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In this special issue, which calls for a "more radical sociology of sport and physical culture," the purpose of this paper is to address how practices of reflexivity might be mobilized among critical sport scholars toward changing the intersectional, fragmented, and complex communities we inhabit inside and outside the academy. We begin by conducting a literature review of researcher reflexivity and positionality in Sociology of Sport Journal from 2000 to 2022. Utilizing Wanda Pillow's "reflexivities of discomfort," we interrogate our own research by engaging in a reflexive dialogue as "critical friends." Through this work, we try to make sense of the potential of these dialogues for shaping our ethical, political, and personal approaches to research, writing, methodology, and knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Swedish gymnastics has been reduced to a directory of progressive analytical movements intended to form the basis of what is known in French physical education as a global gymnastics. This article explains how Philippe Tissié was inspired by Swedish gymnastics in his development of a hybrid vision between the Swedish method of physical education and the French model that was largely derived from the works of Jean Saint-Martin Amoros and Philippe Sarremejane. The paper demonstrates how Tissié's French gymnastics was not only limited to analytical movements but also included the practice of sports. At the same time, it explains how the creation of this hybrid model meshed scientific findings from life sciences (biology and physiology) with human and social sciences (psychology and sociology). Between 1886 and 1935, Tissié's appropriation, thus, enabled him to structure his conceptions of physical education and to move from the Swedish to the Franco-Swedish method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, which is a revised and modified version of the 2019 North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Alan Ingham Memorial lecture, the author shares four views, contributions, and opportunities that sports sociologists might consider useful in how to decolonize as well as indigenize our discipline together. The need to actively engage in the theory and practice of how to decolonize while understanding what it also means to work toward becoming an accomplice, activist, ally, or co-resistor are important threads underpinning the nature and scope of this paper. The author concludes with a plea to sports sociologists that decolonizing our minds is as much a collective effort as it is an act of reconciliation while maintaining the promise of inclusion, equity, and human rights. As sports sociologists, understanding what it means to be in "good relations" with Indigenous Peoples is fundamental to how we continue to build on and improve our discipline together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes new theoretical and empirical knowledge to a relatively under researched area, that of the experience and management of emotions and mental health of sports workers. Set within the field of interspecies sports work this paper uses autophenomenography to demonstrate the application of phenomenology within sociology as both a methodological approach and a theoretical framework. It focuses on the personal and working life of a sports worker in horse racing who, through emotional trauma and mental ill health, loses her 'feel for the game' (Bourdieu, 1992), the unconscious bodily dispositions and automatic performance that form an integral part of sports work. It examines how practically embodied attitudes and dispositions can return through working with and exercising racehorses. Using the work of Merleau-Ponty my aim is to explore how human-nonhuman animal intercorporeality acts as a catalyst to regaining a 'feel for the game.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the performance of sport politics. We carry out a text analysis of a year-long media debate that raged in Norwegian newspapers throughout 2016. After the Medias had critiqued how the Norwegian Confederation of Sports (NIF) spends state-provided funds, the Minister of Culture questioned the alleged civil contribution from NIF and demanded change. An archival search retrieved 488 articles and 1604 pages on the matter. Performance theory clarifies the debaters' failure and success in achieving sport political legitimacy. Success was an ongoing achievement contingent upon the actors' abilities to apply broadly available representations in the pragmatics of the dispute. Drawing on Norwegian codes of equality and by polluting the image of NIF, the Minister of Culture eventually managed to reshape Norwegian sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information related to research papers sports, published in different journals. "Performance productivity and quality of frontline employees in service organizations," by J. Singh adds to the discussion on the importance of frontline employees to the success of service organizations. The significant findings in this paper suggest that there is a distinction between productivity and quality, and when burnout increases, frontline employees tend to maintain their current productivity levels while quality declines. This paper was published in the Sociology of Sport Journal. The purpose of the research paper, "Sports marketing. Going for gold," by R. Gardyn, is to investigate the state of Olympic fandom and the various issues surrounding marketers' ability to make an impact with consumers during the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. This article is published in the journal, American Demographics. The research paper by D. James, "The tipoff: How NBA can regain its game," published in the journal Marketing News, investigates the status of the National Basketball Association among fans and marketers. A number of factors are examined to shed some light on the apparent decrease in fan interest.

One of the ways heterosexuality maintains its privileged status is through the discursive figure of "'the closet," where everyday speech normalizes heterosexuality while silencing lesbian sexuality. In this paper, feminist and queer theories are used to explain why the closet has featured so prominently in women's physical education. The paper also contains a poststructural analysis of how the closet was constructed in the life histories of 6 lesbian and heterosexual physical educators. Excerpts from the life histories illustrate how silences inside the closet acquired meaning only in relation to everyday talk about heterosexuality. Finally, deconstruction is used to suggest how heterosexuality can sometimes find itself inside the closet, thereby undermining the boundaries between inside/outside, silence/speech. and lesbian/heterosexual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines tire linkages between physical education, sociology and sociology of sport in North America. Physical education and sociology in North America have had numerous mutual ties since the beginnings of both fields. In the first section of the paper, I describe the rise of sociology and physical education in North America, emphasizing the linkages that initially existed between physical education and sociology, and then the separation that transpired between the disciplines. The second section examines the connections between social theory and physical education before the sociology of sport was formally developed. The final section details the rise of sociology of sport, with the main focus on the role of physical educators (a.k.a, sociocultural kinesiologists, sport studies scholars, human kinetics scholars) in the development of sociology of sport. This section concludes with a discussion of the linkages of social theory, critical pedagogy in physical education, and sport sociology in physical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with an examination of five "manifest absurdities" that arise in the exchange between MacAloon and Hargreaves and Tomlinson. It continues with a critical analysis of Morgan's attempt at conflict resolution, paying special attention to his distorted discussion of hegemony. Against this background, the authors argue that one of the major omissions in sociology (of sport or otherwise) is the careful analysis of the enculturation of social subject (especially against the background of contemporary concerns about time, space, and resources). Thus, in the final section of this paper, the issue of the enculturation of the social subject is addressed through a fusion of the insights of Sigmund Freud and Raymond Williams. In fusing Williams and Freud. the authors engage the social subject, the enculturated subject, as a problematic which must be followed in its precarious maneuvering between enablement and constraint---that is, the trialectic of being and becoming social. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within sport ethnography, the term "subculture" has been employed so broadly that the term has lost much of its explanatory power: In this paper, we attempt to reclaim the explanatory powers of the concept subculture by differentiating it from the concept "subworld". The paper reviews the theoretical foundations of the concept of subculture and subworld. proposes definitional distinctions, and finally makes recommendations for the use of these concepts in future ethnographic research in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural components of sports competitions and the characteristics of sport practices vary significantly. These differences may translate into different optimal employment arrangements for the professional coaches (those who prepare teams and athletes for competitions). While there has been academic inquiry into the practice of sport coaching, there has been little apparent research into the industrial organization of sport coaches. This paper presents a formal model of the coaching practice. The coaching roles as strategists and trainers are distinguished, variation in the significance of the connections in the nexus of team to individual relations is identified, and the various methods of sport preparation are classified. Predictions of the employment arrangements based on model parameters are made and related to some established stylized facts and survey results from both cycling training coaches and athletes. The model and data corroborate that cycling coaches be hired by the individual athletes not their cycling teams. JEL classifications: J22, J24, L23, L83 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of field, this paper explores the particular stakes and struggles that animate both the relationships among adventure racing (AR) participants and the competition among race organizers in order to highlight the social dynamic and power structure of this new "lifestyle" sport. Our investigation relies on a diversity of qualitative data, namely semi-structured interviews with 37 AR participants. Adventure Racing Association Listserve discussion, and participant observation of Eco-Challenge Argentina 1999. Our analysis demonstrates that what is at stake in the AR field is both the definition of the sport practice's legitimate form as well as its orientation with respect to two dominant delineating forces: "authenticity" and "spectacularization" of the adventure. These two forces currently constitute the specific forms of capital (sources of prestige) that define the AR field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although deviance on and off the field have become popular topics of sociological investigation, sociologists have not studied the criminal or otherwise "deviant" roles ticket scalpers play in the cultural spectacle that is professional sport, In many ways, ticket scalpers have become a mainstay part of the backdrop upon which fans experience sporting events. As a first step in developing a sociological portrait of the social processes involved in ticket scalping, it is essential to examine how scalping is accomplished and experienced by its practitioners. This paper is intended to introduce sociologists of sport to the subculture of ticket scalpers by attending to the in-group perspectives and understandings ticket scalpers share toward their practices. Specifically, using ethnographic data collected on 54 ticket scalpers in a central Canadian city, I address how scalpers develop recipes of knowledge for their trade and how ticket scalping is accomplished as a social practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A small number of sociologists of sport has 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the contributions of sport sociology to the marketing of sport and leisure organizations. In particular, the major steps that comprise the marketing enterprise are reviewed, from the identification of product marketing features to the monitoring of the marketing environment, and the potential contributions of sport sociology at each phase of the process are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explain the scholarly role of stories and argue for their power and efficacy in creating a particular kind of truth. Drawing on philosopher Richard Rorty's insights about the "narrative turn." I describe the importance of stories in particular and the imagination in general as tools for increasing our sensitivity to the pain of others. Stories convey the suffering of those whom we might be tempted to dismiss as having nothing in common with us. Stories allow us to re-envision ourselves as the marginalized Other, and thereby offer us the possibility of moral behavior. The measure of truth in stories is not a standard of objectivity, but rather their power to evoke the vividness of experience. Throughout this discussion, I weave my own stories about stigmatized bodies to illustrate how one might use the narrative turn in sport sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the distribution by socioeconomic status (SES) of injuries from sport and physical activities for each gender using data from a national sample of adult Canadians. The results show weak positive relationships between SES (various measures) and sport injury before controls for both genders, and that men are more likely to experience sports injuries than women. Workplace physical activity is negatively related to SES and negatively related to sport injury. Also, duration and intensity of sport and physical activities are positively related to SES and positively related to sport injuries, The effects of these intervening variables help account for the positive relationships of SES and sport injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological production is prompted and affected by the major social preoccupations of the society it stems from. This is an inherent feature of the social sciences because those who produce knowledge, in this case sociologists, participate in the society they study. The aim of this article is to highlight the social and historical conditions that are at the root of the production of knowledge in the sociology of sports, and the role the latter has played in the exercise sciences in Quebec. This article is composed of two parts. First, it will try to shed light on the social dynamics that created the sociology of sport. Second, it will try to show that the researchers' problematics and the theoretical traditions they have followed were a part of the power dynamics specific to Quebec society and the field of physical education. Briefly, this paper aims to show that the sociology of sport in Quebec has been shaped by the socio-historical conditions in which it has been created and that, at the same time, it has generated a specific social and academic dynamics.

One explanation for stacking in sports is that minorities are excluded from positions with the greatest opportunity for determining the outcome of the competition, with the place kicker in football cited as an example. This paper postulated that the short relief pitcher in baseball also has high outcome control, and it hypothesized that minorities would he underrepresented in that position as well. We classified major league pitchers fro,n the 1992 and 1993 seasons as starters, stoppers, or others and tested whether race or ethnicity was a factor in assignment to these positions. The hypothesis was not supported for either African American or Latin American pitchers. Minority group members were equally underrepresented in all categories of the pitcher position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The professional team sports industry has consistently worked a constructing a symbiotic relationship in the collective American mind linking professional team sports with United States patriotism Professional team sports organizations use a variety of advertising images. rituals, and ceremonies to reinforce this association. One means by which the organizations perpetuate this association is through league logos, all of which use only the colors red, white, and blue--the precise color combination found on the flag of the United States League logos are prominently displayed on all their licensed merchandise, that generates about $10 billion in annual revenue for professional team sports. This paper focuses on the contradiction or paradox that exists between the imagery of All-American patriotism professional team sports construct and the fact that much of their licensed merchandise is manufactured in foreign countries by exploited labor. The analysis centers on meaning-production by deconstructing and critiquing the managed image of professional team sport organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes some of the ways in which popular culture may be a site of social resistance. The subculture of skateboarding is described as one form of popular culture that resist capitalist social relations, and the skateboarders' particularly overt resistance to an amateur contest provides a framework for characterizing their daily and more covert behaviors of resistance. Although social resistance has the potential to change dominant social relations, it is often limited by contradictions and accommodations. In this case, the skateboarders' sexist behavior is one of their significant contradictions. Finally, some implications of social resistance are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an anthropological analysis of whiz sports from a new standpoint in the social sciences. This standpoint ignores the existing split between a science of society and a science of the individual. This approach also offers a new way of thinking the "collective." The concept of transitional space defined by Winnicott is put forward as a central concept that permits consideration of the individual/group interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an introduction to the topic of Michel Foucault and the sociology of sport. First, we discuss the concepts used in the works of Foucault that have had the greatest impact in sociology of sport. Second, we present a brief review of the important articles in sociology of sport that have been inspired by Foucault's approach. This exercise allows us to provide indices of the influence of the Foucauldian perspective on the sociology of sport: directly, by allowing us to situate the body at the center of research questions, or indirectly, in the context of the development and use of contemporary social theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The works of Pierre Bourdieu contribute to the establishment of a true sociology of culture and open prospects for the sociology of sport. A review of the genesis of this sociology shows that it has been constructed through breaks with French sociology's way of approaching culture in the 1960s. The presentation of some of Bourdieu's concepts is intended to show how they illuminate the social coherence of cultural behaviors and how the latter fit together. Finally, the paper emphasizes the relevance of such cultural analyses for those who study the social uses of the body. sport culture, or physical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the author's fieldwork experiences while initiating and undertaking substantive participant observation research with two rival groups of Scottish football hooligans ("football casuals''). Key problems examined are those that emerge from attempted entrée into the hooligan subcultures and the everyday risks of comparative research with violent fans. The au/liar provides regular illustrations to highlight how dangers such as the researcher's personal characteristics, lack of guiding sociological literature, and interaction with police officers can threaten the urban ethnographic project. The resultant ambivalence of some research subjects toward the author is interpreted as one reason for minimizing the prospect of his "going native.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to focus more attention on the potential value of a structural social network approach for understanding social interaction, relationships, structures, and change in sport. Despite growing interest in this approach in sociology in general, little attention has been paid to it by sport sociologists. Examples of applications to sport are presented concerning the study of pain and injury, small groups and subcultures, organizational relations, coaching burnout and deviance, and managerial recruitment and stacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between sport and the modem state has been a focus of increased theoretical attention in recent years, particularly with respect to the role of sport in hegemony. At the same time there has been mounting interest in the significance of the body and bodily practices (including sports) as a site of political struggle. Yet, not much work has been done on the connection between these two projects. A monograph written in French and published in 1983 draws together many of these themes but has remained neglected in English-language sport sociology. This paper reviews Le corps programmé and discusses some of the book's theoretical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the June 1995 issue of the "Sociology of Sport Journal." The task associated with this special issue is more complicated than it appears at first sight. It implies more than translating, since in addition to the language barrier a cultural barrier must be overcome. In fact, several factors have to be considered when publishing research papers written in another language, especially when they are inspired by works that have already been translated. Obviously, this special issue is intended not to solve difficulties but rather to raise awareness about them and contribute to the discipline by allowing a confrontation of readings specific to different scholarly spaces within sociology of sport. Some of the ideas conveyed here might appear inadequate or simply wrong to some readers. If that is the case, this issue will have From a thematic point of view, the feature articles are a good illustration of a number of issues central to French-language sociology of sport communities.