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Overview of university sport in Iran
This article focuses on the structure and management systems of sport at Iranian universities. The method of this research was through an analysis of documents. Sport in the system of Iranian universities is divided into three different categories. The physical…
Overexposed: Capturing a secret side of sports photography.
Accredited photographers have been observed taking sexualized, voyeuristic images of athletes that are later distributed on pornography websites and among collectors of pornographic images. As with other emergent forms of digital voyeurism, such as upskirting, these images are taken in…
Overcoming respondent resistance at elite interviews using an intermediary
This article promotes an interviewing technique that could be used when interviewing elite policy-making respondents who fear repercussions for divulging information and who, as a result, either become too emotionally unstable to allow for rapport or begin to resist disclosing…
Organised activities, educational activities and family activities: how do they feature in the middle-class family’s weekend?
In the context of concerns regarding work-life balance, questions have been raised in relation to the weekend and whether it is being ‘lost’. This paper presents new empirical evidence regarding the weekend of the middle-class family, who are the section…
Online news comments as a public sphere forum: Deliberations on Canadian children’s physical activity habits
While considerable scholarly research has examined online media’s function as a public sphere forum, surprisingly little analysis has extended to examining the public’s actual deliberations of the covered issue(s). Recognizing this gap, this discussion conceives online news comments in response…
Online Community or Electronic Tribe? Exploring The Social Characteristics and Spatial Production of an Internet Hockey Fan Culture
Scholarly interest in the relationship between sport and new media has increased significantly in recent years, yet research about online sport fan groups remains limited. This article contributes to this body of literature through an ethnographic examination of a fan-produced…
On the terms of the recipient? Norwegian sports development aid to Tanzania in the 1980s
This article discusses the donor–recipient relationship in a sports development aid context, and identifies potential dilemmas occurring when aiming to give aidon the recipient’s terms. Using the case of the Norwegian sports development aid project Sport for All, it is…
On the Limits of the New and the Lasting Power of the Mediasport Interpellation
This essay comments on the limits of new and social media to change the contemporary landscape of mediated sport in meaningful ways. The first part of the essay speaks to the “limits of the new.” Here, the forces of “monetization”…
On the conceptualization, design, and evaluation of appealing, meaningful, and playable digital games for older people
While older people tend to be regarded as actual, or potential, players of digital games within literature on game studies, human-computer interaction, and gerontechnology, they are also often considered non avid users of digital technologies. This contradiction prompted us to…
On roads traveled and journeys ahead for IRSS
Now entering its 47th year of publication, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport is the oldest and most international of the scholarly journals devoted to the study of sport, culture, and society. While over the years we have…
On Balinese cockfights: Deeply extending play
In this article, I advance three points, each in service of “extending play” as a critical conceptual category. The article begins with Clifford Geertz’s essay “Deep Play,” tracing through its lens the possibilities for “deeply extending play.” The essay extends…
Olympics 2012 security: Welcome to lockdown London
As a metaphor for the London Olympics, it could hardly be more stark. 1 The much-derided ‘Wenlock’ Olympic mascot is now available in London Olympic stores dressed, no less, as a Metropolitan police officer. For £10.25 you, too, can own…
Olympic rings of peace? The Olympic movement peacemaking and intercultural understanding
This article examines the historical and contemporary links between Olympism and peacemaking. It traces the development of thought and praxis in relation to the Olympic movement’s aim and capacity to promote peaceful coexistence and intercultural understanding from the ancient Olympic…
Olympic city bidding: An exegesis of power
In this article I analyse the bidding process to host the olympics as a complex set of power relationships between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and candidate cities. My analysis looks at both macro-political conditions and relationships and the micro-motives…
Olympic boomtown: The social impacts of a one-time mega-event in Utah’s Heber Valley
We extend the research on the individual and community-level impacts of rapid growth development (boomtowns) to include communities that have been affected by a short-term, yet large-scale “mega-event”—the Olympics. Testing the assumption of generic similarities of social impacts between these…
Of Menace and Mimicry: The 2008 Beijing Olympics
This article examines the Olympic narratives of young, educated urbanites in China to consider the 2008 Beijing Olympics’ role as a “diagnostic event” through which global conflicts and controversies coalesce and national identities are constructed. It illustrates how students and…
Nothing but medals? Attitudes towards the importance of Olympic success
States intervene increasingly in financing and organization of Olympic elite sport in order to maximize national success in the medal table. In Germany and many other countries too that includes practices that have been criticized as unacceptable in democratic societies:…
Not everybody is a golfer: Bourdieu and affluent bodies in Mexico
The present article analyzes processes of social reproduction among upper-middle- and upper-class individuals in contemporary Mexico City, using affluent golf clubs as a case study. Drawing on ethnographic data, it shows how private golf clubs are invisible sites for the…
Not an “extraordinary event”: NFL games and militarized civic ritual
In this article, which was delivered as the Alan G. Ingham Memorial Lecture to the 37th annual conference of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, I extend Ingham’s ideas regarding sport as civic ritual and combine it…
Non-mega sporting events’ social impacts: a sensemaking approach of local governments’ perceptions and strategies.
Research question: The literature investigating non-mega sport events’ social impacts remains limited. Furthermore, these impacts have mainly been examined from the point of view of spectators or residents. This article explores how these impacts are perceived by local governments. Based…
Nice Korea, Naughty Korea: Media Framings of North Korea and the Inter-Korean Relationship in the London 2012 Olympic Games
This study examines mainstream news media framings of North Korea and the inter-Korean relationship in the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games, focusing on the role that the media played in privileging particular understandings of nationalism, conflict and reconciliation. Print news…
New screen action and its memories: The “live” performance of mediated sport fandom
The experience of watching sport on television is changing with the proliferation of screens, the diversification of screen-based content, and the extension of interactive screen-facilitated communication. In recent decades, sports broadcast television viewing opportunities shifted from a primary reliance on…
New media, professional sport and political economy.
New media technologies are seen to be changing the production, delivery and consumption of professional sports and creating a new dynamic between sports fans, athletes, clubs, governing bodies and the mainstream media. However, as Bellamy and McChesney (2011) have pointed…
New Europe, new chances? The migration of professional footballers to Poland’s Ekstraklasa.
The intention of this paper is to offer a preliminary analysis of the migrations of professional footballers to Poland’s top division – the Ekstraklasa. Based upon a series of interviews conducted with migrant players located at an Ekstraklasa club, the…
Neoliberal urban entrepreneurial agendas, Dunedin Stadium and the Rugby World Cup: Or ‘If you don’t have a stadium, you don’t have a future’.
This chapter presents a case study set in Beloit, a fishing village located on Ataro Island, 30 kilometres across the sea from Dli, capital of Timor-Leste. Tourism is an industry that could help promote the natural and cultural assets of…
Neoliberal freedoms, privatisation and the future of physical education.
Focussing on the ideological aspects of privatisation, this paper explores ways in which ‘freedom’ has been activated discursively to justify actions involving changes to both the structure and the content of formal education in the UK. Empirically, the paper will…
Neighborhood stigma and the sporting lives of young people in public housing
This paper spotlights the sporting lives of young people who live in ‘Redcrest’, a public housing community in the Niagara region of Canada. We report on data culled from neighborhood-centric documents (municipal data, planning council reports, media coverage) and ethnographic…
Negotiating the ‘F-word’ in the field: Doing feminist ethnography in action sport cultures
This paper examines the potential of social theory for enhancing researcher reflexivity and praxis in the ethnographic field. More specifically, we advocate the potential of feminist interpretations of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “regulated liberties” for helping critical ethnographers navigate some…
Negotiating “new” narratives: Rio de Janeiro and the “media geography” of the 2014 FIFA World Cup
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is currently in the midst of an extraordinary period of mega-event hosting. While a large number of articles have been keen to illustrate the transformative potential and dilemmas of utilizing mega-events to advance an urban agenda,…
NCAA academic reform: History context and challenges
The purpose of this article is to offer a sociohistorical overview of academic reform in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). To do so, the author draws heavily from football history and its association with academic reform in the broader…
NCAA Academic Performance Program (APP): Future Directions
This paper represents the first major effort to conduct a comprehensive review of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Academic Performance Program (APP) and to recommend to the NCAA Board of Directors those modifications that will lead to further improvement…
Nautical small-scale sports events portfolio: A strategic leveraging approach
Research question: This study analyzes the leverage process of a nautical small-scale sports events portfolio, hosted in a tourist community of Portugal. Strategic goals were identified and the implementation process examined, according to economic and social leveraging models. Since these…
Natural disaster arrhythmia and action sports: The case of the Christchurch earthquake
Taking inspiration from French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s theory of ‘rhythmanalysis’, the author advocates new ways of thinking about the impact of natural disaster on the bodies and everyday mobilities of those who continue to live in disrupted spaces.…
Nationalism in the United States and Canadian primetime broadcast coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics
The CBC’s and NBC’s primetime broadcasts of the 2014 Winter Olympics were analyzed to determine differences between the media treatment of home nation and foreign athletes. The CBC results showed that Canadian athletes represented 48.5% of total athlete mentions and…
National identity and important Australians
Aspects of the national narrative of an advanced industrialised nation are examined in this research. Nationally representative survey data suggest the most important collective figures for Australian identity are the Anzacs, colonial free settlers and post-Second World War immigrants, while…
Narrating goals: a case study on the contribution of Digital Storytelling to cross-cultural leadership development
This case study and evaluation of a Digital Storytelling (DST) workshop for young women identifies the strengths, limits and challenges of transformational feminist leadership development within sport for development programmes (SDP). Based on postcolonial feminist approaches and empirical evidence, the…
Multiple Voices: Improving Participation of Muslim girls in Physical Education and School Sports
This study reports on data from a larger-scale research project in one city in the West Midlands, England. The study was commissioned by the local education authority because of the rising incidence of parental withdrawal of Muslim girls from physical…
Moving bodies beyond the social/biological divide: toward theoretical and transdisciplinary adventures
In this paper I call for ‘new forms of thinking and new ways of theorizing’ the complex relations between the biological and social in sport and physical culture. I illustrate the inseparability of our biological and social bodies in sport…
More than just games: the global politics of the Olympic Movement
This paper is rooted in the premise that the Olympic Movement represents an important – yet often overlooked – global political site, and it begins by situating the Olympic Movement within the global policy by focusing on its role as…
MoneyRoundball? The drafting of international players by National Basketball Association teams
National Basketball Association (NBA) teams have drafted international players regularly since 1996. Did NBA teams value international prospects accurately relative to U.S. players? Regressions of NBA performance reveal that international players drafted through 2001 tended to outperform expectations adjusted for…
Minding the terrazzo gap between athletes and nonathletes: Representativeness, integration, and academic performance at the U.S. Air Force Academy
The tension between focusing on collegiate athletic or academic performance has persisted for decades. A recent study finds that recruited athletes in college athletic programs underperform academically, earning lower grades than predicted. It postulates that increased representativeness and integration efforts…
Messengers of hope: A boy with autism his church and the Special Olympics
Messengers of Hope is the story of Michael Leon, an adolescent on the autistic spectrum, his church, and the Special Olympics. It is a story of transformation. Michael’s parents and family, Michael, and Montrose Church are all transformed through their…
Mentor functions in NCAA women’s soccer coaching dyads.
Team performance in sport is not limited to the players, but extends to the coaching staff and their relationships. This study aims to identify mentoring functions reported by NCAA Division I assistant women’s soccer coaches within a head coach-assistant coach…
Megaeventos esportivos e Educação Física: alerta de tsunami
Este texto analisa as implicações dos megaeventosesportivos em diferentes âmbitos da realidade nacional. Nesteínterim, a partir da relacional Estado, organização esportiva emercado, problematiza as relações de hegemonia e estratégiasde acumulação inerentes à agenda Rio 2016. Além disso,apresenta uma discussão sobre…
Mega sport events: A probabilistic social cost–benefit analysis of bidding for the games.
The debates on whether to bid for organizing a mega sports event like the World Cup Soccer or the Olympic Games ignore either the bidding costs or the probability not to win the bid or both. In this short article,…
Mega events in sports and crime: Evidence from the 1990 Football World Cup.
Despite an increasing desire to host major sport events there is almost no research that tries to identify and measure the possible negative spillovers they generate. In particular, there is limited understanding about crime responses. This article investigates the causal…
Mediating mega events and manufacturing multiculturalism: The cultural politics of the world game in Australia.
Contemporary global politics is characterized by intense debate about the status of multiculturalism. Framed within discourses of crime, counter-terrorism and moral decline, multiculturalism has been declared redundant just as the Australian government has rehabilitated the term in local citizenship legislation…
Media representations of multiracial athletes.
There is a substantial body of research examining racialized narratives about Black and White athletes. However, there is an absence of literature that has specifically explored multiracial identities in the sport context. The purpose of the current study was to…
Media events spectacles and risky globalization: a critical review and possible avenues for future research
We review the research conducted to date on media events and media spectacles. We posit that the main phenomena challenging the current conceptualizations of media event and media spectacleare (1) the understanding of risk, (2) the context of disasters and…
Media consumption and the contexts of physical culture: Methodological reflections on third generation study of media audiences
In this paper we argue that sport media research would be enhanced by: (a) engagement with the audience research tradition, including “third generation” audience studies that emphasize relationships between viewer interpretations of media and everyday social practices; and (b) the…
Maximizing the benefits of youth sport.
Research Findings on Social Benefits of Youth Sport * Playing informal, player controlled sports provides young people with opportunities to organize group activities, resolve interpersonal conflicts, solve problems, and sustain the consensus and cooperative relationships required to play competitive games…
Managing sport for social change: The state of play
•Sport can build social capacity and develop healthy communities.•Critically engages with sport management theory with sport for social change.•Discusses associated practical and policy implications for sport for social change.•Future research: local engagement, innovative methods and broader scope. Sport-for-development (SFD) provides…
Managing ethnocultural and ‘racial’ diversity in sport: Obstacles and opportunities
Diversity involves coming to terms with alterity (otherness) and negotiating inclusion (togetherness). That goal is more likely, philosopher Emmanuel Levinas argues, when people usually separated – socially culturally, politically, economically geographically – are brought together in consensual face-to-face contact and…
Managing Black Guys: Representation, Corporate Culture, and the NBA
This article explores the intersection of representation, management, and race in the National Basketball Association (NBA) through a larger question on the relationship between corporate strategies for managing racialized subjects and popular representations of race. The NBA “brand”is situated in…
Making the global turn: The USLPGA, commissioner rhetoric of difference, and “new imperialism.”
Focusing on the cultural and structural contours of the global sport of golf, this analysis features the rhetorical power of U.S. Ladies Professional Golf Association (USLPGA) commissioners in narrativizing this “American” global tour. Selected mediated rhetoric of each of these…
Major League Baseball Attendance and the Role of Fantasy Baseball
Many explanations exist for the resurgence of the Major League Baseball (MLB) fan base following the 1994-1995 strike. The most prevalent explanations include the 1998 McGuire-Sosa home run race and Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive games record. While such explanations certainly…
Love thy Rival: what Sports’ Greatest Rivalries Teach Us about Loving Our Enemies
In his first book, the best-selling God & Football: Faith and Fanaticism in the SEC, humorist Chad Gibbs explored his own struggles to balance faith in God with passion for pigskin. Now Gibbs is back asking how Christian fans can…
Looks Good on Your CV: The Sociology of Voluntourism Recruitment in Higher Education
The recruitment for what has become known as ‘voluntourism’ takes place on campuses at many universities in Australia. Under the banner of ‘making a difference’ students are solicited to travel to developing countries to aid poor communities, to enjoy the…
London 2012: A legacy for disabled people—setting new standards, changing perceptions.
DCMS and the Office for Disability Issues have worked with a range of organisations to publish a report outlining the opportunities available…
London 2012 and sports participation: The myths of legacy.
Today’s young people play far less sport than before. Or do they? The evidence, says Ken Green, shows quite the reverse. We have been promised “a deep and lasting legacy” from the Olympics. The evidence shows the Olympic sports model…
London 2012 and beyond: concluding reflections on peacemaking sport and the Olympic movement
The 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games have reinvigorated the debate on Olympic legacies for peace and development. Addressing this debate and building on the articles in this collection, this epilogue argues that the theoretical-conceptual understanding of peace and peacemaking…
Lockouts and player productivity: Evidence from the National Hockey League.
We implement a propensity score matching technique to present the first evidence on the impact of professional sports lockouts on player productivity. In particular, we utilize a unique natural experiment from the 2012-2013 National Hockey League lockout, during which approximately…
Local meanings of a sport mega-event’s legacies: Stories From a South African urban neighbourhood
Studies on sport mega-events and their legacies often seem only loosely connected to local experiences. Stories on sport mega-event legacy appear as a setting-the-scene or function as a reference to illustrate specific types of legacy. However, stories themselves are never…
Living by numbers: Media representations of sports stars’ careers
This article will address the making and unmaking of elite sporting careers, by focusing on the media reporting of the rise and fall of two elite sport stars, Roger Federer and Lance Armstrong. Sport stars are not simply the raw,…
Lively Infrastructure
This paper examines the social life and sociality of urban infrastructure. Drawing on a case study of land occupations and informal settlements in the city of Belo Horizonte in Brazil, where the staples of life such as water, electricity, shelter…
Limited or lasting legacy? The effect of non-mega sport event attendance on participation
Research question: It is often claimed by event promoters that hosting major sports events will inspire increased participation at grassroots level. However, evidence of this linkage is scarce. This paper addresses the research gap by examining the legacy effect of…
Lifestyle sport, public policy and youth engagement: Examining the emergence of parkour.
In this article we consider the development of parkour in the South of England and its use in public policy debates and initiatives around youth, physical activity and risk. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with participants and those involved in…
Lifestyle and Adventure Sport Among Youth
An important characteristic and intensifying trend in the twenty-first century within Western sporting cultures is an increase in the range and diversity of sports practices, particularly more informal and individualistic activities. A vibrant example of this trend is the emergence…
Life at the track: Country race clubs and social capital
The aim of this article is to report the findings of a study that explored both the contributions of country race clubs to social capital within rural and regional communities as well as their utilization of social capital. The article…
Leveraging sport mega-events: new model or convenient justification?
A range of recent studies have shown that the social and economic impacts of mega-events are often disappointing. This has stimulated interest in the notion of leveraging; an approach which views mega-events as a resource which can be levered to…
Leveraging parasport events for community participation: Development of a theoretical framework
Research question: Sporting events have become highly sought after tools for economic, tourism, and social development in cities around the world; however, little is understood about how to effectively leverage events. This purpose of this paper is to present a…
Leveling the Playing Field? Perspectives and Observations of Coed Intramural Flag Football Modifications
Although sport is regarded as a bastion of male hegemony, coed settings offer females the opportunity to compete alongside males. Coed environments, however, often include rule modifications that intend to facilitate female participation, which promote female inferiority assumptions. This study…
Learning to get drunk: The importance of drinking in Japanese university sports clubs
This paper draws on two ethnographic research projects in Japanese university sports clubs to examine the role alcohol plays in the social and cultural education of students. Over the course of a four-year membership, the university sports club is a…
Learning the game: Football fandom culture and the origins of practice.
Based on the partial results of a doctoral programme, this article explores the significance of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice for explaining the experiential processes involved in becoming a football fan. Whilst recognizing value in the theoretical construct habitus, in…
Knocked out: Ritual disruption and the decline of Spanish boxing
Scholars have written extensively on the emergence of mass sports in modern industrial societies, and the factors that have facilitated the development of ‘hegemonic sports cultures’. Less has been written on how the structure and content of ‘national sport spaces’…
Kicking “No-Touch” Discourses into Touch: Athletes’ Parents’ Constructions of Appropriate Coach–Child Athlete Physical Contact.
It has been suggested that sport is increasingly becoming a “no-touch zone” as some coaches, driven by a desire for self-protection, restrict their use of physical contact with (child) athletes in the belief that this reduces their risk of being…
Jacques Mornève: Narrative Glorification of Catholic Sport
The article analysis the role of a writer committed to spreading moral and religious values and who, through popular sports novels, deciphers the signs concerning the spreading of ideological messages by Catholic intellectuals or those in charge of charity work.…
It’s a Long Way to the Super League: The Experiences of Australasian Professional Rugby League Migrants in the United Kingdom
This article investigates the embodied experiences of a group of professional sports labour migrants whose experiences have largely been ignored by sociological literature: southern hemisphere rugby players playing professional rugby league in the United Kingdom. The migrant pathway from Australasia…
ISSP Position Stand: Culturally competent research and practice in sport and exercise psychology
The multicultural landscape of contemporary sport sets a challenge to rethink sport and exercise psychology research and practice through a culturally reflexive lens. This ISSP Position Stand provides a rigorous synthesis and engagement with existing scholarship to outline a roadmap…
Is There Salary Discrimination by Nationality in the NBA?: Foreign Talent or Foreign Market
The authority of the National Basketball Association (NBA) over the past decade has actively internationalized the game by recruiting potential international players and expanding overseas markets. This article examines the determinants of salaries for NBA players, aiming to identify the…
Is there an expertise of production? The case of new media producers
The rise of Web 2.0 has prompted debates around the legitimacy and contributions of professional and amateur producers in fields such as journalism and popular culture, but it also begs the question: what is the substance of the expertise now…
Is Nadeshiko Japan “Feminine?” Manufacturing Sport Celebrity and National Identity on Japanese Morning Television
When the Japan women’s soccer team, more affectionately dubbed “Nadeshiko Japan,” emerged FIFA World Cup champions in 2011, its members became celebrities overnight. However, central to their celebrityhood is the media’s obsession with “femininity.” Through constructing sport celebrities, or tarento…
Is it in the Game? Reconsidering Play Spaces, Game Definitions, Theming, and Sports Video Games.
From the very first days of digital gaming, sport-themed video games have been a constant and ever-popular presence. However, compared with many other genres of games, sports-themed video games have remained relatively under researched. Using the case of “sports video…
Is hockey just a game? Contesting meanings of the ice hockey life projects through a career-threatening injury
This study is situated within an existential-narrative theoretical framework to examine the impact of career-threatening injury on professional ice hockey players’ well-being and career construction. Professional ice hockey culture is construed as a privileged space characterised by hegemonic masculinity, fierce…
Involvement in sport and social connectedness.
This paper explores the relationship between involvement in sport and non-sport community organisations and social connectedness. Data were collected on types of community involvement, selected demographic variables and social connectedness. The findings support the contention that involvement in sport organisations…
Investigating corruption in corporate sport: The IOC and FIFA.
Global sport governing bodies proclaim lofty ideals and espouse generic principles that set high moral standards for themselves and others. None more so than two of the world’s largest, most influential, and most high profile sporting organizations, the International Olympic…
Investigating corruption in corporate sport: The IOC and FIFA
Global sport governing bodies proclaim lofty ideals and espouse generic principles that set high moral standards for themselves and others. None more so than two of the world’s largest, most influential, and most high profile sporting organizations, the International Olympic…
Introduction: Sociology as a combat sport.
This introduction sets out from the unresolved paradox to be found in the writings of Bourdieu, namely the theoretical impossibility of public sociology and his own sustained practical engagement with publics. I appropriate and develop his concept of the ‘field’…
Introduction to special issue on sport and alcohol: On the contemporary agenda of research on alcohol within the sociology of sport
This introductory essay by Special Issue Editor, Catherine Palmer, introduces a double issue of the International Review for the Sociology of Sport focused on the contemporary agenda of research on alcohol within the field of sociology of sport. In introducing…
Interrogating States’ Soft Power Strategies: A Case Study of Sports Mega-Events in Brazil and the UK.
Central to this article is the use of sports mega-events as part of a state’s “soft power” strategy. The article offers two things: first, a critique of the “soft power” concept and a clearer understanding of what it refers to…
International Student-Athletes in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS): Perceptions, Motivations, and Experiences
This exploratory study investigated the landscape of international student-athletes participating in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), the governing body for university sport in Canada, with respect to number, sport, and gender breakdown, as well as their perceptions, motivations, and experiences. Of…
International Sport Federations in the World City Network
In this article, we analyze the transnational urban geographies produced by international sport federations (ISFs) through their global, regional, and national headquarter locations. Data on the global urban presence of 35 major ISFs are examined through connectivity analysis and principal…
Intellectual property enclosure and economic discourse in the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Special legislation associated with mega sporting events has enabled new forms of cultural enclosure, effectively commoditising aspects of cultural expression that previously remained in the public domain. In this article, the authors examine the tension between economic and political justifications…
Inspired by the Paralympics: Effects of Empathy on Audience Interest in Para-Sports and on the Destigmatization of Persons with Disabilities.
Theories of eudaimonic entertainment and destigmatization concur to suggest that empathic feelings elicited by portrayals of Paralympic athletes can increase audience interest in para-sports and can lead to prosocial attitude change toward persons with disabilities in general. Three experiments were…
Individual and Institutional Influences on Faith-based Health and Wellness Programming
The majority of the US population is affiliated with faith-based organizations (FBO). Health and wellness activities (HWAs) within FBOs have great potential for reach, though the factors influencing faith-based HWA are not well understood. The purpose of this study was…
Individual and contextual determinants of stable volunteering in sport clubs
This article addresses factors that influence voluntary sport club(VSC) members’ loyalty to voluntary engagement. The question asked is an issue of VSC volunteers’ commitment; whether they decide to quit or continue their engagement. A multilevel approach was used that considered…
Increasing Lower Extremity Injury Rates Across the 2009-2010 to 2014-2015 Seasons of National Collegiate Athletic Association Football: An Unintended Consequence of the “Targeting” Rule Used to Prevent Concussions?
Background: Sports-related concussions (SRCs) have gained increased societal interest in the past decade. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has implemented legislation and rule changes to decrease the incidence and risk of head injury impacts. The “targeting” rule forbids initiating…
Inconspicuous dressing: a critique of the construction-through-consumption paradigm in the sociology of clothing
Based on ‘wardrobe interviews’, this article studies how young Dutch men dress themselves. We argue that existing sociological studies of clothing have gone too far in emphasizing the symbolic aspects of clothing and have not paid sufficient attention to the…
In-ger-land, In-ger-land, In-ger-land! Exploring the impact of soccer on the sense of belonging of those seeking asylum in the UK
Utilising research conducted in Sheffield (UK) with people seeking asylum, this article explores the ways in which soccer might be used to create a sense of belonging in the host country. It explores participant feelings about soccer and its potential…
Impacts and strategic outcomes from non-mega sport events for local communities
The staging of sport events directly impacts the quality of life of people living in the host communities. Sport events are temporal and can trigger a variety of short- or long-term, positive or negative impacts, which lead to positive or…