bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“Stacking” in Major League Baseball: A Multivariate Analysis
Authors: Margolis Benjamin , Piliavin Jane Allyn
Published: August 2016

This research studied stacking—position segregation by race or ethnicity in team sports—in the 1992 Major League Baseball season using a multivariate analysis, with control variables of height, weight, age, power, speed, and skill. The strong relationship between race and centrality found in previous studies was confirmed; African-American players were predominantly in the outfield positions, Latino players in the middle infield positions, and white players in the most central position of catcher, as well as the other infield positions. The multiple regression analyses revealed direct effects of some control variables on centrality; however, only the variable of speed was found significantly to reduce the bivariate relationship between being African-Americans and centrality. A proportion of the variance in allocation of African-Americans to the outfield may thus be due to this job-related ability; the residual race effects, which account for the majority of the explained variance, must at present still be attributed to direct discrimination.
Selling the Game Short: An Examination of the Role of Antiracism in British Football
Authors: Garland Jon , Rowe Michael
Published: August 2016

During the last decades racism has been a persistent scar on British football, and yet the problem has often gone unacknowledged and unchallenged by the game’s authorities. However, in recent seasons, significant antiracist programs have been developed within the context of British football, and the situation has been drastically transformed. This study provides a critical review of these schemes and contests that they have limitations arising from simplistic assumptions about the nature of racism. It is argued that a tendency to conflate racism solely with fascism or with hooliganism provides too narrow a focus and that antiracist interventions should be more cognizant of the diversity of racisms within football. Despite the progress that has been made, it is suggested that the football authorities need to develop more concrete programs to ensure that racism is more effectively challenged and that the game is opened up to all members of society.
The Relative Age Effect in Soccer: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Systematic Discrimination against Children Born Late in the Competition Year
Authors: Musch Jochen , Hay Roy
Published: August 2016

Previous findings of skewed birth date distributions among sports professionals have been interpreted as evidence for a systematic discrimination against children born shortly before the cut-off date for each age grouping. Alternative explanations for these findings exist, however. This research therefore attempted to replicate the effect in a cross-cultural comparison. A strong relative age effect in professional soccer was found in Germany, Japan, Brazil, and Australia, showing that the effect is independent of different cut-off dates and a variety of climatic and sociocultural factors. A shifted peak in the birth date distribution of Australian soccer professionals paralleling a corresponding change in the cut-off date in Australian soccer in 1989 was also established. This pattern of results provides strong evidence for the cut-off date in youth soccer as the main cause for the relative age effect in professional soccer.
The “Sudden Death” of Hockey in Hartford: Sports Fans and Franchise Relocation
Authors: Mitrano John R.
Published: August 2016

While researchers have examined the economic effects of sport franchise relocation on cities and municipalities, little research has explored the social psychological effects of relocation on the fans from the cities being abandoned. Through the use of “Virtual Participant Observation” and “Inter(net)viewing,” this paper examines the meanings fans attach to franchise relocation decisions and how they make sense of and adjust to the impending loss of a civic institution such as a sport franchise. The paper also examines the root metaphors created and used by fans in the expression of their feelings, experiences, and interpretations of (a) the relocation decision, (b) the relationship of the owners and team, and (c) the relationship of the fans and team. These metaphors enable fans to make sense of a particularly disruptive situation (i.e., franchise relocation)—a decision which violates normative American cultural assumptions, core tenets, and values.
Reading Sport Critically: A Methodology for Interrogating Power
Authors: McDonald Mary G. , Birrell Susan
Published: August 2016

This paper discusses a methodology for interrogating power, which we call reading sport critically. Although versions of this method are currently practiced by a number of sport scholars, the theoretical and methodological groundings for the approach are rarely explicitly articulated. In this paper, we outline this critical analytic strategy, map its theoretical locations, and explore the ontological and epistemological issues that ground it. We advocate reading sport critically as a methodology for making visible and producing counternarratives, that is, narratives infused with resistant political possibilities.
Perceptions of Intercollegiate Athletic Programs: Priorities and Tradeoffs
Authors: Putler Daniel S. , Wolfe Richard A.
Published: August 2016

Considerable controversy exists concerning university athletics. Depending upon one’s perspective, athletic programs are seen as having important positive, or negative, effects on universities. The objective of the research reported here is to determine whether perceptions of intercollegiate athletic programs differ as a function of issues such as winning, profits, ethics, and the education of athletes. Our analyses indicate that: (a) ethics and winning, and education and revenue, tend to be competing athletic program priorities; (b) individuals cluster in four groups that emphasize athletic program revenue, winning, education, and ethics; and (c) the extent to which cluster membership is related to constituency group (e.g., alumni, students, faculty) membership depends on the constituency group being considered. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of our findings for both theory and practice.
Modernism and Postmodernism in Professional Rugby League in England
Authors: Denham David
Published: August 2016

This paper is concerned with the application of the idea of postmodernism to explain the rapid changes that have occurred in Rugby League in England since 1995 (Rugby League became the name given to a breakaway code of rugby and is distinct from another version of the sport called Rugby Union). Over a period of a few days in April 1995, News Corporation executives and Rugby League officials set up a new “Super League” in a deal involving millions of pounds that gave News Corporation sole television rights. The state of Rugby League before 1995 is discussed, and recent changes in the marketing, ownership of clubs, and the rationalization and franchising of the sport are described. It is argued that the idea of postmodern society neglects changes in the sport that can be associated with the extension of rationalization and capitalist relations more typically associated with modernity, although the increasing commodification of the sport is changing its culture in ways that support some theories of postmodern culture.
Outside the Imagined Community: Basque Terrorism, Political Activism, and the Tour de France
Authors: Palmer Catherine
Published: August 2016

Since its publication more than a decade ago, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities has offered an enticing, if romantic, way of conceptualising nationalism. Fine-grained ethnographic analysis, however, of the ways in which local populations actually imagine their community raises some questions for the continuing viability of such a notion. In many places around the world, people consciously and conspicuously place themselves outside of the imagined community, and it is the social, cultural, and political consequences of such actions that this article seeks to explore. Drawing on a period of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in France in the mid-1990s, this article examines very public contestation and sabotage of the Tour de France by pro-Basque supporters. This specific case study of political activism through sport provides a compelling example of the ways in which a dominant symbol of French national identity is usurped and upstaged by a minority group so as to reinvent or re-imagine a new kind of community.
Globalization and the Construction of Local Particularities: A Case Study of the Winnipeg Jets
Authors: Scherer Jay
Published: August 2016

This study situates the narratives surrounding the value of the Winnipeg Jets and a new publicly funded arena within the context of the recent discussions on the cultural impact of globalization on local and national identities. In addition, interest groups and local power relations that were promoting or challenging specific narratives surrounding the value of the team and a new publicly funded arena are examined. The results indicate that specific interest groups actively constructed narratives that promoted the value of the Jets and a new arena to the global-local identity of Winnipeg and Canada’s national identity. Conversely, counter-narratives challenged the importance of the Jets to local and national identities, while not directly addressing the issue of global identity. These results reveal the interaction of global and local forces and the relative ability of individuals/groups to produce local narratives and particularities that both reinforce and challenge the processes of globalization.
The Social Integrative Meaning of Sport: A Critical and Comparative Analysis of Policy and Practice in the Netherlands
Authors: Elling Agnes , De Knop Paul , Knoppers Annelies
Published: August 2016

The diversity of sport participants in the Netherlands is beginning to reflect the diversity within the general population. Sport as a whole is becoming more accessible, and participation in sport of different social groups takes place within both mainstream and “separate” sports clubs and in differently organized sports groups. In our paper we critically analyze the broader social integrative functions ascribed to sport by policy makers. We attempt to show that the ongoing democratization of sport participation is not always positively correlated, let alone causally related, to a broader social integrated society. We argue that social integration in itself is a multidimensional process and distinguish three dimensions of integration (structural, social-cultural, and social-affective), which can all occur in and through the practice of sport. Furthermore we argue that the integrative meanings of sport depend on which social groups and which of the dimensions of integration are examined. The complementary and contradictory aspects of the dimensions of social integration with regard to four different social minority groups (ethnic minorities, the elderly, the physically challenged, gays and lesbians) are examined.
Fictional Representations: On Difference, Choice, and Risk
Authors: Sparkes Andrew C.
Published: August 2016

This article is intended to stimulate debate regarding recent calls for fictional representations to be used within the sociology of sport. Based on the notion of “being there,” it differentiates between ethnographic fiction and creative fiction. Examples of the former are provided, and their grounding in the tradition of creative nonfiction is established. Moves toward the use of creative fiction are then considered in relation to the willingness of authors to invent people, places, and events in the service of producing an illuminative and evocative story. The issue of purpose is highlighted and various reasons why researchers might opt to craft an ethnographic fiction or creative fiction are discussed. Next, some risks associated with choosing fictional forms of representation are considered. Finally, the issue of passing judgment on new writing practices is briefly discussed.
Exploring the Exercise Adherence Problem: An Integration of Ethnomethodological and Poststructuralist Perspectives
Authors: McGannon Kerry R. , Mauws Michael K.
Published: August 2016

Despite a great deal of research encompassing personal, interpersonal, and socio-environmental realms, the widespread prevalence of sedentary lifestyles would indicate that there is still much to be learned about individuals' inability to adhere to exercise programs. Building on Bourdieu’s assertion that three modes of knowledge are required for a satisfactory understanding of the social world, in this paper we argue that current understandings are limited by their reliance on subjectivist and/or objectivist modes of understanding. We suggest that what is necessary is a third, praxeological mode of understanding if we are to satisfactorily address the exercise adherence problem. Toward this end, we describe how ethnomethodological and poststructuralist perspectives can be usefully combined to explore the adherence problem from a praxeological perspective.
The “Anti-Jock” Movement: Reconsidering Youth Resistance, Masculinity, and Sport Culture in the Age of the Internet
Authors: Wilson Brian
Published: August 2016

This paper explores issues relevant to youth, masculinity, Internet, and sport studies through a case study of the “anti-jock” (cyber)movement. The anti-jock movement is group of self-described “marginalized youth” who, through the production and consumption of anti-jock Websites, express dissatisfaction with and anger toward institutions that uncritically adulate hyper-masculine/high-contact sport culture and the athletes who are part of this culture (i.e., the “jocks"). Through these Websites, strategies of resistance against the “pro-jock” establishment are offered. An analysis of these sites acts as a departure point for considering how existing approaches to understanding youth cultural activity might be integrated with strands of new social movement theory to better account for more advanced forms of youth opposition/activism that have emerged following (and as a partial result of) the mass adoption of Internet-based communication. Also included is a discussion of the potential for anti-jock Websites specifically, and youth produced alternative-media generally, to empower youth and/or alter the oppressive forces that impact various “outsider” youth groups. The paper concludes with suggestions for future work that would extend and evaluate the ideas proposed here.
Standard Deviations: An Update on North American Sports Crowd Disorder
Authors: Young Kevin
Published: August 2016

This paper examines the view that there is no serious fan violence in North America. North American sport has shown a stubborn resilience in maintaining its “squeaky clean” image despite the fact that fan disorders occurred throughout the twentieth century, continue to show signs of consistency and institutional patterning, and have prompted extensive measures from sports officials, police, and authorities. The paper explores nature and extent issues, the varied responses by the authorities, preliminary explanatory approaches, and the possibility that a particular style of media coverage may have contributed to misunderstandings about the phenomena. Characterizing the ongoing fascination in the sociology of sport with a variety of forms of violence done by and to athletes as appropriate but unbalanced, the paper recommends a revival in research momentum on North American sports crowd disorder which remains a socially significant but understudied topic.
Differential Accounts of Race in Broadcast Commentary of the 2000 NCAA Men’s and Women’s Final Four Basketball Tournaments
Authors: Denham Bryan E. , Billings Andrew C. , Halone Kelby K.
Published: August 2016

A consistent finding in studies surrounding sports commentary on white and black athletes is that (a) white athletes are frequently praised for their perceived “intellect” and “leadership capacity,” while (b) black athletes are often praised for being “naturally talented” (Davis & Harris, 1998). A mediated conclusion that one could derive from such findings is that black athletes are expected to succeed athletically; conversely, white athletes are expected to have an innate ability to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to accomplish their athletic stature. This study examined the broadcast commentary surrounding white and black athletes at the 2000 NCAA Men’s and Women’s Final Four College Basketball Tournaments. The content analysis of 1,118 descriptors embedded in commentator discourse revealed that, while black athletes continue to be praised for their athleticism and physicality, they also are receiving a greater number of comments about their intelligence and ability to lead.
Occupying a Middle Space: Toward a Mestiza Sport Studies
Authors: Jamieson Katherine M.
Published: August 2016

In this paper, the author explores the usefulness of Chicana feminist scholarship for sport studies. Gloria Anzaldua’s concept of mestizaje, Maria Lugones’s concept of coalescence, and Chela Sandoval’s concept of differential consciousness are relied upon to assert the relevance of Chicana scholarship for sport studies. More specifically the paper focuses on the usefulness of such scholarship for identifying the ways that citizen-subjects both align with and resist dominant ideologies in everyday life. Interviews with former and current softball athletes of various Latina/o ethnicities are used to illustrate the occupation of a middle space and the usefulness of a mestiza sport studies.
The Technologies of the Self: Sport, Feminism, and Foucault
Authors: Markula Pirkko
Published: August 2016

Following Michel Foucault, feminist sport scholars have demonstrated how women’s physical activity can act as a technology of domination that anchors women into a discoursive web of normalizing practices. There has been less emphasis on Foucault’s later work that focuses on the individual’s role of changing the practices of domination. Foucault argues that human beings turn themselves into subjects through what he labels “the technologies of the self.” While his work is not gender specific, some feminists have seen the technologies of the self as a possibility to reconceptualize the self, agency and resistance in feminist theory and politics. In this paper, I aim to examine what Foucault’s technologies of self can offer feminists in sport studies. I begin by reviewing applications of Foucault’s technology of the self to analyses of women’s physical activity. I will next locate the technologies of the self within Foucault’s theory of power, self and ethics to further reflect how valuable this concept can be for feminist sport studies.
Something about Baseball: Gentrification, “Race Sponsorship,” and Neighborhood Boys’ Baseball
Authors: Grasmuck Sherri
Published: August 2016

This article examines the factors behind a story of racial accommodation in an unlikely space, one formerly renowned for racial violence and exclusion. The space of boys’ baseball provides an opportunity to understand how class and racial changes in a formerly White, working-class neighborhood of Philadelphia, unfolded over a 30-year period. With gentrification, came new class and racial encounters on the local baseball field. The author’s research included participation as a “bench Mom” over a decade, 2 years of ethnographic fieldwork involving observations of more than 100 games in two boys’ age divisions, and 40 in-depth interviews with coaches and parents of players. Factors identified as central to the smooth racial integration of the space are the centrality of baseball to neighborhood “character,” a demographic shortage of White neighborhood children, the “racial sponsorship” of the first Black middle-class children, a growing external accountability toward new Black politicians, and the unique character of baseball itself.
Women’s Soccer in the United States and the Netherlands: Differences and Similarities in Regimes of Inequalities
Authors: Knoppers Annelies , Anthonissen Anton
Published: August 2016

Gender, class, and sexuality are intersecting categories of inequality and also social forces that shape meanings given to organizations, social institutions, identities, and images. The authors use Acker’s (2000) concept “regimes of inequality” to explore how gender, specifically masculinities, intersects with social class and sexuality in women’s soccer. The extent to which social relations are also situational and culturally specific can be revealed in part with the use of comparative studies. The story of women’s soccer in the Netherlands is one of struggle for resources, acceptance, visibility, and legitimization with little result, while in the United States that same struggle has resulted in visibility and the establishment of a professional women’s soccer league. In this article the authors explore several regimes of inequality that shape women’s soccer using cross-cultural comparisons.
Kicking like a Boy: Schoolgirl Australian Rules Football and Bi-Gendered Female Embodiment
Authors: Wedgwood Nikki
Published: August 2016

This study of a schoolgirl Australian Rules football team uses life-history research to provide unusual insights into the gendered embodiment of female footballers. Focusing on the familial relations of players, the article looks at sport in the wider context of gender, showing complexities often overlooked. While documenting different patterns of female embodiment, the study examines whether the provision of full-contact sports is “schooling the bodies” of these young women in alternative forms of embodiment to those described by Young (1998) in “Throwing Like a Girl.” Specifically, this article addresses why the girls play football, whether they are consciously resisting male domination, whether playing football teaches them a different gendered embodiment, and how the girls deal with gender contradictions that arise from playing football.
Athletes as Agents of Change: An Examination of Shifting Race Relations Within Women’s Netball in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Authors: Pelak Cynthia Fabrizio
Published: August 2016

This study examines shifting race relations within one of South Africa’s most popular and fastest growing sports—women’s netball. Drawing on political opportunity and collective identity theories as articulated by social movement scholars, this article develops an analytical strategy to elucidate how athletes and sport administrators can serve as agents of social change. This analysis relies on interview, survey, and archival data collected during 1999 and 2000. The findings show that netball athletes and administrators are contributing to nation building in post-apartheid South Africa by constructing new collective identities across historical racial boundaries.
Mapping Whiteness and Sport: An Introduction
Authors: McDonald Mary G.
Published: August 2016

This introductory essay maps a context from which to understand the explosion in the analysis of whiteness, white identities and white privilege in the 1990s and 2000s. The current proliferation—including this special issue devoted to the study of whiteness and sport—is not a new phenomenon because people of color have long critiqued and challenged the mythologies perpetuating racism and white supremacy. Contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship works within and against this legacy suggesting that the articles in this special issue constitute an epistemologically divided knowledge project that is further implicated in contemporary power relations, racial performances, and struggles over meaning.
The Press Conference as a Performance: Representing Haile Gebrselassie
Authors: Denison Jim , Markula Pirkko
Published: August 2016

Pre-event sports press conferences remain largely unexamined by sport sociologists. In this article we present a thick description (Geertz, 1973) of a recent press conference staged on behalf of the Ethiopian long-distance runner, Haile Gebrselassie. We first discuss the workings of whiteness in relation to the ways in which a black Ethiopian distance runner is imagined by Western sports journalists. Then, drawing on the work of a number of performance theorists, we conceptualize Gebrselassie’s press conference as a performance. Finally, we interpret the meaning of Gebrselassie’s press conference using the semiotics of Roland Barthes (1977).
One Day in September and a Week in February: Mobilizing American (Sporting) Nationalisms
Authors: Silk Michael , Falcous Mark
Published: August 2016

In an ongoing effort to “police the crisis” (see Denzin, 2004a and b; Denzin & Lincoln, 2003) and critically interrogate the tyrannical (govern)mentality of conservative rhetoric centered on a peculiar or juridical concept of “right” (Baudrillard, 2001; Johnson, 2002; McClaren, 2002) under the agenda of “9/11 America,” this article explores the official moral pedagogies of the sporting media. Through analysis of the media representations of two major sporting events that took place in the first week of February, 2002—the delayed Super Bowl and the Opening of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics—the article focuses on the place of sport as an economy of affect through which power, privilege, politics, and position are (re)produced. The “epistemic panic” (Gordon, 1997; Ladson-Billings, 2000) played out through these two events can be read as part of the wider self-examining, self-referential, existential narrative of the American nation in the wake of the ontological, social, and historical disruption (Giroux, 2002) wrought by 9/11—a politicized and militaristic rhetoric appropriated within, and mobilized through, the affective realm of the sporting popular.
No Pain Is Sane after All: A Foucauldian Analysis of Masculinities and Men’s Rugby Experiences of Fear, Pain, and Pleasure
Authors: Pringle Richard , Markula Pirkko
Published: August 2016

In this article we present research that used Foucauldian theorizing to examine the articulations between masculinities and men’s rugby union experiences of pain, fear, and pleasure. Data was collected via semistructured interviews with 14 New Zealand men of diverse rugby backgrounds. Results suggested that although rugby provided an influential discursive space for the negotiation of masculinities, these negotiations did not result in the simple (re)production of dominating discourses of masculinity. This finding supports the judgment that sport does not consistently or unambiguously produce culturally dominant conceptions of masculinities. The interview accounts revealed, nevertheless, that the games of truth surrounding rugby and masculinities were not played in an equitable manner. This finding helps justify concern about the social significance of popular heavy-contact sports and gendering processes. A strategy of resistance based on the resurrection of marginalized knowledges is discussed.
Mechanisms of Inclusion and Exclusion in the Dutch Sports Landscape: Who Can and Wants to Belong?
Authors: Elling Agnes , Claringbould Inge
Published: August 2016

Inclusionary and exclusionary mechanisms that influence sport participation and positions of leadership in sport form a complex constellation of interacting factors and dimensions. Who can, who is allowed, and who is willing to participate in sport is influenced by institutional selection mechanisms as much as by individual options and choices. Socialization, money and time, accessibility of sporting facilities, normative and discriminating structures and cultures, and sporting abilities and talent are interacting in/exclusionary factors that influence sport participation options among people with different social-status positions (e.g., age, gender, and ethnicity). Changes in the facilitation and organization of sport can enhance a more inclusive sport practice, which might also foster social inclusion in broader society. The focus of this article is on changing and reproducing patterns of social inclusionary and exclusionary mechanisms in (post)modern sport in Western countries like the Netherlands. We present and analyze the current status and development in central theories, governmental policies, and empirical data.
A Farewell to Remember: Interrogating the Nancy Lopez Farewell Tour
Authors: Douglas Delia D. , Jamieson Katherine M.
Published: August 2016

Researchers have illustrated how this post–Civil Rights period is marked by significant changes to the organization and implementation of systems of racial stratification and expressions of racialized hostility. Consonant with the persistence of racial inequality is the notion that “race” is no longer relevant. In this context, we consider print media accounts of Nancy Lopez’s participation in 14 tournaments between June and October 2002. The Lopez Farewell Tour signaled the end of her 26-year career on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour. We suggest that representations of Lopez are linked to new strategies of racialization that strengthen white racial power and privilege. We argue that the popularity of Nancy Lopez, a light-skinned Latina, was not simply evidence of a move towards color-blindness; rather, it was illustrative of the ways in which discourses of whiteness are communicated through their articulation with formations of gender, social class, and heterosexuality.
South Korea’s “Glocal” Hero: The Hiddink Syndrome and the Rearticulation of National Citizenship and Identity
Authors: Lee Nammi , Jackson Steven J. , Lee Keunmo
Published: August 2016

This study examines how one sporting figure came to signify fundamental shifts in Korean society at the beginning of the 21st century—a time when Korean society was destabilized and seeking to reposition itself within the global economy. Guus Hiddink, a Dutch-born soccer coach, is credited with helping Korea attain its highest-ever ranking at the 2002 World Cup. Sporting achievements aside, Hiddink’s role as a foreigner and national Korean hero presents a unique and unprecedented case study of the relationship between globalization, nationalism, and neoliberal citizenship. Hiddink was the first foreigner ever to be awarded honorary national citizenship. Furthermore, his general coaching strategies and philosophies assumed a mantralike quality, popularly referred to as the Hiddink syndrome, that influenced wider cultural changes with respect to economics, politics, education, and the very definition of national citizenship and identity.
On the Limits of “Gaie” Spaces: Discursive Constructions of Women’s Sport in Quebec
Authors: Ravel Barbara , Rail Geneviéve
Published: August 2016

Several studies on the experiences of nonheterosexual women in sport have highlighted the development of lesbian subcultures in sport, while others have emphasized the scarcity of athletic contexts embracing sexual diversity. This article explores the narratives of 14 young Francophone sportswomen positioning themselves as “gaie,” lesbian, bisexual, or refusing labels altogether. Using a feminist poststructuralist perspective, we examine their discursive constructions of sport and argue that the discourses articulated in sport allow for the creation of a space of resistance to heteronormativity. We suggest that the sport space is constructed as a “gaie” space within which a normalizing version of lesbian sexuality is proposed. We investigate how in/ex/clusion discourses are inscribed in space and how subjects are impacted by and, in turn, impact these discourses.
Toward a Cultural Sociology of the Consumption of “Fantasy Football Hooliganism”
Authors: Poulton Emma
Published: August 2016

Football hooliganism has a wide appeal within popular culture. Numerous books, films, documentaries, digital games, and even stage plays have featured representations of the phenomenon. All are presentations of what could be termed “fantasy football hooliganism” in that they are attempts by the entertainment industry to represent, reproduce, or simulate football-related disorder for our leisure consumption. This article offers a conceptual framework (underpinned by the work of Blackshaw & Crabbe) for the sociological analysis of the consumption and production of these fantasy football hooliganism texts.
What’s Queer about (Queer) Sport Sociology Now? A Review Essay
Authors: King Samantha
Published: August 2016

This article offers a review of the sociology of sport research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) subjects with the aim of analyzing the extent to which this work is participating in the mainstreaming of LGBTQ sexual politics. In identifying points of convergence between “homonormativity” (Duggan, 2003) and research in the sociology of sport, the essay highlights the limitations of scholarship that equates visibility and identity with power and legitimacy; argues for studies that critically interrogate, rather than reproduce, White bourgeois normativity; and advocates for writing that is not nationally bound and insular, but rather intimately engaged with the geopolitical urgencies of our time. Based on an overview of five key features of queer theory, the author argues that a more robust queer approach to research on sexuality is required if sociologists of sport are to avoid colluding with the exclusionary discourses that characterize homonormativity.
“Real Fast and Tough”: The Construction of Canadian Hockey Masculinity
Authors: Allain Kristi A.
Published: August 2016

The purpose of this article is to examine issues relating to desirable hockey masculinity and how they are played out within the Canadian Hockey League (CHL). My aim is to explore how the presentation/representation of hegemonic Canadian hockey masculinity within the CHL works to marginalize non-North American hockey players. I examine how gender is performed by the players, how the CHL as an institution supports dominant notions of gender, and how ideas about gender are taken up by the media. I draw from ten semistructured narrative interviews conducted with non-North American hockey players who competed in the CHL, as well as the scholarly literature, media representations and commentary on the game, supplemental interviews, and an examination of North American and international hockey policy.
The Power of “Small Stories:” Narratives and Notions of Gender Equality in Conversations about Sport
Authors: Hardin Marie , Whiteside Erin Elizabeth
Published: August 2016

This study examines narratives by young adults about sport and gender in relation to equality. Specifically, we explore how focus-group participants used small stories to situate male and female athletes and Title IX. The U.S. law has been credited for increasing opportunities for girls and women but is considered a source of tension for gender relations. Our findings suggest that participants’ stories ultimately did not support emancipatory goals for girls and women because they positioned equality as a right women had not earned. We argue that feminists cannot underestimate the need to inject counternarratives into public discourse at every level, including stories shared with children about sport. These narratives must address misconceptions about equality and gender equity and, ultimately, challenge gender ideology.
Sport, Physical Education, and Islam: Muslim Independent Schooling and the Social Construction of Masculinities
Authors: Farooq Samaya , Parker Andrew
Published: August 2016

This qualitative study of a British Islamic independent school explores the construction of religious masculinities within the lives of a cohort of Muslim adolescent males. An ethnographic analysis is presented whereby boys’ physical education is located as a strategic site for the development of Muslim masculine identities. Adopting a symbolic interactionist perspective, the article discusses the representation of pupil masculinities within the school and the specific role that Islam, sport, and physical education played in respondent lives. Findings highlight how religion provided a central mechanism through which pupils sought to construct and negotiate their masculine selves. In turn, physical education served as an avenue through which respondents could embrace and embody their sense of self and express a series of broader religious ideals.
Soccer Fields of Cultural [Re]Production: Creating “Good Boys” in Suburban America
Authors: Swanson Lisa
Published: August 2016

Zwick and Andrews (1999) argued that suburban American soccer fields merit critical academic attention because they highlight the practices of a dominant class. To gain an understanding of this specific field of power and privilege, I employed a multifaceted ethnographic approach to studying a group of upper-middle-class mothers whose children played youth soccer. I used Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984, 1993) sociological theories regarding the interplay between habitus and capital to analyze how the mothers shaped their sons’ youth sport experience to reproduce class status and social advantage in the next generation.
Living With War: Sport, Citizenship, and the Cultural Politics of Post-9/11 Canadian Identity
Authors: Scherer Jay , Koch Jordan
Published: August 2016

If sport scholars are going to contribute to a critical (inter)national dialogue that challenges “official versions” of a post-9/11 geo-political reality, there is a need to continue to move beyond the borders of the US, and examine how nationalistic sporting spectacles work to promote local military initiatives that are aligned with the imperatives of neoliberal empire. In this article we provide a critical reading of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s nationally-televised broadcast of a National Hockey League game, colloquially known as Tickets for Troops. We reveal how interest groups emphasized three interrelated narratives that worked to: 1) personalize the Canadian Forces and understandings of neoliberal citizenship, 2) articulate warfare/military training with men’s ice hockey in relation to various promotional mandates, and 3) optimistically promote the war in Afghanistan and the Conservative Party of Canada via storied national traditions and mythologies.
Complicating the Relationship Between Sport and National Identity: The Case of Post-Socialist Slovenia
Authors: Topič Mojca Doupona , Coakley Jay
Published: August 2016

Sociology of sport knowledge on national identity is grounded in research that focuses primarily on long established nation-states with widely known histories. The relationship between sport and national identity in postsocialist/Soviet/colonial nations that have gained independence or sovereignty since 1990 has seldom been studied. This paper examines the role of sports in the formation of national identity in postsocialist Slovenia, a nation-state that gained independence in 1990. Our analysis focuses on the recent context in which the current but fluid relationship between sport and Slovenian national identity exists. Using Slovenia as a case study we identify seven factors that may moderate the effectiveness of sports as sites for establishing and maintaining national identity and making successful global identity claims in the twenty-first century. We conclude that these factors should be taken into account to more fully understand the sport-national identity relationship today, especially in new and developing nations.
Women as ‘Armchair Audience’? Evidence from German National Team Football
Authors: Meier Henk Erik , Leinwather Marcel
Published: August 2016

Research conducted here aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about gender differences in sport spectatorship. While media coverage of sports represents a “gendered experience”, recent research has questioned the explanatory value of anatomical sex for understanding differences in sport consumption. Analyses of TV ratings for German national team football presented here are set out to test the idea that women are more likely to constitute an “armchair” or “fair weather” audience. Even though watching national team football is clearly a male domain and the men’s team is much more popular, female and male audiences for the men’s team respond to the same set of product characteristics, which supports the idea that women follow men in their TV sport consumption. Moreover, results point to gender differences in demand for women’s team matches supporting the idea that it matters how gendered sport is. Suggestions for future research and policy are made.
Getting Better: An Autoethnographic Tale of Recovery From Sporting Injury
Authors: Dashper Katherine
Published: August 2016

In this autoethnography I explore how my responses to a horse-riding injury to my face and teeth illustrate some of the complex interactions between gender identity and sporting identity. This facial injury left me feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable with my appearance, and prompted me to reflect on the ways sporting participation and injury are both constrained by and constitutive of gender identity.
Using Sports Against the Italian Mafia: Policies and Challenges on the Path of Cultural Renewal
Authors: Cayli Baris
Published: August 2016

This study addresses the role and policies of Libera Sport, an Italian nongovernmental civil society organization that fights against the Italian mafia groups through sports. On the one hand, this article reinterprets and applies the cultural hegemony theory of Antonio Gramsci both to the Mafia and Libera Sport. On the other hand, habitus and cultural capital notions of Pierre Bourdieu are used to express the struggle between the Mafia and Libera Sport. This study demonstrates how the Mafia and anti-Mafia movement intersect in the “accumulation of actions” and create the “clash of habitus”. I argue that Libera Sport can realize its goals only if the clash of habitus is terminated by demolishing the institutionalized cultural capital of the Mafia and constituting its own cultural capital, which has not yet been institutionalized. During this reformative process, sports become a significant complementary anti-Mafia policy tool.
Effects of Formal Structure on Managerial Recruitment: Comparisons of Japanese and North American Professional Baseball Clubs
Authors: Loy John W. , Curtis James E. , Hillen James M.
Published: August 2016

This paper replicates Grusky’s (1963) study of the playing position-leadership recruitment relationship among North American professional baseball clubs in a different cultural context, comparing it to Japanese professional base-ball organizations over a 40-year period. Overall, the Japanese results are consistent with the North American findings, with the more central or high interaction positions contributing more leaders or field managers. However, the relationship is considerably weaker for the sport in Japan. There were also significant cross-cultural differences in the consequences of players having held the positions of pitcher and catcher. Alternative interpretations of the results are offered, and the implications of the results for choices of appropriate research strategies are presented.
Sport and Social Change: The Transformation of Maoist Sport
Authors: Hoberman John M.
Published: August 2016

In the decade following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, the People’s Republic of China has experienced a cultural and ideological transformation unprecedented in the history of communist societies. Sport, like the arts, is a political subculture that expresses prevailing ideological trends; for this reason, the new modernization in China has mandated a new ideological interpretation of sport. Contrary to appearances, the ideological content of Maoist sport doctrine has actually been retained in post-Maoist sport ideology. What has changed is the relative degree of emphasis accorded specific ideological elements, so that these two doctrinal phases may be analyzed in terms of dominant and recessive traits. The four primary ideological variables examined in this study are competition, high-performance sport and record-setting, sportive ethics, and scientific sport.
Putting the Boot into a Working-Class Sport: British Soccer after Bradford and Brussels
Authors: Taylor Ian
Published: August 2016

This paper presents an account of the two disastrous events that occurred in the final month of the 1984-85 season of the English Football League: the lethal fire at the stadium of Bradford City and the fan violence at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels on the occasion of the 1985 European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus. Some 57 people died in the Bradford fire, and 38 people (mainly supporters of the Italian champions, Juventus) died in Brussels. The two connected purposes of this paper are (a) to interpret and to challenge the conflation of these two, quite different, events in the government enquiry into the Bradford fire, as well as in the ongoing discourse of the mass media, and (b) to provide a critical rebuttal of the increasingly confident and influential writings of radical right journalists and “intellectuals” as to the meaning of soccer violence in Britain in the late 1980s.
Size of Community of Origin and Recruitment to Professional and Olympic Hockey in North America
Authors: Curtis James E. , Birch Jack S.
Published: August 2016

A conventional wisdom in the lay sociology of sport journalism is that North American professional ice hockey players are disproportionately recruited from smaller communities and rural areas. One explanation given for this is that avenues for social mobility are more limited in such communities and that sport is heavily pursued as one of the few areas of opportunity. Sections of the sociological literature would suggest, though, that the opposite relationship may occur because larger cities have better opportunity structures for developing and expressing sport skills. These alternative expectations are tested for Canadian-born players in three professional leagues and for players on the last three Olympic teams. In addition, data for U.S. Olympic teams are presented. In interpreting the results, we also employ Canadian national survey data on mass participation of male youths in hockey. The findings show that the largest cities are underrepresented as birthplaces of players at each elite level, whereas small towns are overrepresented. Yet, community size does not appear related to the general population of male youths’ rate of participation in hockey. Emphasized are interpretations concerning how amateur hockey is organized.
The Socialization of Elite Tennis Players in Sweden: An Analysis of the Players’ Backgrounds and Development
Authors: Carlson Rolf
Published: August 2016

This study analyzed the process of socialization of elite tennis players, thereby contributing to an explanation of the success experienced by Swedish tennis players in recent years. The top five male and top five female Swedish players, along with parents and coaches, were interviewed regarding background, early life sport experiences, and development. All five males held ranking positions among the 15 best in the world. The control group was chosen by matching pairs regarding age, sex, and junior ranking. Results indicated that both groups at the ages of 12 to 14 were equal, but after puberty the development of the groups diverged. As teenagers, some elite players were ranked among the world’s top players while the control group players did not experience success. The results clearly indicate that it is not possible to predict who will develop into a world-class tennis player based on individual talent alone. Personal qualifications and early life experiences in combination with social structures, tradition of sport, and tennis culture all worked together in an optimal way, particularly the local club environment and the players’ relationships to coaches.
Sport in the Social Construct of the Lesser Developed World: A Commentary
Authors: Stoddart Brian
Published: August 2016

This paper responds to the Klein and Mandle papers, placing them in the context of a growing literature. It argues that noncustomary sports practices need to be examined in their own cultural settings rather than from the standards of the developed world. It refers to issues of ethnographic practice, and argues that the richest understandings will proceed from crossdisciplinary reference to fields such as history and anthropology.