Research Library

The Generalized Exchange of Punishments in Adult Recreational Softball: The Case of ‘Going Middle

Exchange theory has a long tradition of systematic theory development and testing using experimental methodology. Webster and Whitmeyer (2001) argue that the application of a theory can be used to demonstrate its usefulness. The purpose of this paper is to…

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The Figuration of a Liquid Modern and Globalized Team Since the Acquisition by TV Azteca: The Case of Club Morelia

This article analyzes the transition from a solid modern soccer-scape into a liquid modern soccer-scape in professional soccer in Morelia, Mexico. The acquisition of the club by TV Azteca is considered the milestone that separates both soccer-scapes. The figurational sociology…

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The Emergence of Neoliberalism: Thinking Through and Beyond Michel Foucault’s Lectures on Biopolitics

This paper uses Michel Foucault’s lectures on biopolitics as a starting point for thinking historically about neoliberalism. Foucault’s lectures offer a rich and detailed account of the emergence of neoliberalism, but this account is far from complete. This paper addresses…

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The Elite Sport and Christianity Debate: Shifting Focus from Normative Values to the Conscious Disregard for Health

Scholars and theologians continue to debate whether or not God’s intended purpose of elite sport violates the creational normativity for elite sport. However, while it is important to be aware of the contradictions between elite sport and Christianity, there is…

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The Effects of Revenue Changes on NCAA Athletic Departments’ Expenditures

This study uses a panel of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I athletic department revenue and expenditure data from 225 public colleges and universities to empirically investigate the behavior of athletic departments over the period 2006-2011. Three empirical relationships…

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The Effect of Coach Education on Reporting of Concussions Among High School Athletes After Passage of a Concussion Law

Background: Increasing attention has been paid to concussions and especially sports-related concussions in youth. To prevent an inappropriate return to play while symptomatic, nearly all states have now passed legislation on youth sports-related concussions. Purpose: To determine (1) the incidence…

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The Discursive Construction of ‘Good Parenting’ and Digital Media – the Case of Children’s Virtual World Games

This article investigates ways discourses which are present on the virtual world gaming websites and in popular press produce constructions of ‘good parents’ and ‘good websites’ for children, and in the process create distinctions which position other parental practices and…

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The Corporal Dimension of Sports-based Interventions: Understanding the Role of Embedded Expectations and Embodied Knowledge in Sport Policy Implementation

The aim of this paper is to show how the corporal character of activities commonly provided in sports-based policy interventions has implications for the results of policy implementation. By employing the theoretical concepts of embedded expectations and embodied knowledge, this…

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The Corner and the Crew: The Influence of Geography and Social Networks on Gang Violence

Nearly a century of empirical research examines how neighborhood properties influence a host of phenomena such as crime, poverty, health, civic engagement, immigration, and economic inequality. Theoretically bundled within these neighborhood effects are institutions’ and actors’ social networks that are…

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The Contemporary Muscular Christian Instrument: A Scale Developed for Contemporary Sport

Social scientists have conducted quantitative research investigations since at least the early 1980s. However, to date no valid, reliable and objective survey instrument has been developed for sport sociologists to measure important religious ideals in contemporary sport. Historical and theoretical…

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The Comparability of Quantitative Surveys on Sport Participation in France (1967–2010)

Results from quantitative surveys enable historians, sociologists and demographers to describe and analyse the evolution of sport participation in France from 1967 to 2010. However, most of these social scientists use the results of these surveys to create very different…

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The Catholic Mission, Sport and Renewal of Elites: St Michel de Tananarive Jesuit College (1906-1975)

The emblem of Jesuit ambition was St. Michel College, built in the heart of the capital in ‘fortress’ style proclaiming the educational plan for training the country’s elites. Our intention here is to show how, within the specific framework of…

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The Bodily Engagement of Snow Park Freestylers: A Study in Three French Winter Sports Resorts

Snow parks constitute an essential part of the drawing power of winter sports resorts. However, epidemiological studies have highlighted the increased risk of snow park accidents when compared with those of traditional piste runs. In the light of such findings,…

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The Bidding Paradox: Why Politicians Favor Hosting Mega Sports Events Despite the Bleak Economic Prospects

Politicians generally favor hosting mega sports events despite the discouraging evidence of financial benefits or direct economic gain. This paradox is surveyed from two different perspectives. First, we weighed the merits of the most prominent methods of economic analysis of…

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The Beautiful and the Damned: The Work of New Media Production in Professional Rock Climbing

This article examines new media production in professional climbing through the prism of the work relationships between climbers and companies. The development of new media has driven significant transformations in the production, diffusion, and consumption of professional sports, notably in…

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The Attitude of the Holy See Toward Sport During the Interwar Period (1919-1939)

During the interwar period (1919-39), nations used sport and athletes for propaganda purposes, especially those countries with fascist and National Socialist ideologies. Through insights gleaned from the archives of the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, the…

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The Athlete and the Spectator Inside the Man: A Cross-cultural Investigation of the Evolutionary Origins of Athletic Behavior

Athletic contests constitute an important aspect of human affairs. However, the evolutionary origins of athletic behavior, that is, behavior which is associated with participating in and watching athletic contests, are rather obscure, as they do not seem to contribute directly…

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The Academic Reform of Intercollegiate Athletics: The Good the Problematic and the Truly Worrisome

The purpose of this paper is to provide a response to Harrison’s (2012) work. The author highlights the positives associated with many of the academic reform efforts Harrison highlights (i.e., the good); addresses concerns about academic clustering, rewarding teams performing…

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The Absence of Resistance Training? Exploring the Politics of Health in High Performance Youth Triathlon

While research and scholarship on the dynamic interconnections between sport and health has steadily grown in the sociocultural study of sport in the past few decades, this paper focuses more directly on the politics of health within sport. Drawing on…

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Teaching Across the Lines of Fault in Psychology and Sociology: Health, Obesity and Physical Activity in the Canadian Context

While interdisciplinary knowledge is critical to moving beyond categorical ways of knowing, this comes with its own set of pedagogical challenges. We contend that acknowledging existing knowledge hierarchies and epistemological differences, recognizing the ideological baggage that students’ bring to the…

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Talking About Trayvon in 140 Characters: Exploring NFL Players’ Tweets About the George Zimmerman Verdict

This research explored how National Football League (NFL) playersused Twitter to discuss the verdict in the George Zimmerman murder trial in the immediate aftermath of its announcement. A textual analysis, using constant comparative procedures of 465 tweets from 125 NFL…

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Tales from the Mat: Narrating Men and Meaning Making in the Mixed Martial Arts Gym

Based upon five years of observant participation, I examine how participants justify their engagement with the controversial but increasing popular practice of mixed martial arts. Several themes emerge: necessity (“it is a violent world”), sociobiological discourse, emulating the exotic, spiritual…

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Symbols, Meaning, and Action: The Past, Present, and Future of Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical perspective in sociology that addresses the manner in which society is created and maintained through face-to-face, repeated, meaningful interactions among individuals. This article surveys past theory and research in the interactionist tradition. It first provides…

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Symbolic Violence and the Olympic Games: Low-income Youth, Social Legacy Commitments, and Urban Exclusion in Olympic Host Cities

Drawing on a five-year qualitative study on the impacts of the Olympic Games on homeless and marginally housed youth in two host cities (Vancouver 2010 and London 2012), this paper explores the instances of ‘symbolic violence’ perpetuated by the institutional…

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Sustainable Mega-events: Beyond the Myth of Balanced Approaches to Mega-event Sustainability

The concept of sustainability is now integral to the lexicon of tourism and is increasingly become part of the discourse of mega-events. Yet despite the success of the concept of sustainable development in being adopted in tourism policy-making and research…

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Surf’s up! A call to take English Soccer Fan Interactions on the Internet more Seriously

Soccer fandom practices in England have been significantly impacted by globalization. The creation of the Premier League in 1992, and the way in which satellite television company BSkyB dominated coverage of this, together with other developments, have led to changes…

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Stages of the Global: Media, Sport, Racialization and the Last Temptation of Zinedine Zidane

Major sport spectacles are probably the most potent, vibrant stages on which human drama can be played out in real time before a vast international audience. Media sport, through global scale ‘frozen moments’, can precipitate popular interrogations of ‘race’ and…

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Sports’ Disciplinary Legacy and the Challenge of ‘Coaching Differently’

Be empowering. Be athlete-centered. Be autonomy supportive. These are three related topics currently being promoted by sport psychologists and sport pedagogists in an effort to recognize athletes’ unique qualities and developmental differences and make coaching more holistic and coaches more…

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Sports-related Concussion in Youth: Report from the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council

A report from the Institute of Medicine (IoM) and National Research Council has revealed the prevalence of sports-related concussions in youth. The need to view concussions as more serious threats to the health of young athletes is highlighted.

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Sports-Based Interventions and the Local Governance of Youth Crime and Antisocial Behavior

Drawing on analysis of youth crime and antisocial behavior reduction policies and a qualitative study of sports-based interventions (SBIs) in England, the article considers three ways in which SBI staff, managers, partners, and participants suggest projects contribute to youth crime…

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Sports Tribes and Academic Identity: Teaching the Sociology of Sport in a Changing Disciplinary Landscape

Using data from 15 semi-structured interviews with UK-based early/mid-career academics, this paper offers an empirically informed assessment of how lecturers teaching/researching the sociology of sport are managing their careers in a changing higher education landscape. Those interviewed were involved in…

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Sports Participation Styles Revisited: A Time-trend Study in Belgium From the 1970s to the 2000s

Social changes have been influencing determinants for sports participation since the introduction of the Sport for All ideology in the early 1970s. Consistent with Crum’s sportisation theory, today’s modes of sports practices, as well as the network of sport services,…

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Sports Mega-events, Soft Power and Soft Disempowerment: International Supporters’ Perspectives on Qatar’s Acquisition of the 2022 FIFA World Cup Finals

Through the use of document analysis, field work and semi-structured interviews at five major tournaments in Asia, North America, Europe and South America, the paper examines the perspectives of international football supporters on the Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA)…

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Sports Coaches as ‘Dangerous Individuals’—Practice as Governmentality

Recent concern surrounding sports coaches’ interaction with young people has reflected a fundamental change in the way coaches and others regard the role of sports. In this paper, we consider the identification and definition of the contemporary sports coach (whether…

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Sports as Never Before: Isolating Celebrity Athletes in Football as Never Before, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, and Kobe Doin’ Work

This article constructs a genealogy of three poetic sports documentaries, all of which use multiple cameras to isolate a star athlete for the duration of a team game. All three films are defined by their distinction from dominant forms of…

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Sporting Spinal Cord Injuries Social Relations and Rehabilitation Narratives: An Ethnographic Creative Non-fiction of Becoming Disabled Through Sport

Working at the intersection of sociology and psychology, the purpose of this paper was to examine people’s experiences during rehabilitation of being and having an impaired body as a result of suffering a spinal cord injury (SCI) while playing sport.…

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Sporting Mythscapes, Neoliberal Histories, and Post-Colonial Amnesia in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Andrews (1999) has argued that under conditions of market-based liberalization, the sporting past has increasingly been put to use for the purposes of accumulation. This selectively rendered “sporting historicism,” he argues, results in “a pseudo-authentic historical sensibility, as opposed to…

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Sport-for-Development in the South Pacific Region: Macro- Meso- and Micro-Perspectives

As the field of sport-for-development (SFD) has developed, there has been increasing debate over the ability of SFD programs to effect lasting structural change on target communities. Highlighting the barriers to SFD program delivery in five Pacific Island nations, in…

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Sport-based Youth Development Interventions in the United States: A Systematic Review

The growing number of sport-based youth development interventions provide a potential avenue for integrating sport meaningfully into the U.S. public health agenda. However, efficacy and quality must be reliably established prior to widespread implementation.

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Sport on the Move: The Unfolding Impact of Mobile Communications on the Media Sport Content Economy

The increased popularity of mobile smartphones and tablet computers in developed economies is transforming how and where sports footage, highlights and information are accessed. These developments are contributing to new commercial arrangements in the media sport sector, as well as…

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Sport Involvement and Educational Outcomes of High School Students: A Longitudinal Study

This study examined the relations among sport involvement and social and personal influences on high school students’ educational expectations and attainment, using National Education Longitudinal Survey-88. Athletic engagement, educational expectations of significant others, peer support for academics, parental involvement in…

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Sport in the Underlife of a Total Institution: Social Control and Resistance in Canadian Prisons

While it is clear from a small body of scholarly literature that sport and physical activity play important roles in the daily lives of many inmates in diverse prison contexts around the world, there remains relatively little research that sociologically…

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Sport as a Vehicle for Socialization and Maintenance of Cultural Identity: International Students Attending American Universities

Immigrants can utilize sport as a vehicle for maintaining cultural identity. Conversely, sport participation provides immigrants with opportunities for adopting an entirely new culture. Previous research also suggests that sport provides individuals with opportunities for attaining social capital. While this…

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Sport and the Resettlement of Young People from Refugee Backgrounds in Australia

Within recent years, policy makers and practitioners have increasingly drawn on sport as a vehicle to assist with the resettlement of young people from refugee backgrounds. This article presents the views of sport development and resettlement service staff responsible for…

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Sport and Social Development: Promise and Caution From an Incipient Cambodian Football League

One of the enduring controversies found in the literature on the role that sport plays in social development is whether this assumed relationship is weak or robust. Despite evidence both for and against the ‘sport-enhances-social-development’ model, a rapidly expanding cluster…

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Sport and Social Cohesion in a Provincial Town in South Africa: The Case of a Tourism Project for Aid and Social Development Through Football

This article examines sport and social cohesion in South Africa through a case study of a project on aid and social development through tourism and football in the provincial town of Stellenbosch, in the Western Cape. The field of study…

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Sport and Exercise Medicine’s Professional Project: The Impact of Formal Qualifications on the Organization of British Olympic Medical Services

This article documents the intended and unintended outcomes of recent organizational change in UK elite sport. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 14 doctors and 14 physiotherapists who are current members of the British Olympic Association medical and physiotherapy committees, it…

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Sport and Alcohol – Who’s Missing? New Directions for a Sociology of Sport-Related Drinking

This paper presents a series of emerging research avenues and agendas for under-represented aspects of sport-related drinking. Extending the findings of a previous paper, which mapped the dominant themes in sociological treatments of drinking and sport to date, this paper…

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Spectator Demand, Uncertainty of Results, and Public Interest: Evidence From the English Premier League

This article tests the impact of match outcome uncertainty on stadium attendance and television audiences of English Premier League football. The method accounts for different measures of outcome uncertainty, an issue identified as a potential source of discord between existing…

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Socioeconomic Status and Sport Participation at Different Developmental Stages During Childhood and Youth: Multivariate Analyses Using Canadian National Survey Data

This study examines the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and sport and physical activity involvement at different stages of childhood and adolescence in Canada. From the previous literature on SES and health-related behavior, there was reason to test competing hypotheses…

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