Sport and Social Inequalities

This article reviews recent research on the relationship between sport and social inequalities, focusing on gender, race, nation and social mobility. Through an engagement with these areas of research, we highlight how sport reflects and reinforces broader hierarchical structures; how it serves as a site for both inclusion and exclusion, but in ways that work unevenly; and how sport is ultimately a site for social reproduction of hierarchy and social stratification. We argue that the gender, racial and national hierarchies that sport is embedded within interact to largely prevent sport from being a site for social mobility, despite popular myths to the contrary.     

Bad Sports: Explaining Sport Related Deviance

While sometimes dismissed as an unimportant subject for analysis, the study of sport has offered important insights into our social world. Yet the academic study of sport‐related deviance has not kept pace with the explosion of popular media products regarding deviance in sport over the past four decades. This can be explained in part by the sheer diversity of sport related deviance which defies applying a singular theoretical explanation. A number of approaches from the sociology of sport and other social sciences offer useful ways of making sense of sport related rule‐breaking while also providing valuable insights into larger questions regarding crime and deviance. This paper reviews three contemporary perspectives used in the study of sport deviance: deviant overconformity, moral panics and consumptive deviance. Drawing from exemplary studies of performance‐enhancing drug use, hooligan violence, and sport celebrity scandals, I highlight the ways in which these perspectives offer a “sociological corrective” to media misrepresentations as well as insights that extend beyond sport and into contemporary social issues including race and gender relations, economic inequalities, crime, youth violence, and celebrity culture. I conclude by addressing new developments and avenues for future research.     

Research methods in the sociology of sport: Strategies and problems

The kinds of research questions asked in the sociology of sport are no different from those generated by other substantive areas of sociology. However, while the more established areas of social inquiry have developed methods of research specifically suited to the situation in which their research is done, the sociology of sport has not yet reached this stage of development. The theoretical frameworks borrowed from other areas in sociology generate relevant questions, while the research methods borrowed from other areas in sociology often require adaptation to the particular situations found in the sociology of sport. This paper looks at three specific areas of sports study, and points to those problems that require new adaptations of the available research methods in order to deal with specific situational constraints. These areas may be roughly defined as: (a) the analysis of patterns of ownership in professional sports; (b) the analysis of athletic careers within the occupational culture of sport; and (c) the analysis of sports audiences. The authors conclude that theoretically informed and relevant research can be conducted in these areas provided that researchers are able to find imaginative adaptations of their techniques and procedures.Revised version of a paper presented at the 9th World Congress of Sociology, August 14–19, 1978, in Uppsala, Sweden.     

An application of the nonprofit virtual accountability index: Accountability in sport for development and peace

In this research note, we examine web-based accountability practices of human service nonprofits. Data were collected directly from the organizational websites of an international sample of 532 organizations involved in operating sport for social change programs, more commonly known as the field of sport for development and peace. Websites were coded using the nonprofit virtual accountability index—a theoretically grounded and robust tool—to measure information and interactivity available for stakeholders across five dimensions of accountability. Analyses of variance and independent t-tests were used to test potential group differences based on geographical region, the thematic types of social change efforts, and the type of sport used to deliver programming. The results of this analysis highlight the critical importance of geographical location and other organizational variables for web-based accountability practices. Furthermore, the results allow nonprofit leaders to identify common areas in need of improvement for smaller and emerging nonprofits.     

Social media and the doping of sport surveillance

Reviewing literatures from sociology of sport, surveillance, and internet studies, we consider the processes by which social media regulate the behavior of athletes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the current regulation of anti‐doping in elite sport where athletes' social media postings have been highly critical of fellow competitors. As social media becomes increasingly blended into everyday routines, this form of surveillance extends the gaze of those who watch and increases the pressure for online disclosure while making traditional distinctions between formal and informal social control less meaningful. Contemporary social media acts as a form of social control that has become more preemptive and grassroots. When athletes internalize surveillance and disclosure as consistent with their professional norms, the power relationships that surround sport performance become increasingly difficult to discern. This article helps to illuminate the ways in which surveillance through social media have become a part of everyday routines, extends and amplifies the power of more traditional agents of surveillance, and calls for continued research into the role of contemporary social media as a surveillance practice.     

‘I guess it’s kind of elitist’: the formation and mobilisation of cultural,social and physical capital in youth sport volunteering

Policy and research portray sport volunteering as a means by which young people can develop skills and perform active citizenship. This paper draws on qualitative research with participants in a UK sport volunteering programme to critically examine young people’s volunteering journeys and how these are shaped by their formation and mobilisation of capital. The results show how programme structures and practices, such as selection criteria, privilege young people with higher levels of cultural and physical capital, and afford these youth additional opportunities to accumulate and mobilise cultural and social capital. The paper argues for a more critical understanding of youth sport volunteering; one that recognises that sport volunteering can reserve the practice of active citizenship for privileged youth.     

The British Asian Muslim male sport participation puzzle: an exploration of implications for sport development policy and practice

The purpose of this study is to explore intersections between religion, faith and social identity with regards to their impact on either promoting or preventing sport participation amongst self-identified British Asian Muslim males living in Birmingham (West Midlands of the UK) aged 16–25 years old. The research questions around this topic of study are to explore how interpretations of Islamic faith promote or prevent sport participation amongst young Muslim males. Secondly, the paper will examine the perspectives of Muslim male participants in relation to sport to identify factors determining sport participation. Finally, the study will consider implications for policy and practice in sport development. The study drew upon seven in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Muslim males aged 16–25 years old and applied a thematic analysis and coding methodology to unpick the key dimensions and findings from the data. Findings from the study indicate the complexity of young Muslim male sport participation contexts, dynamics in decision-making, family influence and perceptions held about other communities and their own. The study draws out key implications for agencies in sport development that seek to encourage sport participation cutting across school, community, local government and national governing body partnerships specifically considering Islamic faith communities.     

Olympic and world sport: making transnational society?

This paper introduces the special issue of the British Journal of Sociology on the subject of the transnational aspects of Olympic and world sport. The special issue is underpinned by the perspective that because sport provides a space for the forging of transnational connections and global consciousness, it is increasingly significant within contemporary processes of globalization and the making of transnational society. In this article, we examine in turn eight social scientific themes or problems that are prominent within the special issue: globalization, glocalization, neo-liberal ideologies and policies, transnational society, securitization, global civil society, transnational/global public sphere, and fantasy/imagination. We conclude by highlighting five 'circles' of future research inquiry within world sport that should be explored by social scientists.     

Normative Bridges and Barriers in the Framing of Emerging Sports Movements

Abstract

Why have some small, emerging sports communities grown faster than others? To begin answering this question, the analysis presented here considers the case of disc golf, a flying disc sport that has grown rapidly since the early twenty-first century. This research conceptualizes the disc golf community as a new social movement and examines how the news media has influenced its development. Drawing on a large, diverse sample of local and national news materials, this study finds that the volume of disc golf news coverage is correlated with reliable measures of the sport’s growth. In addition, a content analysis of 2920 newspaper articles is used to identify the news frames that may promote, or attenuate disc golf’s “grow the sport movement.” The theoretical and methodological contributions of this study shed further light on the complex relationship between the news media and the evolution of small, non-normative sports movements.     

Competitive sport and social capital in rural Australia

Sport is often regarded as an important part of life in rural Australia, contributing to community identity, sense of place, social interaction and good health. The involvement of rural citizens in sport also has the potential to contribute to social capital. Understood in simple terms as norms of reciprocity and associational life, social capital is often regarded as a positive resource in rural areas. Drawing on a case study of the Northern Wheatbelt of Western Australia, this paper examines the links between sport and social capital in a rural region. In particular, it considers the ways in which sport acts as a vehicle for the creation and expression of social capital. The paper also considers the so-called darker side to social capital, and the extent to which this is evident in the Northern Wheatbelt. The paper shows that sport is an important arena for the creation and maintenance of social capital. However, it is also clear that this is being eroded as a result of wider processes of economic and social restructuring in rural Australia. The paper also points out that the social capital generated by sport is often fragile, and can lead to social exclusion and marginality for some residents.     

Global sport mega‐events and the politics of mobility: the case of the London 2012 Olympics

This paper examines the politics of mobility which surrounded the London 2012 Olympics. We provide a critical discussion of the mobility conflicts, problems and criticisms which emerged from our research with local people in the Stratford and wider Newham areas of London, where most Olympic events were located. The paper is divided into four broad parts. First, we identify and discuss the relevant components of the ‘mobilities paradigm’ in social science which underpin our analysis. Second, we briefly outline our research methods, centring particularly on fieldwork and interviews with different social groups. Third, we examine in detail the six main themes of mobility politics which were evident at London 2012, relating to social context, event construction, event mobility systems, commercial mobilities, the mobile politics of exclusion, and contested modes of mobility. In doing so, we seek to extend the mobilities paradigm by introducing various concepts and keywords – notably on the three‐speed city, entryability, mobility panics, instrumental mobility, and corporate kettling – which may be utilized by social scientists to examine mobility systems in other social contexts. We conclude by reaffirming the significance of mobility‐focused research at sport and other mega‐events, and by indicating future lines of inquiry for social scientists.     

Crimes against non-human animals: Examining dog fighting in the UK and the USA through a green criminology perspective

This article reviews the social scientific literature published between the late 1990s and 2021 on the illegal ‘sport’ of dog fighting in the UK and USA. Adopting a green criminological perspective, it argues that studying dog fighting is important for understanding the ways in which this form of animal cruelty contributes to a range of social and animal harms. The review is structured in five sections. The first situates the review theoretically by introducing key ideas within green criminology that will inform the discussion. The next section presents a typology of the different levels of dog fighting in both countries. The third section then explores both the motivations of contemporary dog fighters, as well as the justifications they deploy to defend their ‘sport’ to outsiders. The fourth section then adopts a green criminological perspective to explore the various social and animal harms associated with dog fighting. The final section then brings the threads of the discussion together and highlights some directions for future research.     

RUNNING OFF-TACKLE THROUGH THE LAST BASTION: WOMEN,RESISTANCE, AND PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL

This article discusses the mechanisms that must be in place in order for women to successfully resist institutionalized gender norms. This research draws on over 200 hours of observations of and 20 in-depth interviews with women playing full contact football, a sport traditionally dominated by men and firmly planted in the culture of the U.S. as synonymous with masculinity. Following the work of recent calls by gender scholars to treat gender as a social institution, this research shows that at least four components must be in place for sustained, successful resistance to a social institution. First, resistance must be a conscious activity. Second, any resistance must involve engaging in an abnormal activity. Third, any deviant or abnormal activity must take place in an otherwise legitimate social context. Finally, as the creation and maintenance of a social institution is an inherently social enterprise, so, too, is institutional resistance. This research contributes to scholarship on gender and social institutions by showing some strategies for increasing possibilities for personal expression.     

Social inclusion for whom and towards what end? A critical discourse analysis of youth and sport policies in Turkey

This article examines the social inclusion policy strategies of the Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sport (MYS). Using a critical discourse analysis, based on Norman Fairclough’s work (2012), the aim is to analyse the discourses used within policy-related documents regarding social inclusion, youth, and sport. In order to achieve this objective, we analysed 15 key documents, including annual activity reports, national youth and sport policy documents, and strategic plans produced by the Ministry. Findings revealed that the dominant discourses about young people seem to be embedded within neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies in which depoliticised notions of ‘employment/apprenticeship’ and ‘the family’ are put forward as solutions for the social inclusion of young people. However, such a discourse risks further sustaining the social exclusion of youth, denying their full citizenship.     

Der Fu?ball und seine Entproletarisierung

Since the 1950s, in Germany football has been characterized as a proletarian or working-class sport while in our days football is gaining credence and social acceptability. But how could this decrease of proletarianization??described as a shift of the social focus of football from an especially proletarian to an increased higher social classes interest??be explained? Has the transformation of football which is largely caused by television to an event and show sport made it more attractive for higher social classes (transformation hypothesis) or does the change of the interest in football only explain the similar change of the structure of Germany??s social society (similarity hypotheses)? The empirical analysis of the mostly traditional readers of the German Kicker sports magazine as an indicator of the interest in football using the data from Media-Analyse from 1954 to 2005 leads to a clear result: The decrease of proletarianization of the Kicker-readers can only be explained by the socio-structural change in the past fifty years.     

Hahn versus Guttmann: revisiting ‘Sports and the Political Movement of Disabled Persons’

Ludwig Guttmann, who pioneered the use of sport in the physical, psychological and social rehabilitation of paraplegic patients, argued that sport facilitates social reintegration, even asserting that: ‘an employer will not hesitate… to employ a paralysed man… when he realizes that [he] is an accomplished sportsman’ (Guttmann, 1976: 13). Disability activist Harlan Hahn, on the other hand, argued that participation by people with disabilities in sport is: an emulation of non-disabled standards; over-emphasises physicality in the assessment of humans; and diverts attention from the struggle for equality. Focusing on the Paralympics, this paper shows that disability sport is neither a panacea for social exclusion, as Guttmann would have it, nor a monolithic disabling institution, as Hahn would suggest—but rather an incredibly complex phenomena politically, socially and historically. It is argued that, whether essentially disablist or not, the Paralympics may make an excellent political platform for the disability rights movement.     

On the Need for an Anthropological Approach to Sport

Social relations of power are vital, embedded aspects of all sport. The Olympic credo of "Faster, Higher, Stronger" reflects the inherent ideological embodiment of power in sport. Sport, however, does not occur in a social vacuum, and therefore, who participates, and when, where, and how they participate, are all questions of socially embedded power critical to the study of sport. National states, across the entire ideological gamut, from fascist to Marxist, have tapped into the practices and symbolism of athletes and sport in order to aid in their legitimating discourses (Hoberman 1984). Yet the embedded power of sport is not limited to states and state-level societies, but is relevant to all societies. The relationships between sport and power extend from athletic bodies to social bodies in myriad, complex, intertwined patterns that penetrate and crosscut local specificities. This essay critically assesses recent contributions to the study of sport by suggesting how anthropological approaches to sport can complement existing sociological and historical perspectives within the burgeoning field of sport studies, while also making suggestions for other avenues of enquiry. With reference to four recent scholarly contributions, I will examine two general trends, globalization and sport and nationalism and sport that dominate the study of sport today. I also suggest ways in which these major themes incorporate perspectives on culture and power.     

Luchadoras Pensadoras: Reframing the development outcomes of Latina high school wrestlers

Many necessary developmental assets and competencies can be accrued through the participation of sport that aid in the holistic healthy development of adolescent girls; however, much research in this area has focused on adolescent girls as a monolithic group, disregarding the specific outcomes of sport for girls of color. Through analysis of semistructured interviews of 31 Latina high school wrestlers, we identified various developmental outcomes associated with their sport involvement. We apply a new epistemological approach to positive youth development within the context of sports development through the usage of extensive narratives of two of the girls. This study explores adolescent Latinas’ involvement in high school wrestling, a sport that is widely male dominated yet rising in popularity.     

Strikes,Frames, And Touchdowns: The Institutional Struggle For Meaning In The 1987 National Football League Season

The introduction of “replacement” teams for the first time in the NFL provided an opportunity to investigate how controversial social definitions and the meaning of such frames emerge within a modern social world. Seven processes were identified: disrupting social worlds, experiencing social ambiguity, interpreting disruption institutionally, socially constructing laminations, disattending problematics of laminations, culturally adapting to anomaly, and negating collective protest. Conclusions are based on an emergent content analysis of extensive newspaper, sport and newsmagazine, and live television and radio accounts. The value of Goffman's framing ideas for symbolic interactionism is discussed.     

"I Used to Think Women Were Weak": Orthodox Masculinity, Gender Segregation, and Sport

This article explores the cultural and structural forces that help influence the reproduction of sexist, misogynistic, and antifeminine attitudes among men in team sports. It first shows how the segregation of men into a homosocial environment limits their social contact with women and fosters an oppositional masculinity that influences the reproduction of orthodox views regarding women. However, this research also shows that when these same men compete in the gender-integrated sport of cheerleading, they positively reformulate their attitudes toward women. These findings therefore suggest that gender-integrating sports might potentially decrease some of the socionegative outcomes attributed to male team sport athletes, possibly including violence against women.