Sociology of Sport: an Overview

This review sketches some strengths and weaknesses in the subfield and its potential for generating and testing theoretical frameworks. The analysis includes research on sport from the following perspectives: interinstitutional relationships, social stratification, small groups, and social psychology. In recent years, the sociology of sport has become more sophisticated in terms of research questions posed, research design, quantitative analysis, and cross-cultural comparisons. As one dimension of leisure, sports represent a serious topic for scholarly research to round out our understanding of the human person as a social being.     

Connecting Social Psychology and the Sociology of Sport: Using Goffman as a Framework for Sociological Sports Research

Research on the sociology of sports has much to contribute to public discourse on sports and is well positioned to do so through the connection between sociology of sports and social psychology. This article uses the work of Erving Goffman ( 1967 ) as a framework for situating research in the sociology of sports into the themes of courage and gameness, integrity, and composure. This framework provides a way of organizing research in the field and also highlights areas where further research is needed.     

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.     

Urban culture and physical and sports activities. The "sportification" of parkour and street golf as cultural mediation

The article explores the process of "sportification"--i.e., processing physical activity in a sport regulated by a set of rules and standards, legitimized by supervisory institutions--from two originals practices, parkour and urban golf. To study these practices, we crossed the contributions of urban sociology and of the contemporary sociology of sport while respecting the methodological principles of qualitative sociology. A first point concerns the process of"sport" itself, its definition, its various stages, and the role played by communication of stakeholders on public space. The cultural mediation shows us how to institutionalize the movement that represents the "sports" resulted in the same time reconfiguration of physical practices themselves. Recent events illustrate the ongoing reconfiguration, we will detail them. Finally, we show the effects produced by the process on the definition of urban culture and sports: setting sight of activities, enhanced cooperation with the media-cultural, polarization between different types of practical in the case of parkour, around a confrontation between two of the founders.     

Adolescent exposure to gambling promotions during televised sport: an exploratory study of links with gambling intentions

Young people are exposed to gambling promotions while watching televised sports; however, little research has examined how this influences gambling attitudes and intentions. This paper developed and tested a research model underpinned by the Theory of Reasoned Action and specifically aimed to examine (1) adolescents' exposure and attitudes to, and recall and perceptions of, gambling promotions during televised sport; (2) associations between adolescents' exposure and attitude to these gambling promotions, and their intention to gamble on sports and other gambling activities once of legal gambling age. An online survey was conducted of 131 Australian adolescents. Greater intention to gamble both on sports and non-sports was associated with higher frequency of watching televised sports, and more positive attitudes to gambling operators, to gambling promotions during televised sport and to promotional techniques used. Regression analysis indicated that the strongest predictors of sports betting intention were male gender and a more positive attitude to gambling sponsors and their promotions during televised sport. Strongest predictors of gambling intention were male gender, subjective norms and a more positive attitude to promotion of gambling during televised sport. Findings can inform advertising restrictions for gambling during general television viewing times, and health promotion messages countering promotion of gambling to adolescents.     

DISCERNING THE SYMBIONIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPORT,LEISURE, AND RECREATION: A NOTE ON THE SPORTIZATION OF PASTIMES

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the sportization of pastimes. This is perhaps one of the most important issues facing the sociology of sport, leisure, and recreation. The article offers some initial dialogue toward the development of a theory that would explain the myriad of activities which continue to evolve from leisure time pursuits of a few, into more organized recreation for many, and then into highly competitive sports. The status of this subarea of sociology is discussed within the context that the sportization of pastimes may generate enough research interest so as to catapult this subarea into mainstream sociology.     

Pressures on the UK Voluntary Sport Sector

This paper uses research from two projects, conducted for Sport England and for the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR), to analyze pressures on volunteers in sport in the United Kingdom (UK). Both research projects were contract research, conducted to inform policy and therefore were not designed to build on theoretical insights. However, from the results the research developed an understanding of the interrelated pressures on the voluntary sector in sport, which was informed by theory. This paper describes the pressures and relates them to previous research into volunteers. Contextualizing the issues faced by volunteers in sports organizations suggests several questions for further academic work, not only focussed on sports volunteers, but the voluntary sector in general. In particular, are the pressures experienced by the voluntary sector in UK sport common to sports volunteers in other countries, and to what extent are they also a reflection of general pressures on the voluntary sector?     

Is deviance “Deadℍ? The decline of a sociological research specialization

Colin Sumner has declared that the sociology of deviance as a research specialty was “dead? by 1975; later influential studies on norm-violating behavior appeared only in the specific area of criminology. We subjected this argument to empirical test through an analysis of the most-cited scholars and works in 263 textbooks, articles, and research notes appearing in the sociology of deviance from 1993 to 1999. We found some support for Sumner's claims: The majority of the most-cited scholars in devi-ance today conduct research in other areas, primarily in criminology. Furthermore, among the 31 most-cited works in our analysis, only two of 15 studies classified in the sociology of deviance appeared after 1975. We conclude with some thoughts about the factors that contribute to the rise and fall of research specializations in sociology.     

Whose game is it anyway? The cultural analysis of sport and media consumption

This article presents work towards a critical sociology and a cultural analysis of sport, developing as the fullest example an interpretation of shifting patterns of power in English professional football, in the context of wider patterns of sports development and participation. The impact of selected work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (at the University of Birmingham, England) is reviewed, and located with regard to some of its major formative influences and more recent critical responses to the work of the Centre. The application of a critical cultural analysis to a phenomenon such as the Olympic Games is outlined, and the methodological strengths of a critical sociology of consumption as a variant of cultural analysis are used to illuminate recent changes in sports and professional football in England     

Intersections of Gender and National Identity in Sport: A Cultural Sociological Overview

Sport is a global phenomenon that is assigned different meanings in different countries. This article reviews how we can understand the intersections of national identity and gender in sport. Two diverging analytic pathways reveal themselves. On the one hand, we have an intersectional approach, wherein national identity and gender are understood to be formed by universal notions of nationalism and patriarchy, respectively. On the other, we have a cultural analysis by which specific national‐identity repertoires are understood to form local gendered meaning. These two analytic pathways are exposed by comparing selected sport studies with developments in cultural sociology. I find that intersectional sport studies draw attention away from cultural sociologists' aim to uncover variation in global and local meaning‐making. Cultural sociology can thus help take apart the universalities argued for in many sport studies and explicate variations across national representations of gendered identities.     

Career Maturity Levels of Male Intercollegiate Varsity Athletes

This study examined the readiness of male intercollegiate varsity athletes to make career-related decisions. The research questions compared students participating in revenue- and nonrevenue-producing sports as well as Caucasian and minority (Black, Asian American, Hispanic American, Native American, and other) student-athletes on eight dimensions of career maturity measured by the Career Development Inventory (Super, Thompson, Lindeman, Jordaan, & Myers, 1981). No significant differences were found in the overall career maturity of the student-athletes based either on the type of sport played or on their race. Also, the interaction of type of sport and race was not significant in determining differences in student-athletes' career maturity levels. Implications for career counseling programs for student-athletes and future research are discussed.     

Immigrants,Immigration, and Sociology: Reflecting on the State of the Discipline*

The growth of the field of immigration in multiple directions and across disciplines and areas presents an opportune juncture to pause and reflect on the central role sociology has played in the study of immigrants and immigration, as well as to assess the contributions that immigration research has made to sociology. This essay discusses three subfields in sociology in which the sociological study of immigrants has contributed to bring new light to long‐standing questions: family, religion, and ethnic and racial studies. At the same time, it brings up areas – culture and arts, social movements and civic engagement, and citizenship, belonging and the state – in which immigration scholars in sociology could establish a more vibrant intellectual dialog with those subfields. Far from exhausting the discussion, these comments are intended to offer potential avenues for further research and discussion.     

Caregiving, ethical and informal: emerging challenges in the sociology of health and illness

The concept of care, integral to medical sociology and to the sociology of health and illness, suggests new challenges in two key areas of this field: 1) within professional socialization, an examination of socialization to ethical thinking, behavior, and identity among professional caregivers, building on the substantial literature already accumulated; 2) in the arena of hidden or informal care providers, an analysis of male and female informal providers and the productive work, other than care, done by these individuals. In both analyses, as well as in all medical sociology and sociology of health and illness, gender, race, and class require more attention. Both analytic endeavors influence the substance and the contours of the field.     

Health Social Movements in the United States: An Overview

This article reviews the literature on health social movements (HSMs) and provides an overview of their main conceptual, theoretical and empirical underpinnings. Health social movements is not a single paradigm but spans several decades’ worth of theoretical and research activity in the areas of social movements, medical sociology and social studies in science. Case studies of HSMs have been accumulating for years, and several new collections of papers attempt to systematize the various strands of health social movements research to answer questions about their origins, different strategic and political approaches to social change, their trajectories and consequences. We provide a selective overview of the literature on health social movements that explore these questions, while distinguishing between health social movements seeking greater access to healthcare, those focusing on health disparities and inequality, and those challenging the underlying science of health and healthcare. We conclude with some suggestions for the direction of future studies.     

The main themes of Sociology in Europe

Social conditions influence sociological research muck more than they do other sciences. Consequently, beyond the common interests of the whole sociological community one can observe interests that are specific to social and cultural areas. It is to the interaction of general and specific sociological interests, and their relation to the possibility of constituting a ‘European’ sociology, that this paper is addressed. Its starting point is an analysis of the contributions at the XIIth World Congress of Sociology (Madrid, 1990). The relation of the proposed theme to the geographical area and gender of the conference participant was studied via the application of content analysis and the use of residual analysis. A profile of thematic preference was established for each variable category. The analysis shows that in Europe there is an evident preference for some questions, but despite this common trait, significant differences can be observed in terms of both the geographical area and gender variables.     

Interface methods: renegotiating relations between digital social research,STS and sociology

This paper introduces a distinctive approach to methods development in digital social research called ‘interface methods’. We begin by discussing various methodological confluences between digital media, social studies of science and technology (STS) and sociology. Some authors have posited significant overlap between, on the one hand, sociological and STS concepts, and on the other hand, the ontologies of digital media. Others have emphasized the significant differences between prominent methods built into digital media and those of STS and sociology. This paper advocates a third approach, one that (a) highlights the dynamism and relative under‐determinacy of digital methods, and (b) affirms that multiple methodological traditions intersect in digital devices and research. We argue that these two circumstances enable a distinctive approach to methodology in digital social research – thinking methods as ‘interface methods’ – and the paper contextualizes this approach in two different ways. First, we show how the proliferation of online data tools or ‘digital analytics’ opens up distinctive opportunities for critical and creative engagement with methods development at the intersection of sociology, STS and digital research. Second, we discuss a digital research project in which we investigated a specific ‘interface method’, namely co‐occurrence analysis. In this digital pilot study we implemented this method in a critical and creative way to analyse and visualize ‘issue dynamics’ in the area of climate change on Twitter. We evaluate this project in the light of our principal objective, which was to test the possibilities for the modification of methods through experimental implementation and interfacing of various methodological traditions. To conclude, we discuss a major obstacle to the development of ‘interface methods’: digital media are marked by particular quantitative dynamics that seem adverse to some of the methodological commitments of sociology and STS. To address this, we argue in favour of a methodological approach in digital social research that affirms its maladjustment to the research methods that are prevalent in the medium.     

Some kids are left behind: The failure of a perspective,using critical race theory to expand the coverage in the sociology of youth sports

Sports are no longer simply extracurricular activities. For many children, sports are curricular, central to their identity, development, and peer and familial relationships. However, sport scholars and sociologists spend little time trying to learn and understand the huge growth in youth sports participation and even less attention to the role of race in youth sports. Sociology could offer much more, but suffers from what James McKee calls ( 1993 ) “the failure of a perspective” with regard to studying and understanding race, racism, and race relations. Critical Race Theory can help to extend the coverage of youth sports to include more input from Youth and of Scholars of Color. In this article, we review a current debate in the sociology of youth sports, which illustrates the gap in understanding the experiences of youth of color and Black athletes in particular. And, we provide solutions and ideas for future research.     

Sports Sociology’s Still Untapped Potential

Following up on Zirin’s (2008) challenge that sports sociologists “get off the bench,” and Karen and Washington’s (2001) plea to make sports sociology more central to analyses of social power, this article empirically reviews and assesses the sociology of sports from 1977–2008. Using a sample of 441 articles selected from the three major sports sociology journals during that period, we conclude that sports sociology exhibits a strong and increasing bias toward micro‐level analyses of (for example) how the content of sports frames and constructs the social world. A smaller and shrinking body of work examines more macro‐oriented issues such as the economics and politics of sports, and there seem to be few attempts to meaningfully synthesize these micro and macro orientations. We think this partiality toward micro‐oriented frameworks is rooted in factors unique to sports sociology while also reflecting larger trends within sociology as a whole. As advocates of popularly accessible public sociology, we respectfully suggest that sports sociologists try harder to weave macro analyses into their work, not necessarily replacing micro‐level approaches, but complementing them. We believe that sports sociology is well‐positioned to become a standard bearer for public sociology, but only if it pays more attention to the way organized sports intertwines with the organizational, political, and economic forces that perpetuate and exacerbate social inequality.     

Improving health through youth sports: is participation enough?

The health benefits of engaging in regular physical activity are widely known: enhanced cardiorespiratory fitness, increased muscular strength and endurance, and favorable cholesterol and other profiles. Nevertheless, particularly in youth sports programs run by volunteer, and perhaps inadequately trained, coaches, many youth may not realize the health benefits of sports participation due to a number of factors, among them, inappropriate coach-child ratios, limited space, or mismatched expectations between coaches and those of children and their parents. There are specific strategies that can be implemented to ensure that youth receive the maximize benefits from participation in sports. These strategies are presented in the following areas: frequency, intensity, and duration; cross-training or complementary exercise; access points; utilization of space and time; nutrition; and rest. For instance, with regard to the frequency of physical activity, some sports, including soccer, basketball, and singles tennis, require extensive physical effort over an extended period of time, while others, such as baseball and football, have a lot of downtime. Thus, in order for children and youth to meet the recommendation of participating in moderate or vigorous physical activity at least four times per week, sports programs need to have opportunities for all athletes to practice hard. Finally, the author discusses the point at which participation in sports might be too much, leading to significant injuries, frustration, and resentment.