Bhora Mugedhi Versus Bhora Musango: The Interface Between Football Discourse and Zimbabwean Politics
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…
Beyond the Sporting Boundary: The Racial Significance of Sport Through Midnight Basketball
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…
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…
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…
Beyond Solitary Play in Computer Games: The Social Practices of eSports
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,…
Beyond Entertainment: Motivations and Outcomes of Video Game Playing by Older Adults and Their Younger Family Members
The percentage of older adults who are active gamers has increased tremendously in recent years. Although research shows that video games enhance physical and cognitive well-being in older adults, the role of video games in enhancing social interactions has been…
Beyond Class: The Many Facets of Gramsci’s Theory of Intellectuals
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…
Beyond Anti-Fandom: Cheerleading, Textual Hate and New Media Ethics
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…
Between Two Volunteer Cultures: Social Composition and Motivation Among Volunteers at the 2010 Test Event for the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships
This paper argues that a reflexive, late modern volunteer culture coexists with a collectivist, traditional one at major sporting events. Those who regularly volunteer at such events and are affiliated with organized sport tend to be older and male, and…
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…
Benefits and Challenges Associated With Sport Participation by Children and Parents From Low-Income Families
The first purpose of this study was to examine low-income parents’ and their children’s perceptions of the benefits associated with participation in youth sport. The second purpose was to examine parents’ perceptions of the challenges associated with providing their children…
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)…
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…
Beliefs About the Causes of Success in Sports and Susceptibility for Doping Use in Adolescent Athletes
The present study set out to assess the impact of attributional beliefs about success on the susceptibility for doping use in adolescent athletes. The sample consisted of 309 adolescent athletes participating in both team and individual sports. Participants completed a…
Being While Black: Resistance and the Management of the Self
‘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…
Being Well Enough in Old Age
This article offers a critique of the dominant ways in which well-being has been conceptualized and researched within social policy, focusing in particular on the significance of this for policy relating to older people. It conceptualizes well-being as relational and…
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,…
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…
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…
Becoming Roller Derby Grrrls: Exploring the Gendered Play of Affect in Mediated Sport Cultures
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…
Becoming Familiar with a World’: a Relational View of Socialization
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…
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…
Becoming a Heavily Tattooed Young Body: From a Bodily Experience to a Body Project
Why some young people start to tattoo their bodies? And why some of them keep going on with this practice, until having all body tattooed? What doing so means to them? These are some of the questions that underlie a…
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…
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,…
Bearing Bodies: Physical Activity, Obesity Stigma, and Sexuality in the Bear Community
In recent years, individuals who do not conform to healthiest body shape and weight norms are the target of an increasingly fervent moral panic about “obesity” (Gard & Wright, 2005). As a subculture within the gay male community (Wright, 1997a),…
Bad for Business? The Effects of Hooliganism on English Professional Football Clubs
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…
Autonomy, Eating Disorders and Elite Gymnastics: Ethical and Conceptual Issues
Participation in elite sport, and in particular those sports with special demands in terms of weight and shape, is associated with a higher risk for eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa [Sundgot-Borgen, J., & Torstveit, M. K. (2010). Aspects of…
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…
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…
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…
Athletic Success and NCAA Profit-Athletes’ Adjusted Graduation Gaps
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…
Athletic Subculture Within Student-Athlete Academic Centers
Over 400,000 student-athletes participate in NCAA intercollegiate athletics programs. Due to their dual roles as student and athlete, they have a different college experience than the general student population. Specialized academic centers and resources for student-athletes are part of the…
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…
Athletic Identity and Aggressiveness: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Athletic Identity Maintenance Model
Research independently examining athletic identity and sport aggression is quite extensive; however, the relationship between these variables has yet to be explored. Findings from both the identity literature and the sport fandom literature regarding team identification and aggressive fan behavior…
Athletes’ Experiences of the Psychological Effects of Poor Coaching.
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to describe the psychological effects of poor coaching reported by collegiate, professional and semi-professional athletes. Design: The present study employs a qualitative research design. Existential phenomenology is a contemporary qualitative research method that…
Athletes’ Career Transition Out of Sport: A Systematic Review
The purpose of this study was to provide a systematic review of studies on athletes’ career transition out of sport from 1968 until the end of 2010. A total of 126 studies were evaluated and reported in three sections: sample…
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…
Athletes and/or Activists: LeBron James and Black Lives Matter
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…
Athlete Protection in Quebec’s Sport System: Assessments Problems and Challenges
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…
At Least Nine Ways to Play: Approaching Gamer Mentalities
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…
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…
Assessing the Trajectory and Challenges of the Sociology of Sport
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…
Assessing the Sociology of Sport: On Sport for Development and Peace
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…
Assessing the Sociology of Sport: On Cultural Sensibilities and the Great Sport Myth
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…
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…
Assessing Impact of Physical Activity-Based Youth Development Programs: Validation of the Life Skills Transfer Survey (LSTS)
Purpose: A signature characteristic of positive youth development (PYD) programs is the opportunity to develop life skills, such as social, behavioral, and moral competencies, that can be generalized to domains beyond the immediate activity. Although context-specific instruments are available to…
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…
Arousing a [Post] Enlightenment Active Body Praxis
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…
Arousing a [Post-] Enlightenment Active Body Praxis
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…
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…
Are We Asking the Right Questions? A Response to the Academic Reforms Research by Todd Petr and Tom Paskus
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…
Are Sports Betting Markets Prediction Markets? Evidence From a New Test
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…
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…
Aquatic Antiques: Swimming Off This Mortal Coil?
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…
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…
Anyone for Tennis? Sport, Class and Status in New Zealand
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…
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…
Animal Blood Sport: A Ritual Display of Masculinity and Sexual Virility
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…
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…
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…
Anabolic Steroids in the UK: An Increasing Issue for Public Health
Aim: The aim of the paper was to identify changes in the extent and patterns of anabolic steroid use in the United Kingdom to better understand the public health implications within the context of the current health-related evidence base. Methods:…
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…
An Unexceptional Exception: Golf Pesticides and Environmental Regulation in Canada
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…
An Own Goal in Sport for Development: Time to Change the Playing Field
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…
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…
An Old Boys Club No More: Pluralism in Participation and Performance at the Olympic Games
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…
An Exploratory Study of Black Male College Athletes’ Perceptions on Race and Athlete Activism
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…
An Ethic of Indulgence? Alcohol, Ultimate Frisbee and Calculated Hedonism
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.…
An Elite Hockey Player’s Experiences of Video-Based Coaching: A Poststructuralist Reading
In this article, we present a poststructuralist reading of Claire’s (a pseudonym) experiences of receiving video-based coaching in elite level field hockey. Data were gathered through a series of in-depth interviews that formed part of a recursive and iterative data…
An Assessment of the Dynamic of Religious Ritualism in Sporting Environments
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…
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…
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…
Amputees and Sports: A Systematic Review
Amputation of a limb may have a negative impact on the psychological and physical well-being, mobility and social life of individuals with limb amputations. Participation in sports and/or regular physical activity has a positive effect on the above mentioned areas…
American Jewish Women on the Court: Seeking an Identity in Tennis in the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century
In the decades after the Civil War, sports slowly gained a prominent position within American culture. This development provided Jews with opportunities to participate in one of the few American cultures not closed off to them. Jewish athleticism challenged anti-Semitic…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
All About Having Fun: Women’s Experience of Zumba Fitness
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…
Alibis for Adult Play: A Goffmanian Account of Escaping Embarrassment in Adult Play
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…
Alcoholism and Recovery: A Case Study of a Former Professional Footballer
What little we know about alcoholism amongst professional footballers comes largely from the media (often tabloid newspapers) and published autobiographies and biographies of high profile stars. The coverage often focuses on deviant behaviour when drunk, such as driving under the…
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…
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…
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…
Alcohol and Marijuana Use Among American High School Seniors: Empirical Associations With Competitive Sports Participation
Drawing on data gathered from high-school seniors in the 2008 Monitoring the Future Study of American Youth (N = 2,063), this research examined the explanatory effects of competitive sports participation on alcohol consumption and marijuana use using race and noncompetitive…
Alcohol and Community Football in Australia
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…
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…
Ageing in Urban Environments : Developing ‘Age-Friendly’ Cities
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…
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,…
Adopting the Diasporic Son: Jeremy Lin and Taiwan Sport Nationalism
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…
Adolescent Well-Being: An Emerging Agenda for Schools
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.…
Adolescent Sport Participation and Alcohol Use: The Importance of Sport Organization and the Wider Social Context
This paper investigates the relationship between adolescent sport participation and alcohol use, focusing on differences in sport contexts. We also include the wider social context, the role of peers and parents as key variables in our analysis. Our sample consists…
Adolescent Athletes’ Learning About Coping and the Roles of Parents and Coaches
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…
Actualizing Children’s Participation in the Development of Outdoor Play Areas at an Early Childhood Institution
This study examined how children’s participation can be actualized, and their perspectives respected, through an action research project that engaged them in the development of an outdoor play area in a child care center in South Korea. An educator devised…
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…
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…
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…
Achieving Against the Odds: Gender, Chance and Contradiction in the Horseracing Industry
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…