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The objective of this article is to understand more fully the determinants of sports performance. To do this, we estimate a production function of sports results that explains the results of the Toulouse rugby union team's matches expressed as the gap in points between it and its opponents. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a production function has been estimated in rugby union. In addition, it is one of the few production functions specified at the match level. The study confirms the relevance of some variables already identified in the literature, such as home advantage, ranking, the role of the referee, and in-match statistics. It also shows the influence of new variables, such as weather conditions and the relative strength of fielded teams measured by comparing the teams selected on match day to the ideal teams defined at the beginning of the season. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine whether high levels of strenuous physical activity outside of organised sports are associated with better functional test performance.Methods: Youth athletes (n = 445, mean = 14.2 ± 2.5 years) reported their frequency of strenuous physical activity outside of organised sports. The functional performance tests: vertical jump height, pro agility test time, estimated maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max), front plank time and postural stability were measured and compared between groups.Results: Athletes in the five or more times a week group demonstrated faster pro agility times (5.37 ± 0.43 seconds) than the never group (5.59 ± 0.56 seconds; p = 0.002) and the 1-4 times a week group (5.52 ± 0.47 seconds; p = 0.005). The five or more times a week group demonstrated higher mean vertical jump height (42.9 ± 13.3 vs. 40.3 ± 10.8 cm; p = 0.009) and higher estimated VO2 max (48.1 vs. 45.6 mL/kg/minute; p = 0.001) than the 1-4 times a week group.Conclusion: Youth athletes who engaged in strenuous physical activity outside of organised sports five or more times a week performed best on functional performance tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the impact of secondary incentives by evaluating agent behaviour in a professional sport that rewards multiple outcomes. Our analysis focuses on the Super Rugby competition, which awards four points for a win and bonus points for scoring four or more tries and/or losing by seven or fewer points. Using binary response models, we find that significantly more tries are scored by teams late in matches when they can earn the try bonus point with one more try, but only when the match result itself is already likely decided. This result offers important evidence on multitasking by professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the sociology of sports has much to contribute to public discourse on sports and is well positioned to do so through the connection between sociology of sports and social psychology. This article uses the work of Erving Goffman () as a framework for situating research in the sociology of sports into the themes of courage and gameness, integrity, and composure. This framework provides a way of organizing research in the field and also highlights areas where further research is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Competitive sports for people with disabilities has grown rapidly over the past several decades, and opportunities for participation are increasingly available throughout the spectrum from developmental to elite. The Paralympic Games, seen as the pinnacle sporting event that represents the broader Paralympic Movement, has provided a platform to showcase the abilities of people with disabilities while also serving as a catalyst for disability rights through ensuring integration, equality of opportunity, and accessibility of the built environment. Concurrently, media coverage of the Paralympic Games has led to an increased awareness of opportunities for sport participation for individuals with disabilities and, with it, the adjustment of norms regarding expectations for exercise as a component of preventive health. In addition, there is evidence of the power of sports to stimulate confidence, self-efficacy, and a self-perceived high quality of life for individuals with disabilities above and beyond the basic benefits to cardiometabolic fitness. When taken together, the promotion of health, disability rights, and social integration through sports has the power to transform the lives of those who participate and to further stimulate the expansion of opportunities available to the next generation of athletes with disabilities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The under-theorised eighteenth-century game of cricket represents a far more fluid and paradoxical site of enquiry than the exhaustively politicised discussions of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century versions of the sport. Eighteenth-century cricket represents a way of describing the performance of gender within a context of patriotic self-imagining. Poems and paintings describing cricketers of both sexes illustrate how ideas of masculinity and femininity can be celebrated and challenged at the same time. The extent to which cricket (as it is steadily organised and coded) functions as a 'heroic' pastime says much about the centrality of sport in general within the national consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effect of achievement goals and achievement emotions on sport satisfaction, performance and effort among competitive athletes. Participants were 200 athletes. Structural equation modeling was used to test the indirect effect of mastery-approach goals on satisfaction with sport experience and performance, the direct effect of mastery-approach goals on enjoyment and effort, the direct effect of performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals on performance, and the direct effect of mastery-avoidance goals on effort. Results showed a positive direct effect of mastery-approach goals on enjoyment and an indirect effect, through enjoyment, on satisfaction, performance, and effort. We did not find support for the hypothesized effect of performance-approach or performance-avoidance goals on performance. The applied implications of endorsing mastery-approach goals are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The home advantage is the phenomenon in sports whereby the home team wins more often than the visiting team. The current data show that home crowd support is not a necessary precondition for the home advantage. In soccer games where no audience was present, the home team still had a home advantage. Furthermore, in some same-stadium derbies (games played between 2 teams that share a stadium; e.g., AC Milan vs. Internazionale in soccer), the home team always has more crowd support, but in these games no home advantage existed. Together, these findings suggest that crowd support is not a necessary condition for a home advantage to occur. The phenomenon might thus be much broader than assumed so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sport - as both a grassroots and elite movement - has long been used in various capacities to assist in the 'development process' especially in lower income countries. For example, sport is believed to display traits that assist in the education process, highlight health awareness issues, unify diverse communities and promote gender equality. Young people are the principal beneficiaries as sport is viewed as a particularly alluring vehicle to this generation. However, the relationship between sport and development has intensified in recent years, particularly since 2005 - a year that the United Nations declared to be its Year of Development and Peace through Sport and Physical Education. Sports mega events, especially but not solely, those held in lower income countries (such as the 2010 football World Cup hosted by South Africa) are notable for the rhetoric of the 'promise of development' attached to them. In this article, I address the growing academic debate and use a reflection of the 2010 football World Cup as the context around which to reflect the binary discussions evident. I take a critical stance that challenges the range of (often evangelical) support for sport-for-development. The article not only charts the perceived developmental benefits of the 2010 World Cup but also draws on my schooling in critical development studies to highlight limitations associated with it. In so doing, the critique of the developmental benefits of the World Cup echoes more general concerns within the sport-for-development relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many sociologists have observed the close connection between coordination and rhythm. In order to accomplish a communal task, participants need to develop a common rhythm if they are to coordinate their actions. Indeed, the harder the collective task, the more critical - but difficult - it is for participants to develop a common rhythm in order to synchronize their actions. Rhythm is thus an important and recurrent feature of social performance. This article explores the ways in which participants try to generate common rhythm in order to execute collective performances. To this end, the paper takes a single sporting example. It examines a decisive period in the 153rd Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in 2007 to examine how a small social group, the Cambridge crew, struggled to create and maintain a rhythm in order to maximize their rowing performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many sociologists have observed the close connection between coordination and rhythm. In order to accomplish a communal task, participants need to develop a common rhythm if they are to coordinate their actions. Indeed, the harder the collective task, the more critical - but difficult - it is for participants to develop a common rhythm in order to synchronize their actions. Rhythm is thus an important and recurrent feature of social performance. This article explores the ways in which participants try to generate common rhythm in order to execute collective performances. To this end, the paper takes a single sporting example. It examines a decisive period in the 153rd Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in 2007 to examine how a small social group, the Cambridge crew, struggled to create and maintain a rhythm in order to maximize their rowing performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about football, played by men from Panapompom in Papua New Guinea's Milne Bay province. Football is problematic not because it is culturally appropriated or modified, but rather because Panapompom desired accurately to reproduce the appearance of the international game. As such it questions conventional frames of reference. An interpretation in terms of culture obscures Panapompom interests in football: its globally recognizable character. It mattered profoundly that Panapompom people played football. Yet framing football as a universal sporting institution is equally inadequate, erasing the specific political project that was embedded in the game. Displacing the interpretative framings, I argue that football itself provides a context in which Panapompom people can judge themselves in relation to others, who are defined in terms of colonial and postcolonial discourses on 'development'. Taking football as a contextualizing image, Panapompom people appear in distinctive ways in the field of relationships that it defines. Résumé Le présent article est consacré au football tel qu'y jouent les hommes de Panapompom, dans la province de Milne Bay en Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée. Si le football pose question, ce n'est pas parce qu'il est annexé ou modifié culturellement mais parce que les habitants de Panapompom ont voulu reproduire exactement l'apparence des matches internationaux. En cela, il défie les cadres de référence conventionnels. Une interprétation en termes culturels méconnaîtrait ce qui intéresse les habitants de Panapompom dans le football : son caractère mondialement reconnaissable. À Panapompom, on tient beaucoup à jouer exactement au football. Cependant, il ne conviendrait pas non plus de définir le football comme une institution sportive universelle, en gommant le projet politique spécifique inhérent au jeu. Pour déplacer le cadre d'interprétation, l'auteur avance que le football fournit en lui-même un contexte dans lequel les habitants de Panapompom peuvent s'évaluer par rapport aux autres, ceux qui sont définis selon les termes du discours colonial et postcolonial sur le « développement ». En prenant le football comme image contextualisante, les habitants de Panapompom se présentent sous un jour qui leur est propre dans le champ de relations ainsi définies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history of the sport of soccer in the U.S. and examines how professional leagues in America, including the North American Soccer League (NASL) and Major League Soccer (MLS), have contributed to the globalization of the game. It explores reasons for the marginal popularity of soccer in American sports and popular culture, compares the cultural aspects of basketball and baseball in the U.S. to those found in soccer in Great Britain, and chronicles the history of both the NASL and MLS. Other topics include television broadcasting of soccer in the U.S., the commercial advertising and marketing of American sports' teams, and the book "Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism" by Andrei Markovits and Steven Hellerman.

Over the course of the last 125 years the sport of Gaelic football in Ireland has undergone a sportization and civilizing process as the rules governing the sport became stricter and players developed greater levels of self-control. However, the civilizing of Gaelic football was a particularly fragile and uneven process. The growing social desire to diminish displays of violence was moderated by ambivalence towards violence. Gradually the external social controls on players increased and, greater and more stable levels of internalization occurred reflected by more advanced levels of player self-restraint in the control of violence. At the same time the threshold of shame toward displays of violence advanced. This transformation was shaped by lengthening chains of social interdependencies in Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To assess the 5-year secular changes in sports participation, sedentary activity, and physical self-perceptions among Hong Kong adolescents. Methods: A total of 2932 and 5692 secondary students, aged 13-18 participated in the Health Related Behavior General (HRBG) Survey in 1995-1996 and 2000-2001, respectively. Extracurricular sports participation at least weekly or as a team member (none, 1-2 events, 3 or more events), sedentary activities (0-1 h/day, 2 h/day or more) including television/video watching and homework were assessed. Additionally, physical self-perceptions, physical fitness (fit/very fit, moderately fit, unfit/very unfit) and body weight (intention to lose weight, satisfied, intention to gain weight) were reported. Secular trends of sports participation, and sedentary activities and physical self-perceptions were assessed. Results: During the 5 years, the prevalence of sports participation (at least weekly or membership) decreased significantly in boys. The prevalence of both TV/video watching and homework for at least 2 h/day increased significantly in both sexes. The prevalence of being unfit/very unfit increased significantly in girls. No significant secular difference in weight perception was observed for both sexes. Conclusions: Sports participation decreased and sedentary activities increased during the 5-year period. Physical self-perceptions did not change significantly, except an increase in being physically unfit was observed in girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following up on Zirin’s (2008) challenge that sports sociologists “get off the bench,” and Karen and Washington’s (2001) plea to make sports sociology more central to analyses of social power, this article empirically reviews and assesses the sociology of sports from 1977–2008. Using a sample of 441 articles selected from the three major sports sociology journals during that period, we conclude that sports sociology exhibits a strong and increasing bias toward micro-level analyses of (for example) how the content of sports frames and constructs the social world. A smaller and shrinking body of work examines more macro-oriented issues such as the economics and politics of sports, and there seem to be few attempts to meaningfully synthesize these micro and macro orientations. We think this partiality toward micro-oriented frameworks is rooted in factors unique to sports sociology while also reflecting larger trends within sociology as a whole. As advocates of popularly accessible public sociology, we respectfully suggest that sports sociologists try harder to weave macro analyses into their work, not necessarily replacing micro-level approaches, but complementing them. We believe that sports sociology is well-positioned to become a standard bearer for public sociology, but only if it pays more attention to the way organized sports intertwines with the organizational, political, and economic forces that perpetuate and exacerbate social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the process of “sportification”— i.e., processing physical activity in a sport regulated by a set of rules and standards, legitimized by supervisory institutions — from two originals practices, parkour and urban golf. To study these practices, we crossed the contributions of urban sociology and of the contemporary sociology of sport while respecting the methodological principles of qualitative sociology. A first point concerns the process of “sport” itself, its definition, its various stages, and the role played by communication of stakeholders on public space. The cultural mediation shows us how to institutionalize the movement that represents the “sports” resulted in the same time reconfiguration of physical practices themselves. Recent events illustrate the ongoing reconfiguration, we will detail them. Finally, we show the effects produced by the process on the definition of urban culture and sports: setting sight of activities, enhanced cooperation with the media-cultural, polarization between different types of practical in the case of parkour, around a confrontation between two of the founders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. This article tests the presence of demand-driven discrimination attributable to foreign-born players in Major League Baseball (MLB). We quantify the change in demand at MLB games given the number of foreign players on an MLB team. We further measure how matching market population demographics and team demographics affects demand. Methods. We use regression analysis to estimate the effect on attendance of a change in the number of foreign players on a team. We then use these estimates to find the change in revenue for the team. Results. The results show that the effect evolves over time. At the outset of the sample (1985), the net effect of an additional foreign-born player was a decrease in ticket demand. This effect diminished steadily until 1992, when the net effect became positive, peaking in 2000, and then slightly decreasing until the end of the sample (2005). The matching of team and population demographics was not found to be significant. Conclusions. We discuss the implications of this result on league policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Second World War, the French athletics team included many sportsmen from outside mainland France, mainly from Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia), Black Africa, and Overseas, who distinguished themselves by their performances at the highest national and indeed international levels. How did the French sports press, in particular the mainland press, report these performances, which overturned colonial hierarchies and challenged “white superiority”? This article will describe the coverage, from a quantitative perspective, of these non-mainland athletes in the columns of L'Equipe, France's main multi-sports daily newspaper (after first determining the origin of the members of the French athletics team and pinpointing the arrival and gradual integration of athletes born outside mainland France). [Observations are limited here to male athletes. Women born outside mainland France joined the French athletic elite later than men, making it difficult to include both male and female athletes in the context of a single study. After 1945, the first French woman born outside mainland France to join the athletic elite was Martinique's Emma Sulter in 1970. In the United States, no African-born American woman picked up a gold medal until the 1948 Olympic Games.] Our objective is to test the hypothesis that these coloured athletes from the French colonies were discriminated against in the media. Indeed, American studies with comparable subject matter have shown different media coverage for “white” and “black” sportsmen. Our results show that the French athletic elite opened its doors to the colonies during the second half of the twentieth century, as the first wave of non-mainland athletes was integrated into the French team between 1946 and 1968. In fact, athletes from Maghreb were present in relatively high numbers; those from Overseas were starting to be integrated, and the numbers of people coming from Black Africa were reaching their highest levels. During this period, L'Equipe gave non-mainland athletes proportionately higher coverage than was warranted by their presence in the elite. This over-representation was even more marked in the case of athletes from Overseas and Black Africa (while it seems that North Africans had slightly less coverage compared with their presence in the French team). It would appear, therefore, that in terms of quantity France's main sports daily did not discriminate against athletes who were not born on the mainland, but quite the reverse, with the relative exception of athletes from Maghreb. Several interpretations of this over-representation will be considered, including: a disparity in terms of practice level between the groups of athletes; the particular features of French colonial history with regard to racial stereotypes; and the effect of mental categorization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the world, women are a small minority within the governing bodies of organized sport. This paper presents the results of three empirical studies that have been undertaken within a German research project. The representative survey of all male and female executives in German sports federations (N=697) included questions concerning their socio-demography, their careers as executive members of sports organizations, as well as their careers in sport and their chosen occupation. The survey reveals significant gender differences in terms of, for example, age, family situation, responsibilities in the executive committees, duration of office, and career barriers. Furthermore, we conducted 23 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with women in leadership positions to explore the women's individual perspectives. The aim of a second interview study (“drop-out” study) was to identify barriers in the voluntary careers of seven male and nine female leaders who left office prematurely (i.e. earlier than they had originally planned). These informants can be seen as experts who have an excellent insight into their organizations and who have also experienced barriers that caused them to “drop out”. The respondents' statements showed similarities with regard to socio-economic background but considerable differences in terms of gender-specific experiences, attitudes, and evaluations. The demands placed on the sports leaders were much more in line with the biographies of the men interviewed than with the personal circumstances of the women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of an ongoing AIDS education intervention program (EMIMA) using peers in a sport context. A secondary purpose was to determine whether a mastery-based motivational strategy would enhance the effectiveness of the peer coaches. A quasi field experimental study was employed in which at-risk children in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania ( N=764) were recruited (average age=13.6 years) and were randomly grouped into two treatment groups and two control groups. The treatment groups were peer coaches conducting the AIDS education to the children within sport, one with mastery coaching strategies and one without. The two control groups were in-school children, who received traditional AIDS education, and out-of-school children, who received no education at all. The intervention lasted for 8 weeks. The results indicated that the intervention using peers in sport was more effective in transmitting HIV prevention knowledge, cognitions and perceived behaviors than the control groups. The mastery-based motivational strategies were effective in influencing some of the variables. Contrary to expectation, the school-based HIV education was no more effective than the informal education obtained by the out-of-school children. The use of peer coaches within the EMIMA program was reliably the most effective means for HIV/AIDS education for these at-risk children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examined the main and stress-buffering effects of perceived and received support on objective performance outcome. The sample consisted of 123 British male high-performance golfers with a mean age of 25.3 years (s=5.4). Participants completed measures of perceived support, stressors, stress, and received support before competitions. After the competitions, performance outcome (number of shots) was recorded. When the two types of support were considered separately, there were significant main effects for perceived (ΔR2=0.08, b=-0.81, P<0.01) and received support (ΔR2=0.05, b=-0.68, P<0.01) on performance. There were also significant stress-buffering effects for perceived (ΔR2=0.03, b=-0.48, P=0.02) and received support (ΔR2=0.06, b=-0.61, P<0.01). When both types of support were considered together, the significant main effect (ΔR2=0.09, P<0.01) was primarily attributable to perceived support (b=-0.63, P=0.02). The significant stress-buffering effect (ΔR2=0.06, P=0.01) was primarily attributable to received support (b=-0.56, P=0.04). These results demonstrate the beneficial influence of social support on performance. The findings highlight the need to recognize the distinction between perceived and received support, both in terms of theory and the design of social support interventions with athletes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I theorize and empirically illustrate how the mega-event of the Olympic Games configures relational and symbolic systems within the host city. I focus on a field at the level of the local geographic community and explore how city character and traditions enable both persistence and change in institutional elements even when potentially disruptive events occur. I present two exploratory studies. The first shows how the event of the Olympics is rooted in the local field of the host city but varies by communities; the second explores the dynamics of configuring the field of one Olympic city: Atlanta, host of the 1996 Olympic Games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing the neutrality of referees during 12 German premier league (1. Bundesliga) soccer seasons, this paper documents evidence that social forces influence agents’ decisions. Referees, who are appointed to be impartial, tend to favor the home team by systematically awarding more stoppage time in close matches in which the home team is behind. They also favor the home team in decisions to award goals and penalty kicks. Crowd composition affects the size and the direction of the bias, and the crowd’s proximity to the field is related to the quality of refereeing. ( JEL J00) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several countries spend large sums of public money building sports facilities. Still, our knowledge about the effect of these means is limited. The objectives in this review are (1) to identify relevant knowledge of how sports facilities influence young people's physical activity, (2) to clarify the status of examined and non-examined factors and (3) to propose a conceptual model to guide future judgments. Relevant studies were located from searches in computerized databases and the bibliography of reviews. Ecological system theory uses the theoretical framework. The findings encompass 239 independent samples located in 43 studies, primarily from the field of public health. Based on these and the framework, we have developed a modified, conceptual model. The model stresses the interaction between the demographic, personal and interpersonal characteristics of the user, the consideration of access and facility characteristics and the level where this takes place. The most consistent data were found at the mesolevel and were correlated to access and user characteristics. Knowledge gaps were found at the microlevel and with regard to facility characteristics. We also know too little with respect to subgroups' different behavior in various physical settings. Finally, there is a need to confirm/disconfirm less consistent findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concern within this paper is to examine how, notwithstanding the growing global power of the USA and the declining power of Britain over a period of fifty years from 1874 to 1924, a series of attempts made by American entrepreneurs to establish the game of baseball in England were, to all intents and purposes, rebuffed. On four separate occasions during this period various American baseball entrepreneurs put on exhibition matches of baseball. On each occasion, baseball was given short shrift within the English press. We provide an empirical account before engaging in some theoretical reflections utilising a figurational sociological approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions remain about the details of the reciprocal strategies people use in the context of group cooperation. Here we report an experiment in which participants in public goods games could access information about the lowest, median, or highest contribution to the public good before making their own contribution decisions. Results suggest that people have clear preferences for particular pieces of information and that information preferences vary systematically across individuals as a function of their contribution strategies. Specifically, participants playing reciprocal strategies sought information about the median contribution, free riders preferred to view the highest contribution, and altruists had inconsistent preferences. By including a treatment in which people could pay to see information rather than obtaining it for free, we found that people were willing to incur costs to acquire information, particularly those using a reciprocal strategy. Further, adding a cost to view information decreased aggregate contributions, possibly because the motivation to induce others' reciprocal contributions diminished under these conditions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jamaican-born, Canadian sprinter, Ben Johnson, won the gold medal at the 1988 Olympics, but afterward was disqualified for steroid use. At the time Johnson's identity in the Canadian media appeared to shift—he was ‘Canadian’ after winning the gold medal but ‘Jamaican’ after disqualification. We tested this hypothesis via an archival study of a newspaper database of Canadian newspapers. The results confirmed the speculation. In the second study with Canadian research participants, the nationality of a fictional athlete was experimentally manipulated. He either possessed Canadian- American (shared) or Belgian-American (non-shared) identity. The athlete's performance outcome at an Olympic event was also manipulated. In the shared identity condition the athlete was perceived as more Canadian when he won than when he lost. There were no significant differences in nationality judgment when neither of the athlete's dual nationalities was Canadian. Results regarding perceptions of similarity paralleled the nationality-ratings results. Findings from these two studies illustrate an interesting extension of BIRGing and CORFing strategies in which multiple social identities of others are used strategically to include or exclude others from the in-group. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the decision to participate & sports activities in the United Kingdom and the subsequent frequency of participation. The paper draws links between economic and other theories of social interaction to motivate the discussion and links these theories to assessing policy initiatives in the United Kingdom. Cluster analysis is combined with a Heckman analysis to examine the empirical evidence provided by the General Household Survey in 2002. The results suggest that social and personal capital are of paramount importance in determining sports participation, and consequently, it is these features that policy should focus upon. However, the legitimacy of policy activism requires philosophical justification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1988 Bicentennial and the 2001 centenary of federation celebrations colonial images have flourished in Australia, highlighting the roles of convicts and free settlers during early colonization. Old sites, such as Port Arthur have been re-invigorated, and in 2004 Tasmanians celebrated the bicentenary of ‘white’ settlement. However, social scientists have given little attention to the role of colonial and post-colonial figures and myths as aspects of Australian national identity. We seek to address this issue by examining how convicts, free settlers, bushrangers and ANZACs are associated with contemporary identity in Australia. 2 We examine evidence from the 2003 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes and find that historical figures such as the ANZACs and post-World War II immigrants comprise important aspects of national identity. A substantial majority of Australians judged ANZACs to be important, countering recent claims of the ‘demise of the digger’. Sporting heroes are also at the core of Australian identity. Colonial figures appear to be far less important, although views on national identity vary according to social location. In particular, left-wing, university educated, younger, postmaterialist Australians view convicts and bushrangers as relatively important, indicating the salience of the larrikin in Australian identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elite sport is the vehicle for global interactions via both its shared practices and the relations engendered by its governing bodies and its global tournaments. This capability has attracted the attentions of those seeking both nation-building and reconciliation in war-damaged nations. The narrative that follows has global implications, telling as it does the story of George Weah, a Liberian-born footballer who became a humanitarian ambassador, and later aspired to become his country's president. Weah's story informs debates on globalization, illustrating the transnational career of a man who developed a keen understanding of institutional politics and patronage and who allowed himself to be courted by various global figures. These scenarios took place in Liberia, a war-devastated African nation. This tale thus provides for reflection on how sport can encourage and undermine practises of nationhood. As a former World Footballer of the Year, Weah was a Liberian success story and well aware of his populist appeal. However, the issue of who a people are and who is to be their national political representative has proven to be a very fraught issue in the Liberian context. Whether global sporting networks have made the world smaller and the people more knowing in the Liberian context is an issue this article raises in considering its most famous citizen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the benefits of physical activity (PA), a significant proportion of youth remains inactive. Studies assessing differences in the correlates of PA among urban and rural youth are scarce, and such investigations can help identify subgroups of the population that may need to be targeted for special intervention programs. The purpose of this study was to assess differences in the correlates of PA between Canadian urban and rural youth. Methods: The sample consisted of 1398 adolescents from 4 urban schools and 1290 adolescents from 4 rural schools. Mean age of the participants was 15. 6 ± 1. 3 years. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to examine the association between self-reported PA and a number of demographic, psychological, behavioral, and social correlates. Results: Common correlates between the 2 locations included gender (with girls being less active than boys) perceptions of athletic/physical ability, self-efficacy, interest in organized group activities, use of recreation time, and friends’ and siblings’ frequency of participation in PA. Active commuting to school and taking a physical education class were unique correlates of PA at the multivariate level in urban and rural students, respectively. Variance explained in PA ranged from 43% for urban school students to 38% for rural school students. Conclusions: Although more similarities than discrepancies were found in the correlates of PA between the 2 geographical locations, findings from this study strengthen the policies that argue for a coordinated multisector approach to the promotion of PA in youth, which include the family, school, and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]