Sociology of Sport

Special Admission contradicts the national belief that college sports provide upward mobility opportunities. Kirsten Hextrum documents how white middle-class youth become overrepresented on college teams. Her institutional ethnography of one elite athletic and academic institution includes over 100 hours of interviews with college rowers and track & field athletes. She charts the historic and contemporary relationships between colleges, athletics, and white middle-class communities that ensure white suburban youth are advantaged in special athletic admissions. Suburban youth start ahead in college admissions because athletic merit—the competencies desired by university recruiters—requires access to vast familial, communal, and economic resources, all of which are concentrated in their neighborhoods. Their advantages increase as youth, parents, and coaches strategically invest in and engineer novel opportunities to maintain their race and class status. Thus, college sports allow white, middle-class athletes to accelerate their racial and economic advantages through admission to elite universities.

Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of bodily habitus, social capital, and physical capital, the purpose of this qualitative case study is to develop a better understanding of Saudi youth bodily dispositions that influence their experiences in physical education. The paper reports on qualitative data generated by observation as well as semi-structured interviews with 27 boys between the ages of 15 and 20. Family, neighborhood friends and peers have been found to be essential factors in shaping boys’ attitudes towards and experiences in PE. The production and conversion of physical capital to other forms of capital (e.g. social capital) is notable among students who are physically skillful, helping them to earn a more socially and academically privileged status. Students who are not skillful and come from constraining family circumstances (social/financial) are less able to distinguish themselves and may experience marginalization. This paper finds that a student’s sporting body is considered as an example of symbolic value (capital) and gives an account of how such bodies, and such values, are (re) produced.

In 2010, Kofi Annan supported that sports power must be used as an agent for social change (Kofi Annan Foundation, 2010). Sports are a great dynamic not only for social change to be realized, but also for development within high performance sport systems, as they can be a conduit to peace. Furthermore, sports contribute to personal, but also to community development as it can teach people the importance of team and co-existing. During the 21st century, many important initiatives have been taken place aiming to boost the field called Sport for Development (SfD); nevertheless, different types of crisis such as financial (Földesi, 2014), and COVID-19 crisis (Wong et al., 2020) globally have complicated the development work that uses sport as a tool for various desired outcomes. The 2020 pandemic agitated the international community and made it difficult for sport activities to be operated. The quarantine periods and the various enforcement, laws, policies and recommendations have anecdotally caused more serious harms to groups of people (demographics like women, children, adolescents) (Bullinger et al., 2020). Individuals, especially women and kids were trapped during the quarantine with their abusers, having limited access to help and social activities; activities that aim to empower people, develop their skills and critical thinking. The current paper examines the SfD field and its importance for social development; briefly describes the effects of the lock down on the maximization of abuse, racism and discrimination and finally, proposes directions to be taken into consideration by policy makers so as to minimize the aforementioned phenomena and at the same time strengthen the SfD field.

English version of  "Il calcio in Italia tra conflitti e aiuti di stato". The essay sociologically analyzes the events of a particularly complex summer, in political and economic terms, for Italian football, and captures the relationship with the overall Italian crisis.

Welcome to the first edition of the Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies. This journal presents a valuable opportunity for undergraduates and postgraduates to write mentored publications of their research activities in the sport’s world. The papers are externally reviewed by academics from other institutions/other subject areas who share a similar vision for encouraging student confidence in their academic writing and, encouraging greater involvement with researching sport from a qualitative standpoint. Towards these ends, the journal has three central aims which we, the Editorial Board, hope the reader will recognise as educationally valuable in terms of academic quality and student centred support in academia:

(a) To showcase and share student research at either undergraduate or postgraduate level.
(b) Through a process of mentoring and external review, help to improve student’s confidence to present their ideas formally.
(c) To create a contemporary resource of qualitative research within the sports world which is assessable to students, and informs their ongoing investigations.

This inaugural volume comprises topics around physical education, coaching pedagogy, applied ethnography, football and nationalism.

The focus of this book is to take a sideways look at iconic features in sport; characters, events, artefacts and general goings-on. By considering the notion of ‘What If?’ reality has been re-interpreted and presented differently through a medium of creative writing. Each chapter has some underpinning research which is intended to illustrate where the creative story departs from reality. The research aspect is also to give a sense of plausibility for a range of different outcomes which are ostensibly possible for some famous people in sport. Through the conflict created for these characters we find many ‘good apples’ in sport who may have been rotten to the core (and vice-versa) and some ‘juicy’ dialogue leads them to novel endings, altered events and new milestones in an augmented life-history. These are the kind of things envisaged by the authors in What If?, always for dramatic effect and often with moral tales lurking not too far behind the scenes.
Included in What If? are trials and tribulations for:
Muhammad Ali, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing, Mike Tyson, Thierry Henry, Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, Jesse Owens and Hitler, Rio Ferdinand, Duncan Edwards, Dame Kelly Holmes, Roman Abramovich, Michael Schumacher and many more…

The Brit Maccabim Atid sports club was founded in the 1930s by immigrants who came to Mandatory Palestine from Germany. The club's demographic makeup and operational patterns differed from those of sports organizations operating in Palestine until then. In this paper, sports culture serves as a tool for analyzing absorption processes among German immigrants. The attitude towards sports in Yishuv society in Palestine differed from what the immigrants were accustomed to in Germany. In Palestine, affiliating with a sports club was tantamount to taking a political stance. In response to this politicization of sports, the Central European immigrants began establishing sports clubs based on ethnicity and national origins (sportschaft). One such organization, Brit Maccabim Atid, serves as a test case for examining social and cultural changes in the significance of sports in the move from one country to another. The paper describes two sociological models, each of which examines the impact of involvement in sports on the extent to which immigrants become integrated into society. Our findings indicate that the dichotomous division into these two models does not reflect the special nature of the absorption of these immigrants. Indeed we learned that engaging in sports in an immigrant society can be a unifying and assimilative factor and at the same time a segregating one. The paper ends with a discussion of the decline of Brit Maccabim Atid in the 1970s.

W artykule podejmuje się kwestię specyfiki grup kibicowskich jako grup interesu politycznego funkcjonujących na lokalnej scenie politycznej. Artykuł to studium przypadku dotyczące łódzkich kibiców i lokalnych inwestycji stadionowych. Dwie zantagonizowane grupy kibicowskie rywalizowały zarówno między sobą, jak i z innymi aktorami zbiorowymi o ograniczone zasoby próbując poprzez wywieranie presji na władzach lokalnych zapewnić sobie jak najpełniejszą realizację swych interesów.

This research summary expands previous studies of the consequences of interscholastic athletic participation for socioeconomic attainment. Data from five southern states were used for applying multiple regression techniques to estimate athletic participation effects. The findings suggest that white males receive substantial payoffs from athletic participation; the lack of consequences for other subgroups are briefly discussed.

Dieses Buch analysiert das gesellschaftlich weitverbreitete Ressentiment gegen RB Leipzig aus antisemitismuskritischer Perspektive. In einer empirisch fundierten theoretischen Auseinandersetzung stellt dieses Buch eine gleichermaßen innovative wie richtungsweisende Studie über die Fankultur der Ultras sowie die Artikulationsformen des Antisemitismus im 21. Jahrhundert vor. Brunssen legt eindrucksvoll dar, wie sich die Ablehnung RB Leipzigs aus einem jahrhundertealten Fundus antisemitischer Bilder speist.

Mit einem Vorwort von Andrei S. Markovits.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar o Segundo Tempo, programa ministerial de política pública para a democratização da prática esportiva, desenvolvido em 2006 pela Secretaria Municipal de Cultura Esporte e Lazer da cidade de Campinas. Para tanto, utilizamo-nos de análise documental, das observações e entrevistas realizadas durante a investigação. Como suporte teórico, o trabalho tece uma discussão entre a gênese e função do esporte na sociedade, dialogando com as contradições, limites e avanços do Segundo Tempo.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo discutir a política pública recen-te de esporte, desenvolvida pela Secretaria Municipal de Cultura Esporte e Lazer da cidade de Campinas, especialmente pela análise do programa Segundo Tempo, projeto ministerial para a democratização da prática esportiva. Foi utilizada a análise documental juntamente com observações e entrevistas, durante a investigação. Como suporte teórico, o trabalho tece uma discussão referente à gênese e função do esporte na sociedade contemporânea e dialoga com as contradições, com os limites e avanços do Segundo Tempo enquanto política pública de esporte. Palavras-chave: esporte; política social; educação física.

Este ensaio tem por objetivo discutir a questão da organização capitalista do esporte com base no modelo proposto pelo francês Jean Marie Brohm na década de 1970. A partir da leitura de suas obras e do diálogo com autores que embasaram suas teorias, faremos reflexões sobre a dinâmica atual do esporte em nossa sociedade, apontando novas interpretações para o tema.

This essay aims to discuss the question of the capitalist organization of sports on the model proposed by Jean Marie Brohm in the 1970s. From the reading of his work and dialogue with the authors who had based their theories, we will make reflections about the current dynamics of the sport in our society, offering new interpretations of the theme.

This study focuses on the relationship between sport volunteerism and social capital, defined here as a resource that stems from participation in certain social networks. A position generator and a resources generator were used to measure the social capital of respondents. Results from this pilot study survey, exploring several aspects of volunteerism in sport in two Canadian communities (one in Québec, the other in Ontario), show a strong relationship between volunteerism in sport and social capital but do not allow a precise measure of the direction of this relationship. Results also show stronger relationships between sport volunteerism and social capital when we control for gender, language, and age.

In view of scholarly work that has explored the socio-psycho significance of national performativity, the body and the “other”, this article critically analyses newspaper representations of the Canadian-born, British tennis player, Greg Rusedski. Drawing from Lacanian interpretations of the body, it is illustrated how Rusedski’s media framing centered on a particular feature of his body – his “smile”. In doing so, we detail how Rusedski’s “post-imperial” Otherness – conceived as a form of “extimacy” (extimité) – complicated any clear delineation between “us” and “them”, positing, instead, a dialectical understanding of the splits, voids and contradictions that underscore the national “us”.

This paper is based on my experiences, as a foreigner on a three-year work-permit, following Lautoka Blues in Fiji's national soccer league during my first year in Fiji which was the calendar year 2013. This paper argues that Lautoka Blues' inconsistency and its long-term decline since 1970 have mirrored the anxieties present in the town over Indo-Fijian emigration; unemployment; and the fate of the sugar industry. The present author also presents a second thesis in this paper: Fiji soccer as a sport, forever marginalized by rugby, has a status which some might see as commensurate with the second-class status endured by Indo-Fijians politically for much of the past 100 years. However, indigenous Fijians are somewhat marginalized within the world of soccer-a minority group within a minority game but a majority within the nation.

ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of a study seeking to examine the experiences of people with intellectual disability in a sporting context. The research design employed an online, interviewer-completed questionnaire in both a standard and an easy English version designed for administration by a third party for those requiring assistance to respond. Questions sought both quantitative responses about levels of participation and qualitative responses about constraints experienced and benefits received from participation. The results of the study show high levels of participation reported by people who are independent or have lower to moderate support needs, whereas people with high to very high support needs had substantially lower levels of participation. Constraints are examined for both those who participate in sport and those who do not. For those who do participate, the benefits were identified as overwhelmingly social in nature, including belonging, companionship and achievement.

By shifting our attention toward everyday life, its manifold commitments and responsibilities, this paper examines the potential for “fitness” to take on an extended meaning beyond consumption activity. In the opening sections, Robert Nozick’s (1974) “Experience Machine” thought experiment is presented as an alternative analytic frame for interpreting the problem of fitness in terms of a tension between mere activity and experience. In relation to this tension, the paper presents findings from a study of experienced participants and emphasizes the possibilities of a virtuous production through fitness. In particular, we emphasize that there is much work to be done in sedimenting (and maintaining) an appropriate frame of reference for “doing fitness” and that “being someone through fitness” might operate as an indexical marker of virtue.En dirigeant notre attention vers la vie de tous les jours et ses multiples engagements et responsabilités, nous examinons dans cet article le potent...