
In light of continuing research that assesses how dominant ideology is communicated via mediated sport, this study examines the attitudes of sports information directors (SIDs), arguably initial “gatekeepers” in the media production process and, thus, critical players in shaping sports…
One of the more contentious issues North American athletic organizations face is how to deal with Native American imagery that is associated with their sports teams. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has, in recent years, banned member organizations from…
Alter globalization is the name for a large spectrum of global social movements that present themselves as supporting new forms of globalization, urging that values of democracy, justice, environmental protection, and human rights be put ahead of purely economic concerns.…
On July 22, 2012, Bradley Wiggins became the first-ever British cyclist to win the Tour de France. This article examines how the events surrounding Wiggins’s win were reported in the British (London-based) print media the day after his victory. Thematic…
This paper explores the origins of meaning in adventurous activities. Specifically, the paper reports on a study of 10 adventure climbers in the Scottish mountaineering community. The study explores how formative experiences have influenced engagement in adventure climbing. Work has…
This study explored women’s subjective experience of Zumba, a new, popular form of group fitness. We interviewed 41 racially/ethnically diverse adult women from the Los Angeles/Inland Empire (California) area who had taken Zumba in the previous year. The women reported…
The social meanings of play sit at odds with norms of responsible and productive adult conduct. To be “caught” playing as an adult therefore risks embarrassment. Still, many designers want to create enjoyable, non embarrassing play experiences for adults. To…
This article examines fan social media responses to media-reported, alcohol-related player behavioral transgressions that occurred in Australia’s two largest professional sporting leagues, the National Rugby League (NRL) and the Australian Football League (AFL), over a 33-month period. Using netnography and…
Research indicates that those participating in sport consume alcohol more frequently and at higher quantities than their non-sporting peers. The highest levels of alcohol consumption have been found in university student sportspeople; however, the reasons for such elevated alcohol use…
This article explores alcohol consumption among women rugby players, particularly during the “third half-time”, which traditionally takes place after the matches. The article will focus on alcohol use and the transgression of the norms of femininity. A series of ethnographic…
This paper focuses on spectators’ alcohol use at a regional community football(Australian Rules) club in Victoria, Australia, in the context of a season-long trial to sell only mid-strength (and not full-strength) beer at the ground during home games. Both quantitative…
The purpose of this qualitative study is to add a sociological dimension to sponsorship research, which is otherwise dominated by marketing research. This paper analysis how world-class but often not well-paid athletes from time-consuming endurance sports like rowing and triathlon…
Developing environments responsive to the aspirations and needs of older people has become a major concern for social and public policy. This article aims to provide a critical perspective on what has been termed ‘age-friendly cities’ by shifting the focus…
This article uses the boundaries theoretical framework to analyse Brazilian race relations. The author argues that the apparent paradox of race relations in Brazil and in parts of Latin America, i.e. the persistencey of racial inequality without blatant racial conflict,…
Jeremy Lin and the resulting “Linsanity” has caused an unprecedented media and marketing frenzy worldwide. This essay examines its implication through reviewing media narratives in Taiwan, Lin’s ancestral homeland. Japanese colonizers first brought modern sports to the Taiwanese as a…
The well-being of young people is of considerable concern with many initiatives targeting the health behaviors of this population. Educators are among the professional groups being challenged to understand, evidence, and enhance childhood well-being. Working with a case study U.K.…
The purpose of this study was to develop a grounded theory of the ways adolescent athletes learned about coping in sport. We subsequently came to focus on the roles of parents and coaches within this process. Interviews were conducted with…
Participation in Organized Activities (OA) is associated with positive behavioral and developmental outcomes in children. However, less is known about how particular aspects of participation affect the academic achievement of high school students from different social class positions. Using the…
This article identifies new trends in youth sport participation, particularly the growing popularity of non-competitive, informal, non-institutionalized ‘action sports’ (e.g., skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, parkour). Drawing upon an array of international examples and qualitative research including interviews and media analysis, it…
Sport nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have flourished in the contemporary moment, particularly situated within neoliberal global politics. In this article we focus on the relatively recent proliferation of action sport-based social justice advocacy groups. Drawing on extant materials from our ongoing…
In this paper I ask how it is that women, despite being a significant part of the workforce in horse racing, are still only a minority of professional jockeys. I explore the relationship between social practices and the gender based…
While much research has examined the composition of sport media and those charged with constructing it, namely sport journalists and editors, far less has explored an essential set of actors in the construction of news: sources. This study aimed to…
Athletics are big business on many college campuses, but does this come with a price tag? This issue brief looks at academic and athletic spending in NCAA Division I public universities between 2005 and 2010. Among a host of findings,…
We examined the relation between race- and gender-group competence ratings and academic self-concept in 254 Black seventh- and eighth-graders. On average, youth reported traditional race stereotypes, whereas gender stereotypes were traditional about verbal abilities and were nontraditional regarding math/science abilities.…
The purpose of this article is to provide an historical overview of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) academic reform, with a particular focus on the empirical basis for the decisions made. The authors outline four eras of academic reform,…
The purpose of this paper is to provide a response to Harrison’s (2012) work. The author suggests that the one-size-fits all approach the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has adopted when implementing academic reform measures ultimately hurts the athletes the…
The Ryder Cup is a biennial golf match between Europe and the USA that was staged in Wales for the first time in 2010. This article considers the representation of Wales within tourism texts through an analysis of the place…
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the quantitative analysis informing current academic reforms in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The article serves as an extension of Petr and McArdle’s (2012) previous work. In addition to…
The representation of female athletes by the British print media has been an area for close scrutiny since the mid-1990s. This article examines the representation of England’s Women’s performance at the 2009 Cricket World Cup. Using a qualitative content analysis…
Given the changing landscape of Division I athletic competition, determining the most advantageous commitment to athletic programs is an important issue in sport and university policy. With the recent autonomy granted to select Division I Football Bowl Subdivision conferences and…
This paper represents the views of two scholars in the USA with respect to the scholar lecture presented by David Kirk at the 2012 BERA – Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP) Special Interest Group meeting. We discuss how two…
This article addresses the proliferation of images and appearances in the realm of e-sports culture in urban China. The author’s findings are based upon ethnographic research and participant observation of e-sports audience members, teams, and tournaments, including the 2010 Esports…
n this article we explore body norms Dutch youth create in their discursive constructions of athletic and (non-)athletic bodies and how these norms are enforced by the Panopticon and the Synopticon. Our methodology consisted of auto-driven photo elicitation group interviews…
The Class of ’92 is a documentary film featuring six Manchester United F.C. players who recount their time during a pivotal period for the club, English football and English society. The documentary claims to offer a commentary on Britain in…