bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Women in Male Domains: Sport and Science
Authors: Hanson Sandra L. , Kraus Rebecca S.
Published: August 2016

A Critical Feminist perspective and data from the nationally representative National Educational Longitudinal Study are used to explore the relationship between involvement in sports and success in science for a recent cohort of high school aged women. We also consider whether women from different social classes and racial/ethnic groups and with different sport experiences derive similar benefits from sport. Variation in sport experience involves a consideration of type of sport (e.g., basketball vs. track), type of team (e.g., varsity vs. intramural), age of athlete (middle school vs. high school sophomore vs. high school senior), and leadership roles (e.g., captain). Our findings show that sport has mostly positive consequences for young women’s science attainment, although these effects are smaller than for a 1980 cohort of female athletes. These benefits exist across types of sport, teams, and levels of involvement but are their greatest in the sophomore year of high school. In contrast to earlier cohorts, we find that for this recent cohort, sport participation positively affects the science attainment of women from various subgroups—white, Hispanic, upper-ses and lower-ses. However, young African-American women see very little benefit from sport. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Sports, Sexual Behavior, Contraceptive Use, and Pregnancy among Female and Male High School Students: Testing Cultural Resource Theory
Authors: Miller Kathleen E. , Farrell Michael P. , Sabo Donald F. , Barnes Grace M. , Melnick Merrill J.
Published: August 2016

In this paper, we examine the relationships among athletic participation and sexual behavior, contraceptive use, and pregnancy in female and male high school students. Analyses of covariance and multiple analyses of covariance were performed on a nationally representative sample of 8,979 high school students (the 1995 Youth Risk Behavior Survey). After controlling for race and ethnicity, age, and mother’s education, girls who participated in sports had lower rates of sexual experience, fewer sex partners, later age of first intercourse, higher rates of contraceptive use, and lower rates of past pregnancy than girls who did not participate. Male high school athletes reported higher rates of sexual experience and more partners than nonathletes, but—like their female counterparts—were also more likely to have used birth control during their most recent intercourse. Cultural resource theory suggests that athletic participation may reduce girls’ adherence to conventional cultural scripts while providing them with additional social and personal resources on which to draw in the sexual bargaining process. Sports provides boys with similar resources while strengthening their commitment to traditional masculine scripts.
Autoethnography and Narratives of Self: Reflections on Criteria in Action
Authors: Sparkes Andrew C.
Published: August 2016

A small number of sociologists of sport have opted to produce what have been defined as autoethnographies or narratives of self. These are highly personalized accounts that draw upon the experiences of the author/researcher for the purposes of extending sociological understanding. Such work is located at the boundaries of disciplinary practices and raises questions as to what constitutes proper research. In this paper, I explore this issue by focusing upon the criteria used by various audiences to pass judgment on an autoethnography/narrative of self that I submitted to, and eventually had published, in a leading journal. The problems of having inappropriate criteria applied to this work are considered, and the charge of self-indulgence as a regulatory mechanism is discussed. Reactions to a more trusting tale are then used to signal various criteria that might be more relevant to passing judgment upon this kind of tale in the future.
New Writing Practices in Qualitative Research
Authors: Richardson Laurel
Published: August 2016

New writing practices in qualitative research include evocative writing—a research practice through which we can investigate how we construct the world, ourselves, and others, and how standard objectifying practices of social science unnecessarily limit us and social science. Evocative representations do not take writing for granted but offer multiple ways of thinking about a topic, reaching diverse audiences, and nurturing the writer. They also offer an opportunity for rethinking criteria used to judge research and reconsidering institutional practices and their effects on community. Language is a constitutive force, creating a particular view of reality and the Self. No textual staging is ever innocent (including this one). Styles of writing are neither fixed nor neutral but reflect the historically shifting domination of particular schools or paradigms. Social scientific writing, like all other forms of writing, is a sociohistorical construction, and, therefore, mutable.
The Art of Concealment in a Culture of Display: Aerobicizing Women’s and Men’s Experience and Use of Their Own Bodies
Authors: Loland Nina Waaler
Published: August 2016

Inspired by Shusterman’s (1997) theory of somaesthetics, this study explores gender differences between aerobicizing individuals. Based upon semistructured interviews and participant observation, the study examines how aerobicizing men and women experience and use their bodies. Findings revealed that men as well as women used aerobics as a means to attain a belter bodily appearance, and both men and women expressed positive and negative experiences of their bodies in the aerobic context. Few of the men but many of the women used aerobics to attain a stronger, healthier, more powerful body. Several of the women felt empowered and in a position to challenge traditional femininity ideals in terms of bodily appearance and use. Most of the men seemed insecure and felt that they were under critical scrutiny during training. It is argued that Shusterman’s theory of somaesthetics can complement more traditional sociological theories in the study of physical activities like aerobics.
The Path Chosen by Female Bodybuilders: A Tentative Interpretation
Authors: Roussel Peggy , Griffet Jean
Published: August 2016

This paper suggests that the process of marginalization of women bodybuilders can be analyzed according to two theoretical frameworks. The first is essentially a pessimistic interpretation based on critical sociology and the concept of alienation, which discusses the limits of applying this concept to an empirical reality (in this case, female bodybuilders). The second considers the future of female bodybuilders as being constructed through the muscle cult. Our interpretation is comprehensive. The study stresses self-realization and self-fulfillment in female bodybuilders and discusses their attachment to the bodybuilding subculture.
Disability, Sport, and the Body in China
Authors: Stone Emma
Published: August 2016

The 1980s and 1990s witnessed the emergence of disability sport in China and a flurry of state-sanctioned propaganda on Chinese disabled people competing in national and international sporting events. This phenomenon and the discourses surrounding it warrant further inquiry. This paper analyzes a selection of state propaganda with a view to understanding dominant state constructions of disability and sport in contemporary China. This is done with reference to recent disability policy and legislation in China, the emergence of Western-style sport in China and the historical development of state discourses of body, nation, and sport.
Meaning of Sport to Adults with Physical Disabilities: A Disability Sport Camp Experience
Authors: Ashton-Shaeffer Candace , Gibson Heather J. , Autry Cari E. , Hanson Carolyn S.
Published: August 2016

This study investigated the experiences of nine men and six women with physical disabilities who participated in an adult disability sport camp. Using in-depth semistructured interviewing, camp participants were asked to reflect on their lived experiences and the significance of participating in sport at the camp. Themes and subthemes were developed from the interviews and transcripts using constant comparison. Analysis was guided by a Foucauldian framework and informed by the work of poststructural feminists. Three themes emerged from the data: surveillance, resistance and empowerment, which described the experiences of these individuals with sport prior to, during, and after camp. The implications of this study for future research and practice are discussed.
The Gendered Unapologetic: Queer Resistance in Women’s Sport
Authors: Broad K.L.
Published: August 2016

Based on an ethnographic study of women’s rugby in the U.S. in the early 1990s, this article suggests that women’s participation in sport represents a type of resistance that can be understood as “queer” resistance, albeit a gendered one. The article argues that queer theories and politics of resistance offer a lens by which to explain how women who played rugby in the early 1990s subscribed not to a “female apologetic,” but rather an unapologetic. The results show the unapologetic to be comprised of transgressing gender, destabilizing the heterosexual/homosexual binary, and “in your face” confrontations of stigma—all characteristics of queer resistance. Furthermore, the results illustrate that each aspect of unapologetic queer resistance in sport is gendered. The article concludes that both the female apologetic and the gendered unapologetic are types of resistance observable in sport and suggests that further research needs to examine the extent to which gendered queer resistances are new and the degree to which they are specific to the institution of sport.
Revive the Pride: Social Process, Political Economy, and a Fan-Based Grassroots Movement
Authors: Wilson Brian , White Philip
Published: August 2016

This paper examines the development of a grassroots movement to revive the defunct Ottawa Rough Riders CFL franchise. Particular attention is paid to the theoretical implications of this movement for understanding social processes of collective action in sport-related contexts, the political economic forces that guide/structure these processes, and relationships between sport-related interest groups, the state and mass media. This historical inquiry and theoretical discussion is based on interviews that were conducted with key members of the revival movement (in 1999 and 2000) and on a content and textual analysis of mass media coverage of the group (from February 1998 until July 2000). The paper concludes with some comments about the potential relevance of this study for broader work on community, identity, and sport and with recommendations for future research on sport-related grassroots movements.
“Pain in the Assets”: The Effects of Commercialization and Professionalization on the Management of Injury in English Rugby Union
Authors: Malcolm Dominic , Sheard Kenneth
Published: August 2016

This paper examines the management of injuries in men’s elite rugby union in England and, in particular, how this has altered as a consequence of the (formal) professionalization of the game in 1995. Data are drawn from 42 in-depth, semistructured interviews, conducted with seven coaches/directors of rugby, nine rugby club doctors, ten physiotherapists, and sixteen players. Partly as a consequence of examining pain and injury developmentally, our findings contrast with much of the existing sociological research in the area. The professionalization of rugby union, we argue, has not led to a greater acceptance of pain and injury in the sport or to a higher level of pressure upon, or “coercion” of, players to play under such conditions. Rather professional players receive markedly better medical backup and seem increasingly disposed to utilizing it.
Knowledge Structures in Sport and Physical Education
Authors: Sparks Robert E.C.
Published: August 2016

The structure of knowledge and its relation to social structure remain acute issues in the study of sport and physical education. This paper argues against common conceptions of knowledge that have resulted from positivist and rationalist tendencies in these fields. The position is set forth that knowledge is a constitutive human practice that tends to produce and reproduce the meanings, values, and structural realities of the social world in which it occurs. This theoretical standpoint sets the framework for the three papers that follow.
Knowledge and Gender: Epistemological Questions in the Social Analysis of Sport
Authors: Hall M. Ann
Published: August 2016

The central question examined in this essay is whether there can be a distinctive feminist epistemology or theory of knowledge. If there can be, then what would it look like? The ensuing discussion focuses on why it is so important to comprehend this feminist challenge to the origin, nature, methods, and limits of knowledge that have shaped our understanding of social life and what implications this has for the social analysis of sport. The paper begins by noting that in order to answer our sociological questions about gender inequality in sport, it makes more sense to view sex/gender as a system of social relations between females and males rather than treat them as dichotomous categories. Our questions therefore become relational rather than distributive. Four theoretical approaches to the sex/gender system (liberal, traditional marxist, radical, and socialist) are outlined with particular attention being paid to the epistemological and methodological assumptions that stem from each variant. The notion of a standpoint, and in particular the standpoint of women, is introduced to show how it is possible for women to demystify their social reality and to begin the necessary reconstruction of the sportsworld so that women’s interests are no longer subordinate to those of men.
From Public Issue to Personal Trouble: Well-Being and the Fiscal Crisis of the State
Authors: Ingham Alan G.
Published: August 2016

What follows here is an essay—a rather one-sided viewpoint that is both tentative and, within the limits of a journal article, incomplete. I attempt to understand how our recent preoccupation with our bodies is being mobilized as one solution to the fiscal crisis of the welfare state. The deep-rooted assumptions of voluntarism that characterize liberal ideology, I claim, are surfacing again in the debate over lifestyle. And lifestyle, it appears, has become an ideological construction which diverts attention from the structural impediments to well-being by framing health issues in terms of personal, moral responsibilities—a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” alternative to state intervention in health care. Some implications of the lifestyle ideology for physical educationists are presented.
“Retirement” from Intercollegiate Sport: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations
Authors: Greendorfer Susan L. , Blinde Elaine M.
Published: August 2016

Survey data from 1,123 former intercollegiate athletes (427 males and 697 females) were examined relative to commitment to a sport role, educational and occupational preparation, postcareer sport participation, social interests, and adjustment to sport retirement. Chi-square and factor analyses revealed that the former athletes in this study did not totally withdraw from the system of sport, that some shifting or reprioritization of interests occurred during their athletic career, and that the process of leaving sport may be more gradual or transitional than previously believed. Patterns obtained were similar for both males and females, and there was little evidence to suggest these athletes experienced adjustment difficulties. In light of these findings, an alternative conceptualization of the sport “retirement” process is offered.
A Theoretical Analysis of Academic and Athletic Roles
Authors: Snyder Eldon E.
Published: August 2016

One of the research traditions in sociology of sport is the study of athletic participation and academic achievement. Yet most of this research is primarily descriptive in nature and produces little cumulative explanatory knowledge; furthermore, the findings appear contradictory and confusing. The present paper utilizes the exchange and symbolic interactionist perspectives to analyze the concept of commitment to the multiple roles of athlete and scholar. These theoretical perspectives provide the potential for a greater understanding, explanation, and meaning to the findings in this area of research.
Pareto, Powerhouse Football, and AP Polls 1968–1984
Authors: Seggar John F. , McBride Darl , Cannon Lucile D.
Published: August 2016

Using Pareto’s concept of circulation of elites as a guiding principle, the Associated Press (AP) final Collegiate football polls were analyzed for the years 1968-1984. It appears that Pareto’s conception of the circulation of elites is a useful framework in understanding the changes that occur in the rankings of NCAA Division I football teams as measured by the AP final polls. There appears to be three levels of circulation: (a) those involved in very minor shifts up and down; (b) those that shift considerably but still remain in the standings; and (c) those that circulate in and out of the polls.
The Decline of Female Bodybuilding in France
Authors: Roussel Peggy , Griffet Jean , Duret Pascal
Published: August 2016

The present article examines the transformations that have taken place in female bodybuilding in France from a sociological point of view. Adopting a comprehensive approach, we describe the contextual influences thought to be responsible for the decline of female bodybuilding. Starting from the premise that the extremely muscular female bodies seen in women’s bodybuilding are the reason for the downfall of the discipline, the analysis focuses on three subcultural influences: the appearance of Beverly Francis on the competition scene, the aesthetic criteria favored by the federations, and the use of nutritional supplements and doping substances.
Sport, Sexuality, and the Gender Order: Amateur Rugby Union, Gay Men, and Social Exclusion
Authors: Price Michael , Parker Andrew
Published: August 2016

This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study of a UK-based amateur rugby union club for gay and bisexual men. Positioning the club at the centre of the research, heterosexist definitions of sport are analysed with regard to their effect on the lives of players and the continued existence of the club itself. The standpoint of team members in relation to dominant hegemonic forces in sport is explored through an examination of the sexual politics of the club and the possibility for iterative challenges to gender norms within this particular sporting context. The central findings indicate that the club inadvertently promoted a liberal image towards dominant heterosexual sporting norms and, in this sense, co-opted into mainstream rugby culture.
Healing the Body in the “Culture of Risk”: Examining the Negotiation of Treatment between Sport Medicine Clinicians and Injured Athletes in Canadian Intercollegiate Sport
Authors: Safai Parissa
Published: August 2016

This case study examines the relationship between the “culture of risk” and the negotiation of treatment between sport medicine clinicians and student-athletes at a large Canadian university. The evidence acknowledges that a “culture of risk” was reinforced under certain circumstances during negotiation, but was also tempered by the existence of a “culture of precaution” that worked to resist those influences. The dialectic between the cultures of risk and precaution reveals some of the tensions inherent in negotiations between clinicians and patient-athletes, and helps to complicate the notion of a “culture of risk.” Another aspect (one that has rarely if ever been examined) of the negotiation of treatment is also considered—the promotion of “sensible risks” by clinicians to injured athletes.
Race Relations and Racial Patterns in School Sports Participation
Authors: Goldsmith Pat António
Published: August 2016

This paper examines why African Americans and Whites participate in different high school sports at different rates. Considered are explanations based on family, neighborhood, and school inequality as well as explanations stemming from two race-relations theories (competition theory and the cultural division of labor perspective) that see racial differences in culture as a product of racialized norms that vary in strength across settings. Data from the NELS and the 1990 Census are analyzed by mixing multinomial logistic regression with multilevel models. Results indicate that racial differences in sports that Whites play more are largely the result of SES and neighborhood inequality. Differences in sports Blacks play more have strong race effects. Moreover, racial differences are larger in schools with proportionately more Blacks and in schools with more racial hierarchy, providing partial support for both race-relations theories.
On the Waterfront: Retrospectives on the Relationship between Sport and Communities
Authors: Smith Jason M. , Ingham Alan G.
Published: August 2016

Arguments for funding new professional sport stadia with public money center upon the notion of community—fans’ connection with the teams and the money that teams bring into the community. Through the lens of community theorists like Wirth (1938, 1964), Bellah and colleagues (1985), and Putnam (2000), this paper locates the professional sport franchise within local community relations and analyzes the ways in which local elites attempt to evoke community support (both emotional and financial) for their franchise. Following Ingham and McDonald (2003), we argue that professional sport is not an effective means for re-building any lasting sense of community. The results of town meetings held with citizens of Hamilton County, Ohio, reveal schisms along class, urban/suburban, and fan/non-fan lines, demonstrating that public subsidization of professional sport not only does not (re)generate a community-as-a-whole, but indeed may further divide residents depending upon their situated interests.
Sport and the Façade of Redevelopment in the Postindustrial City
Authors: Friedman Michael T. , Andrews David L. , Silk Michael L.
Published: August 2016

The challenges and pressures associated with the unfolding postindustrial moment have resulted in the spatial reorganization of contemporary cities. New urban environments have emerged, dominated by spectacular spaces of consumption designed to attract tourists’ and suburbanites’ discretionary incomes. Although presenting a seemingly vibrant and flourishing image of the city as a whole, these spaces are disconnected from the realities of those living in impoverished neighborhoods. Focusing on the Oriole Park at Camden Yards complex in Baltimore, this discussion highlights the link between sport spaces and consumer capital within the postindustrial city. The aim is, first, to illustrate the manner in which cities have used sport amenities as important components of broader urban redevelopment initiatives and, second, to explicate the potential consequences of such policy decisions for city inhabitants.
Global and Local Influences on English Rugby League
Authors: Denham David
Published: August 2016

This article discusses some of the features of globalization, focusing primarily on the local/global relationship. By restructuring, commodifying, and franchising a highly localized sport, Rugby League, Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate, News Corporation, attempted to create a more geographically dispersed sport in order to capitalize on its monopoly on the broadcasting of Rugby League games. This article describes the role of News Corporation and argues that this strategy has not been successful because of the influence of local cultural factors and the absence of local resources in areas new to Rugby League. As a result, Rugby League’s recent plans for future geographical expansion have taken the shape of a top-down, global, media-led initiative that includes the need to stimulate local bases of expansion.
“Black-Lash”: Revisiting the “White Negro” through Skateboarding
Authors: Brayton Sean
Published: August 2016

Alternative sports have been situated within backlash politics whereby subcultural or marginal representations illustrate a victimized white male. While this may be true of some sports, skateboard media fosters a sustained critique of “whiteness.” To understand the representation of white resistance in skateboarding, we must locate the sport within the larger historical context of white male rebellion found in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957) and Norman Mailer’s White Negro (1957). Similar to these countercultural narratives, skateboard media represents a tension between a death of whiteness (symbolized by co-opting “blackness”) and its inevitable rebirth (through prolific marketing of white skaters). Unlike the Beats, however, the dialectics of white resistance appear in skateboard media through advertisements that are often underscored by parody, which produces its own set of complexities.
Policing the Race: U.S. Men’s Distance Running and the Crisis of Whiteness
Authors: Walton Theresa A. , Butryn Ted M.
Published: August 2016

In this article, we examine the complex relationship between whiteness and men’s U.S. distance running. Through a critical examination of over 700 print and electronic sources dealing with distance running in the U.S. from the 1970s through the present, we present evidence that distance running has been framed as a “White space” that is threatened by both external factors (dominance of male international distance-running competition by athletes from African nations) and internal factors (lack of U.S. White male success in conjunction with the success of U.S. citizens of color, born within and outside of the U.S.). We also examine several forms of backlash against these perceived threats, including the media focus on a succession of next White hopes, the rise of U.S. only prize money in road races, and the marginalization of African-born U.S. runners. Our analysis reveals how the media works to normalize whiteness within the larger narrative of U.S. distance running and suggests the need for future work on whiteness and sport.
Governmentality, Modernization, and the “Disciplining” of National Sporting Organizations: Athletics in Australia and the United Kingdom
Authors: Green Mick , Houlihan Barrie
Published: August 2016

This article investigates the nature of, and policy outcomes from, the relationship between federal/central government departments and agencies and the national sporting organizations (NSOs) for athletics in Australia and the United Kingdom. We draw on neo-Foucauldian writings on “governmentality” to problematize governmental activities directed at shaping, channeling, and guiding the conduct of NSOs. We conclude that, although effective “responsibilization” of NSOs remains a clear ambition, governments in both countries have shown themselves to be very willing to apply disciplinary forms of practice in order to ensure compliance with prevailing government rationalities.
Pierre Bourdieu’s “Masculine Domination” Thesis and the Gendered Body in Sport and Physical Culture
Authors: Brown David
Published: August 2016

This paper explores the central thesis of one of Pierre Bourdieu’s last texts before his death in 2001, La Domination Masculine (1999). This text was subsequently translated and published in English in 2001 as Masculine Domination. I present the view that this text is not merely his only sustained commentary on gender relations but a potentially important intellectual contribution to the way in which we might view the embodiment of gender relations in sport and physical culture. Accordingly, I examine Bourdieu’s relational thesis of masculine domination as a three-part process of observation, somatization, and naturalization. I then give consideration to how sociologists of sport might use such critical analytical tools to render more transparent what Bourdieu refers to as the “illusio” of this phenomenon that is constructed by the practical everyday embodied enactments of gender relations in sport and physical culture.
The Relationship between Athletic Participation and Perceptions of Body Size and Weight Control in Adolescent Girls: The Role of Sport Type
Authors: Crissey Sarah R. , Honea Joy Crissey
Published: August 2016

This study examines the relationship between sport participation and perceptions of body size and weight-loss strategies among adolescent girls. Using a sample of 7,214 girls, ages 12–18 years, from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find that girls who participate in stereotypically feminine sports are more likely to report feeling overweight, attempt to lose weight, and use multiple weight-loss strategies compared with nonathletes. We also find that the associations for weight loss, but not overweight perception, are generally weaker for non-White girls. These findings suggest that participation in stereotypically feminine sports, particularly for White girls, might exacerbate body image and dieting problems associated with dominant gender roles, but participation in stereotypically masculine sports does not.
A Governmental Analysis of Children “At Risk” in a World of Physical Inactivity and Obesity Epidemics
Authors: McDermott Lisa
Published: August 2016

A number of scholars have noted the increased social currency that a risk vocabulary has come to assume in late modernity. This vocabulary has been deployed in discourses o physical inactivity and obesity, wherein children have increasingly been identified as an at-risk population leading a sedentary lifestyle, which is culturally represented as a primary risk factor for obesity and ultimately ill health. This article explores the usefulness of Foucault’s governmental perspective in problematizing the function served and effects produced by a risk vocabulary within discourses and practices directed at intervening in the childhood inactivity and obesity epidemics with a specific focus on the Canadian context.
Unbearable Lessons: Contesting Fat Phobia in Physical Education
Authors: Sykes Heather , McPhail Deborah
Published: August 2016

In this article we examine how fat-phobic discourses in physical education both constitute, and are continually negotiated by, “fat” and “overweight” students. This claim is based on qualitative interviews about memories of physical education with 15 adults in Canada and the U.S. who identified as fat or overweight at some time during their lives. The research draws from feminist poststructuralism, queer theory, and feminist fat theory to examine how students negotiate fat subjectivities in fat-phobic educational contexts. The interviews reveal how fat phobia in physical education is oppressive and makes it extremely difficult for most students to develop positive fat subjectivities in physical education; how weighing and measuring practices work to humiliate and discipline fat bodies; and how fat phobia reinforces normalizing constructions of sex and gender. The interviews also illustrate how some students resisted fat phobia in physical education by avoiding, and sometimes excelling in, particular physical activities. Finally, interviewees talk about the importance of having access to fat-positive fitness spaces as adults and suggest ways to improve the teaching of physical education.
Pathologizing “Fatness”: Medical Authority and Popular Culture
Authors: Murray Samantha
Published: August 2016

Medical narratives surrounding the Western “obesity epidemic” have generated greater fears of “fatness” that have permeated Western collective consciousness, and these anxieties have manifested themselves as a moral panic. The medicalization of fatness via the establishment of the disease of “obesity” has necessarily entailed a combining of medical narratives/imperatives and historico-cultural discursive formations of fatness as a moral failing and as an aesthetic affront. The threat that this epidemic poses is framed by medical discourse not simply as endangering health, but fraying the very (moral) fabric of society. In this article, I argue that all the discourses that circulate around fatness and (re)produce it as a pathology have been subsumed under, and absorbed by, dominant medical narratives. I suggest that a medico-moral discourse has inf(l)ected popular understandings of fatness as an affront to health that gives way to deeper, more fundamental social concerns and anxieties about normalization and normative appearance. Specifically, I examine the constructions of individual responsibility that are evident in medical narratives and discourses about obesity.
Men, Physical Activity, and the Obesity Discourse: Critical Understandings from a Qualitative Study
Authors: Monaghan Lee F.
Published: August 2016

This article explores men’s talk about physical activity, weight, health and slimming. Drawing from qualitative data from men whom medicine might label overweight or obese, it outlines various ideal typical ways of orienting to the idea that physical activity promotes “healthy” weight loss before exploring the most critical display of perspective: justifiable resistance and defiance. This gendered mode of accountability comprises numerous themes. These range from the inefficiency of physical activity in promoting weight loss to resisting imposed discipline. Theoretically and politically, these data are read as a situationally fitting and meaningful response to “symbolic violence” in a field of “masculine domination” (Bourdieu 2001)—that is, a society in which fatness is routinely discredited as feminine and feminizing filth by institutions that are publicly reinforcing and amplifying fatphobic norms or sizism.
“Just a Normal Bad Part of What I Do”: Elite Athletes’ Accounts of the Relationship between Health and Sport
Authors: Theberge Nancy
Published: August 2016

This article examines elite athletes’ understandings of the relationship between sport participation and health. Data are taken from interviews with 20 male and female athletes. Athletes’ assessments of the impact of sport on health and wellbeing include attributions of negative, positive, and, most often, mixed outcomes. In these elite athletes’ conceptualizations of health, injury and illness are subordinated to a view of health as capacity, and the primary frame of reference in which they consider capacity is their immediate competitive careers. Respondents’ accounts of efforts to manage the threats to their health that are posed by their sporting activity frequently convey a disembodied notion of the athletic body as an object to be managed.
“We Be Killin’ Them”: Hierarchies of Black Masculinity in Urban Basketball Spaces
Authors: Atencio Matthew , Wright Jan
Published: August 2016

This article examines a local park basketball culture and shows how discursive practices constituted masculine hierarchies and proliferated black masculinities. Through pickup basketball, several young black men took up various positions of power and were able to determine access to neighborhood parks and dictate the codes of behavior. Drawing on poststructural and social geography theories, we argue that male power became authorized through the community’s privileging of basketball and led to the hierarchical distribution of black masculinities within park spaces. The young black men psychically and materially invested in black masculinities, which were aligned with the logics of “heroic” and responsible citizenship; these notions had prominence because of the strong (re)production of the “Sport vs. Gangs” discourse (Cole, 1996) in their neighborhoods. Rather than providing an essentialist reading of these young men as positioned by this neo-liberal discourse, however, we also pay attention to the possibilities that the young men used basketball to invest in diverse life pathways involving alternative versions of the self.
Living on the Edge: The Appeal of Risk Sports for the Professional Middle Class
Authors: Fletcher Robert
Published: August 2016

Early sociological research describes risk sports as a form of resistance to structural aspects of highly industrialized societies. Recent scholarship, however, suggests that conventional social forces operating on the demographic group (young, White, professional, middle-class males) from which most athletes originate actually motivate risk sports participation. This study contributes to the literature by seeking to explain risk athletes’ characteristic class status, a dynamic largely neglected by previous studies. Drawing on Bourdieu’s analysis of the relationship between sport and social class, I suggest that risk sports appeal particularly to members of the professional middle class because of such sports’ capacity to simultaneously satisfy and provide a temporary escape from a class habitus demanding continual progress through disciplined labor and deferred gratification.
Public Consultation and Stadium Developments: Coercion and the Polarization of Debate
Authors: Scherer Jay , Sam Michael P.
Published: August 2016

Despite growing calls from activists and sport scholars for public consultation over the expenditure of public funds for stadium developments, there remains a lack of empirical research that examines the politics of these practices. This study critically examines the power relations and tensions present in the public-consultation processes and debates over the use of public funds to renovate or rebuild Carisbrook stadium. Specifically, we engage the enabling and constraining institutional mechanisms that structured five public meetings, which emerged as discursive political spaces in the policy-making process. In doing so, we critically examine the discourses that were actively shaped by stadium proponents to fit the mandates of neoliberal growth and resisted by concerned citizens who opposed: (a) the use of public funds to renovate or rebuild the stadium, and (b) a consultation process driven by a public–private partnership of business, civic, and rugby interests that had perplexing consequences for democratic politics in local governance.
Blogging the 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals
Authors: Dart Jon J.
Published: August 2016

This study focuses on the use of new technologies by the sports-media complex, looking specifically at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals. Combining the world’s single largest sports media event with one of the most current, complex forms of Web-based communication, this article explores extent to which football fans embedded in Germany used the Internet to blog their World Cup experiences. Various categories of blog sites were identified, including independent bloggers, bloggers using football-themed Web sites, and blogs hosted on corporate-sponsored platforms. The study shows that the anticipated “democratizing potential” of blogging was not evident during Germany 2006. Instead, blogging acted as a platform for corporations, which, employing professional journalists, told the fans’ World Cup stories.
Remediating Football for the Posthuman Future: Embodiment and Subjectivity in Sport Video Games
Authors: Plymire Darcy Cree
Published: August 2016

In this article I argue that digital technologies are remediating sport in ways that invite users to adopt posthuman subject positions. The focus of my analysis is EA Sports’ “Madden NFL.” First, I explain how video games reflect qualities of immediacy and hypermediation to create immersive gaming experiences. Then I go on to show how immersion in sport video games creates a relationship to the body and the self that are categorically different from those created by televised sport. I conclude that sport media studies will benefit from further consideration of the posthuman condition.
Media Consumption and the Contexts of Physical Culture: Methodological Reflections on a “Third Generation” Study of Media Audiences
Authors: Millington Brad , Wilson Brian
Published: August 2016

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 adoption of multimethod research approaches that are sensitive to contradictions and complexities that exist in media consumption. To support this argument, we reflect on the benefits of a multimethod research design used in a recent audience study conducted by the authors on youth interpretations of media and performances of masculinity in physical education (Millington & Wilson, in press). These benefits include: enriching researcher understandings of social/cultural contexts; illuminating social hierarchies; and revealing lived contradictions. We conclude with reflections on epistemological issues and suggestions for future audience projects.
Power, Politics and “Sport for Development and Peace”: Investigating the Utility of Sport for International Development
Authors: Darnell Simon C.
Published: August 2016

Sport is currently mobilized as a tool of international development within the “Sport for Development and Peace” (SDP) movement. Framed by Gramscian hegemony theory and sport and development studies respectively, this article offers an analysis of the conceptualization of sport’s social and political utility within SDP programs. Drawing on the perspectives of young Canadians (n = 27) who served as volunteer interns within Commonwealth Games Canada’s International Development through Sport program, the dominant ideologies of development and social change that underpin current SDP practices are investigated. The results suggest that while sport does offer a new and unique tool that successfully aligns with a development mandate, the logic of sport is also compatible with the hegemony of neo-liberal development philosophy. As a result, careful consideration of the social politics of sport and development within the SDP movement is called for.
Negotiating Masculinities via the Moral Problematization of Sport
Authors: Pringle Richard G. , Hickey Christopher
Published: August 2016

Researchers have raised concerns about the construction of dangerous/problematic masculinities within sporting fratriarchies1. Yet little is known about how male sport enthusiasts—critical of hypermasculine performances—negotiate their involvement in sport. Our aim was to examine how males negotiated sporting tensions and how these negotiations shaped their (masculine) selves. We drew on Foucault (1992) to analyze how interviewees problematized their respective sport culture in relation to the sexualization of females, public drunkenness and excessive training demands. Results illustrated how the interviewees produced selves, via the moral problematization of sport, that rejected the values or moral codes of hypermasculinity in attempts to create ethical masculinities. We suggest that a proliferation of techniques of self that resist hypermasculine forms of subjection could be one form of ethical response to the documented problems surrounding masculinities and sport.
What is this “Physical” in Physical Cultural Studies?
Authors: Giardina Michael D. , Newman Joshua I.
Published: August 2016

In this article, we identify various points of ontological, epistemological, and methodological intersection from which an embodied, generative Physical Cultural Studies project can emerge. We follow scholars such as Ingham (1997) and Andrews (2008) in arguing that contemporary “body work” scholars might benefit from “framing” (Butler 2009) embodiment and corporeality within the general coordinates of 1) cultural studies’ politics of articulation (as theory and method) and radical-contextualism and 2) the cultural exigencies of the body (i.e., cultural physicalities)—and in the “messy” practices of reflexivity, empirical vulnerability, and writing (as representation and performance) such embodied research as/in practice demands.
Exploring the Relationship Between Pedagogy and Physical Cultural Studies: The Case of New Health Imperatives in Schools
Authors: Rich Emma
Published: August 2016

This paper explores how we might better engage with pedagogy as a feature of the growing field of Physical Cultural Studies (Andrews, 2006). It is promulgated that pedagogy and physical culture, as disciplines, may benefit from a much stronger dialogical engagement. In progressing these discussions, the paper draws on the case of the current interest in what is putatively described as a childhood obesity epidemic, to illustrate how physical cultural practices relating to “health” produce public pedagogy which speaks to a complex interplay of political, social and technological relationships.
Bodies in Space: Spatializing Physical Cultural Studies
Authors: Friedman Michael Todd , van Ingen Cathy
Published: August 2016

The purpose of this article is to discuss the potential contribution of spatial analysis within the emerging area of Physical Cultural Studies (PCS). As PCS examines “expressions of the physical (including, but by no means restricted to sport, exercise, fitness, leisure, health, dance, and movement-related active embodied practices),” an understanding of these practices will be substantially enhanced through spatial analysis as the body impacts and is impacted by the environment in which it exists and the social relations evinced. With a perspective informed by Henri Lefebvre, who recognized the centrality of the body within his analysis of the production of space, the body can be much better understood as the environment and social relations are analyzed through spatial/bodily practices, conceptions of space, and lived space.
I Am My Body: Objectification, Empowering Embodiment, and Physical Activity in Women’s Studies Students’ Accounts
Authors: Liimakka Satu
Published: August 2016

Drawing on Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu, this article explores corporeal ways to modify the somewhat anxiety-filled bodily habit(us) of many young women. The article is based on accounts of body experience written by Finnish women’s studies students. In the article, I demonstrate how experiences of overcoming the mind/body dichotomy and connecting the body with the surrounding world disrupted the young women’s habitual experience of an alienated body. I argue that a corporeal agency that arises within physical actions and situations can modify a troublesome habit(us) and enable a young woman to transform her habitual self-body-world relation. Moreover, I discuss how physical activity can facilitate empowering body experiences.
Editorial
Authors: Markula Pirkko , Atkinson Michael
Published: August 2016

Although the Editors of SSJ Usually Work Quietly Behind the Scene to Give Voice to the Contributing Authors, with the Change of Editorship We Have Decided to Address the Readership More Openly through a Brief Editorial. In This Editorial, Pirkko Markula, the Past Editor of SSJ, Would like to Introduce a New Series of Articles on the State of the Sociology of Sport Initiated during Her Time as the Editor. Michael Atkinson Will Then Share His Thoughts about Sociology of Sport and Introduce His New Editorial Team.
Prejudice Against Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Coaches: The Influence of Race, Religious Fundamentalism, Modern Sexism, and Contact with Sexual Minorities
Authors: Cunningham George B. , Melton Nicole
Published: August 2016

In drawing from Herek’s (2007, 2009) sexual stigma and prejudice theory, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among prejudice toward sexual minority coaches, religious fundamentalism, sexism, and sexual prejudice and to determine whether race affected these relationships. The authors collected data from 238 parents. Results indicated that Asians expressed greater sexual prejudice than Latinos and Whites, while African Americans expressed more religious fundamentalism than did Whites. There were also differences in the associations among the variables. For African Americans, sexism held the strongest association with prejudice toward sexual minority coaches. While for Asians and Whites, religious fundamentalism held the strongest association, contact with lesbian and gay friends was a significant predictor of prejudice for Asians, but not for the other groups. For Latinos, both religious fundamentalism and sexism were associated with sexual prejudice. The authors discuss the results in terms of theoretical and practical implications.