Syllabus: Sociological Perspectives of Sport

Annual Review of Sociology, 2001

Book reviews 509 non-Western academics, in non-Western locations and also in less visible geographical places and sports.

Frontiers in sports and active living, 2023

The relevance of a sociological view on the problems of society has never been as important as it is today. To quote the editors of the journal Nature in their editorial, Time for the Social Sciences, from 2015: if you want science to deliver for society, you need to support a capacity to understand that society. In other words, the technological and scientific disciplines cannot simply transfer their findings into everyday life without knowing how society works. But this realisation does not seem to have caught on everywhere. The sociology of sport is entering a critical period that will shape its development and potential transformation over the next decade. In this paper, we review key features and trends within the sociology of sport in recent times, and set out potential future challenges and ways forward for the subdiscipline. Accordingly, our discussion spans a wide range of issues concerning the sociology of sport, including theories and approaches, methods, and substantive research topics. We also discuss the potential contributions of the sociology of sport to addressing key societal challenges. To examine these issues, the paper is organized into three main parts. First, we identify three main concentric challenges, or types of peripheral status, that sociologists of sport must confront: as social scientists, as sociologists, and as sociologists of sport, respectively. Second, we consider various strengths within the positions of sociology and the sociology of sport. Third, in some detail, we set out several ways forward for the sociology of sport with respect to positioning within academe, scaling up research, embracing the glocal and cosmopolitan aspects of sociology, enhancing plurality in theory, improving transnational coordination, promoting horizontal collaborations, and building greater public engagement. The paper is underpinned by over 60 years (combined) of work within the sociology of sport, including extensive international research and teaching. KEYWORDS sociology, key societal challenges, sport, theory, methods, horizon, strengths and challenges of sociology, position of the sociology of sport TYPE

International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 1969

This paper updates and extends previous analyses of the sociology of sport in the United States. It provides a chronology of major events in the history of the field as well as a description of the social context in which the field emerged and grew. Then a review of data from both sociology and physical education leads to the conclusion that the sociology of sport in the United States continues to lack full legitimacy and a critical mass of members in both disciplines. In fact, there are reasons to conclude that the continued numerical growth of those calling themeselves sport sociologists has peaked and will not change significantly in the immediate future. Finally, a content summary of papers published in the first 14 issues of the Sociology of Sport Journal reveals the priorities given to research topics and research methodologies among those Americans doing some of the more significant work in the field.

The Urban Geography of Boxing makes a valuable contribution to the ever expanding literature on what is social, cultural and political about sport. Benita Heiskanen's focus is an empirical study of the culture of boxing, including the key players, promoters, trainers, media networks and audiences, as well as boxers in the gym. This book, a new ethnography of boxing, with detailed evidence from research in Texas, focuses importantly upon the spatiality of sport and the ways in which space and place intertwine. The study is based on Heiskanen's Ph.D, which she was awarded at the University of Austin in 2004. Although the book is written in the tradition of boxing ethnographies. The Urban Geography of Boxing is distinct, not least because of its scholarly engagement with the routine and everyday practices and transformations of life in the gym, including the participation of women, which, rather than being exceptional and unusual, is becoming ordinary. Heiskanen looks at Texas, in part, because global boxing has changed and Latino boxers, who are particularly well represented in Texas, are now a dominant group within the sport.

European Journal for Sport and Society, 2018

What is and was the sociology of sports all about? Through the method of topic modelling, I will investigate the content of all articles (full text, N ¼ 1923) from what has historically been the three leading sociology of sport journals-Sociology of Sport Journal, International Review for the Sociology of Sport and Journal of Sport and Social Issuesfrom 1984 to 2014. The study extracts 20 dominant topics: from the vague but central topic of Culture via Organization & Politics, Gender, Race, and Body to the less central, but more specific, topic of Football, Nationalism and Globalization. Additionally, I look at how the three journals have their strongholds in these topics, and how the topics have fluctuated over time. The results are discussed against the background of previous reviews and studies in the sociology of sports.

Sport is a major component in daily life today. Sport plays a huge role in our everyday life. Whether it’s mentally, physically or spiritually, sport has a big impact on anyone’s life, especially, to the average sport fan. Sport has became more commercialized and globalize over the past years for an example the world cup has lots of sport company sponsors and supporters. By watching the world cup and the olympics this creates excitement to the the human eye. In this essay there will be the components of sport in health , organizations , why people do this during their free time and how people play sport as a job.

Imagine a world without sport; the euphoric triumphs, the heart-breaking losses and the everyday sporting controversies which captivate a global audience would no longer exist. For millions of people around the world the excitement that sport entails ‘are like lightning bolts that interrupt an otherwise continuous skyline’ (Cashmore, 2000:6). Without sport, the world would never have witnessed Andy Murray make history by being the first Briton in 77 years to win the Wimbledon men's title, Victoria Pendleton would never have powered her way to winning gold in the women’s Keirin during the 2012 London Olympics, and Alex Ferguson would not have retired as the ‘greatest’ football manager of all time (?). Needless to say, there is more to sport than the sports themselves. Sport has become so deeply entrenched as a pillar of modern society, that to envisage a world without it seems inconceivable; neither the globalisation of commercial sports (Coakley, 2003) nor the intimate relationship between sport and politics (Houlihan, 2002) would ever have been formed. Additionally, the idea of using mega-sporting events, such as the Olympics, as global platforms for protest (Cottrell and Nelson, 2010), or as backdrops for terrorism (Giulianotti and Klauser, 2012), would be non-existent.

Respectus Philologicus

Sport in the Context of Social Sciences. W. J. Cynarski, J. Kosiewicz, K. Obodyński, Eds. 2012. Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego. 282 pp. ISBN 978-83-7338-813-0. Sport has been a very important component of human existence for ages. It is a complex and colourful phenomenon which arouses the intense interest of fans all over the world and which can be analysed from different points of view. Sport is definitely something more than pure entertainment. Anyone interested in sport should be­come familiar with the latest fruit of the work of the Polish scientists conducting research on different aspects of sports his­tory and sociology. It is worth emphasizing that in Poland there are numerous scholars who have put sport at the centre of their scientific interests.