Research Library

Well-being and quality of life in people with disabilities practicing sports, athletes with disabilities, and para-athletes: Insights from a critical review of the literature

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…

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It’s Not How Much You Play, But How Much You Enjoy The Game: The Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescents’ Self-esteem and the Frequency Versus Enjoyment of Involvement in Sports

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),…

Read OnIt’s Not How Much You Play, But How Much You Enjoy The Game: The Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescents’ Self-esteem and the Frequency Versus Enjoyment of Involvement in Sports

Exploring the Impact of Coaches’ Emotional Abuse on Intercollegiate Student-Athletes’ Experiences

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…

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Big Football: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Culture and Color of Injury in America’s Most Popular Sport

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…

Read OnBig Football: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Culture and Color of Injury in America’s Most Popular Sport

Beyond the Playing Field: Experiences of Sport Social Capital and Integration Among Somalis in Australia

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…

Read OnBeyond the Playing Field: Experiences of Sport Social Capital and Integration Among Somalis in Australia

Beyond the Black/White Binary: A Multi-Institutional Study of Campus Climate and the Academic Success of College Athletes of Different Racial Backgrounds

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…

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Between Adoption and Resistance: Globalization and Glocalization in the Development of Israeli Basketball

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…

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Benefits and Barriers to Sports Participation for Athletes With Disabilities: The Case of Malaysia

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)…

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Bending, Flirting, Floating, Flying: A Critical Analysis of Female Figures in 1970s Gymnastics Photographs

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…

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Being Different and Suffering the Consequences: The Influence of Head Coach–Player Racial Dissimilarity on Experienced Incivility

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,…

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Behind the Scenes of Sport for Development: Perspectives of Executives of Multinational Sport Organizations

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…

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Behind the Digital Curtain: Ethnography Football Fan Activism and Social Change

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…

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Becoming a Man While Playing a Female Sport: The Construction of Masculine Identity in Boys Doing Rhythmic Gymnastics

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…

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Because Women Will Always Be Women and Men Are Just Getting Older: Intersecting Discourses of Ageing and Gender

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…

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Beautiful Losers: The Symbolic Exhibition and Legitimization of Outsider Masculinity

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,…

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Athletics as a Source for Social Status Among Youth: Examining Variation by Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic status

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…

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Athletic Women’s Experiences of Amenorrhea: Biomedical Technologies Somatic Ethics and Embodied Subjectivities

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…

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Athletic Voices and Academic Victories: African American Male Student–Athlete Experiences in the Pac-Ten

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…

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Athletic Participation and Seatbelt Omission Among U.S. High School Students: A National Study

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…

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Athletes in the Pool Girls and Boys on Deck: The Contextual Construction of Gender in Coed Youth Swimming

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…

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Assimilating to a Boy’s Body Shape for the Sake of Performance: Three Female Athletes’ Body Experiences in a Sporting Culture

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…

Read OnAssimilating to a Boy’s Body Shape for the Sake of Performance: Three Female Athletes’ Body Experiences in a Sporting Culture

Assessing the Relationship Between Youth Sport Participation Settings and Creativity in Adulthood

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…

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As British as Fish and Chips: British Newspaper Representations of Mo Farah During the 2012 London Olympic Games

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…

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Are We Committed to Issues of Race? Institutional Integrity Across Intercollegiate Athletics

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…

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Are College Students ‘Bowling Alone?’ Examining the Contribution of Team Identification to the Social Capital of College Students

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…

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Appetite for or Resistance to Consumption Relationships? A Trans-European Perspective on the Marketisation of Football Fan Relationships

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…

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Anyone but England?: Exploring Anti-English Sentiment as Part of Scottish National Identity in Sport

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…

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And You Thought We Had Moved Beyond All That: Biological Race Returns to the Social Sciences

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…

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Analyzing Media Representations of Sportswomen—Expanding the Conceptual Boundaries Using a Postfeminist Sensibility

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…

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An Unpaid Labor of Love: Professional Footballers Family Life and the Problem of Job Relocation

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…

Read OnAn Unpaid Labor of Love: Professional Footballers Family Life and the Problem of Job Relocation

An Olympic Legacy For All? The Non-Infrastructural Outcomes of the Olympic Games for Socially Excluded Groups (Atlanta 1996-Beijing 2008)

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…

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An (In)convenient Truce? Paralympic Stakeholders’ Reflections on the Olympic–Paralympic Relationship

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…

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Amusing Ourselves to Life: Fitness Consumerism and the Birth of Bio-Games

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…

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Ambivalence on the Front Lines? Attitudes Toward Title IX and Women’s Sports Among Division I Sports Information Directors

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…

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Alumni Perceptions of a University’s Decision to Remove Native American Imagery From its Athletic Program: A Case Study

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…

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Alter Globalization, Global Social Movements, and the Possibility of Political Transformation Through Sport

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.…

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Allez Wiggo: A Case Study on the Reactions of the British Print Media to Bradley Wiggins’s Victory in the Tour de France

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…

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All the Places We Were Not Supposed to go’: A Case Study of Formative Class and Gender Habitus in Adventure Climbing

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…

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Alcohol-Related Player Behavioral Transgressions: Incidences Fan Media Responses and a Harm-Reduction Alternative

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…

Read OnAlcohol-Related Player Behavioral Transgressions: Incidences Fan Media Responses and a Harm-Reduction Alternative

Alcohol Consumption in Sportspeople: The Role of Social Cohesion, Identity and Happiness

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…

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Alcohol Consumption Among Women Rugby Players in France: Uses of the “Third Half-Time”

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…

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Agency Constraints and Possibilities: Athletes Manoeuvring Between the Logics of Community, Market, Profession and Corporation in Their Quest for Individual Sponsorships

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…

Read OnAgency Constraints and Possibilities: Athletes Manoeuvring Between the Logics of Community, Market, Profession and Corporation in Their Quest for Individual Sponsorships

After Racial Democracy: Contemporary Puzzles in Race Relations in Brazil Latin America and Beyond From a Boundaries Perspective

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,…

Read OnAfter Racial Democracy: Contemporary Puzzles in Race Relations in Brazil Latin America and Beyond From a Boundaries Perspective

Actively Closing the Gap? Social Class Organized Activities and Academic Achievement in High School

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…

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Action Sports for Youth Development: Critical Insights for the SDP Community

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…

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Action Sport NGOs in a Neo-Liberal Context: The Cases of Skateistan and Surf Aid International

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…

Read OnAction Sport NGOs in a Neo-Liberal Context: The Cases of Skateistan and Surf Aid International

Academic Self-Concept in Black Adolescents: Do Race and Gender Stereotypes Matter?

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.…

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A Splendid Effort!’: Print Media Reporting of England’s Women’s Performance in the 2009 Cricket World Cup

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…

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A Smaller Window to the University: The Impact of Athletic De-Escalationon Status and Reputation

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…

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A Realm of Mere Representation? “Live” Esports Spectacles and the Crafting of China’s Digital Gaming Image

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…

Read OnA Realm of Mere Representation? “Live” Esports Spectacles and the Crafting of China’s Digital Gaming Image