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Bullying is increasingly considered to be an important moral, political, and social issue within modern society. Academic research on this issue has mostly been examined through a psychological lens, often using questionnaire data to examine and explain the prevalence of different types of bullying. In this position statement, we apply a figurational sociological perspective to examine issues of school-based bullying in physical education. We critically reflect on attempts to position bullying amongst young people as a "social justice" issue and argue that core figurational principles might potentially help researchers strive toward a more reality-congruent means of conceptualizing the power-relationships that are inherent within bullying. We further maintain that the development of a more detached understanding of issues relating to bullying might provide a more adequate basis to contribute to future ongoing policy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The majority of physical activity resources are too difficult to be easily read and understood by most U.S. adults. Attempts to ensure that such resources are written in the most accessible manner possible have been advanced (e.g., 2010 U.S. National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy). For this study, physical activity educational resources were collected through the Internet (N = 163), and their reading grade levels were analyzed. Over 50% of the resources were written at an unsatisfactory level, with the observed reading grade level being greater than eighth-grade (M = 8.98, SD = 2.92, p <.001, 95% CI [8.53, 9.43]), the maximum recommended. Suggestions for future research and publicly engaged sociology of sport praxis are discussed, with a focus on increasing the equity of written physical activity educational resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a biographical overview of Minseok Ahn’s career, specifically highlighting his role as a public sport sociologist. Notably, Ahn has spent time as a student activist, worked as a physical education teacher, served as a scholar with a university appointment, and held office in the South Korean National Assembly. Throughout his career, he has sought engagement with multiple publics in multiple ways to pursue reform in sport and physical education. An examination of Ahn’s career can offer insights regarding the processes and challenges involved in pursuing public sociology and provide a cross-national perspective that helps us consider the possibilities that exist for scholars to seek progressive change in sport through public engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While interdisciplinary knowledge is critical to moving beyond categorical ways of knowing, this comes with its own set of pedagogical challenges. We contend that acknowledging existing knowledge hierarchies and epistemological differences, recognizing the ideological baggage that students’ bring to the classroom in terms of their understandings of health, embracing intellectual uncertainty, and encouraging learning-as-witnessing, are fundamental to fostering an interdisciplinary pedagogy that opens up a space for dialogue between psychology and sociology. We draw on the case of obesity and physical inactivity in the Canadian context as an exemplar of a kinesiology dilemma in which both psychology and sociology have important, albeit different, roles to play. We suggest that the anxiety provoked by such an approach is not only necessary but productive to forge an intellectual space where psychologists and sociologists may better hear one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for a pedagogical approach to the sociology of sport and physical education that centers writing. Drawing on student reflections from my first year seminar in academic writing 'Social Inequality and Sports,' I demonstrate that students are more inclined to entertain the imperatives of critical pedagogies in the context of sport – the development of critical consciousness and transformative praxis – when they are empowered to take greater ownership over their own learning through intensive writing that is guided by principles of rhetorical listening. Writing assignments – including reading responses, a literature review paper, and a work of original analysis of an empirical site or text of their own choosing – that require students to listen to the academic literature on sport and social inequality challenge them to reevaluate their preconceived notions about sport, facilitating outcomes sought by critical pedagogies. Responses to an automatic writing prompt at the beginning and end of the semester reveal that this approach can yield a dramatic perspectival shift in students who enter the course with typical investments in normative understandings of sporting cultures, prompting them to leave it with a newfound openness to critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Alternative high school (AHS) students have low levels of physical activity (PA) and high rates of overweight/obesity. Sports team participation, a specific form of PA, is associated with increased PA and decreased overweight/obesity in general adolescent populations. However, little is known about the prevalence and correlates of sports team participation among AHS students. Methods: In 2006, students (n = 145; mean age = 17 years; 52% male; 61% minorities; 64% low-income) attending 6 AHS in Minneapolis/St. Paul completed self-administered surveys. Mixed model logistic regression was used to examine cross-sectional associations between sports team participation and school staff support for PA, friend support for PA, and perceived barriers tos PA. Results: Among students, 40% participated on ≥ 1 sports teams. Odds of participating on a sports team were positively associated with support for PA from school staff (OR = 1.12, P = .014) and friends (OR = 1.15, P = .005), but inversely associated with perceived barriers to PA (OR = 0.95, P = .014). Conclusion: Results suggest that efforts to increase sports team participation among AHS students should target social-environmental factors. Further study is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been no research about the prevalence of undergraduate sport sociology courses or about the links between NASSS and the institutions and faculty offering these courses. This article begins to fill this research gap. It uses a social network perspective to show how NASSS is connected to the "idea space" of undergraduate sport sociology courses in the U.S. and to the "social space" of institutions and instructors offering these courses. The data concern the prevalence, distribution, and content of undergraduate sport sociology courses in the U.S. and their connection to NASSS. A "call to action" for NASSS is proposed, especially in terms of how NASSS could expand its social network and its influence over the curricular idea space of sport sociology by reaching out to instructors of sport sociology courses. Suggestions for related future research are also proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a report on the evolution of educational advancement in the athletic training field. The author presents various key points that are meant to assist athletic trainers in their employments. Topics include shifts in power, job descriptions, the stress of increased workloads, and job related recommendations.

Sport sociology . . . is a value-free social science. It is not an effort to influence public opinion or behavior, nor is it an attempt to find support for the "social development" objective of physical education. . . . The sport sociologist is neither a spreader of gospel nor an evangelist for exercise. His function is not to shape attitudes and values but rather to describe and explain them. (Kenyon & Loy, 1965/1969, p. 38) The replication of so called scientific studies of sport have done little to enhance either our knowledge or understanding of the nature and meaning of sporting practices. By separating sport from its developmental and social features, the "variables" approach completely ignores the sociohistorical and political dimensions of cultural life. (Hollands, 1984, p.70) Scholars on the forefront of the sport/cultural studies movement have emphasized that its fusion of perspectives carries the promise of developing a comprehensive model to analyze relations of dominance and subordination simultaneously contoured along class, race, and gender lines . . . . (Sage, 1997a, p. 333) It would . . . seem wholly appropriate for the sociology of sport to use post-structuralist thought as a vehicle for excavating the discursive formations, and allied subjectivities, of contemporary sport culture. (Andrews, 2000, p. 116) Sociology of sport began to take shape as a subdiscipline in the mid-1960s, and these quotes provide a useful orientation to this formative period and to some of the most important developments in methodologies, theoretical frameworks, and topics of study that have occurred since then. My goal is to offer an overview of the growth of the subdiscipline and a look to the future, with special attention to intersections between sport sociology and the larger discipline of kinesiology. Although I will give less attention to the discipline of sociology, it is important to note that the subdiscipline was forged by joint efforts of scholars from both fields. Before we proceed with the story of sport sociology from the mid-1960s, however, let's look back briefly at earlier events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Italy, initially the social sciences of Sport was considered a specialization to the macro-discipline of Sociology of leisure time, but today it boasts a tradition of pluriventennial studies. It is equally important to consider the number of this discipline among the studies on mass culture due to its extent of aggregating phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to examine the research trends of social sciences applied to sport in the Italian context. From a methodological point of view, a systematic review of the existing literature will be provided following the PRISMA guidelines both on the main research currents and on the main emerging topics in the contemporary specialist literature. Comparing application studies and empirical experiences, it can be suggested that the social sciences in Italy with an international scientific tradition play a key role in research applied to sports by specializing research tendencies towards specific topics of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the schedule of various congresses and conventions related to sports management that are scheduled to be held during the year 1993-94. It is reported that the "1993 Annual Conference of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport," will be held during November 3-6, 1993, at Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The "World Congress on Physical Activity and Sports Sciences," will be held during November 10-13, 1993 in Granada, Spain. The "Canadian Parks and Recreation Association Conference," will be held during August 14-18, 1994, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. The "10th Annual Conference worth American Society for Sport Management," will be held in June 1995 in Athens, Georgia.

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]

Without engaging in historical work, this article recalls what today appears as a triple rupture in French sociology of sport at the end of the 1970's, a triple rupture resembling a founding process, which must be defined in order to understand the present dynamics in the field. First, there was an institutional rupture, that is, the grouping of many researchers starting in 1975 at the Institut National du Sport et de I'Education Physique (INSEP) in a sociology of sport laboratory. This signaled the concerted convergence of the researchers' works and the elaboration of a national network, fragile for a long time, but allowing the diffusion of information and broadening of consultations between sport sociologists. The article underlines this relatively independent initiative of INSEP. It was original, and, for sure, the demands of this institution with respect to its new researchers accentuated the importance of field work and catalyzed a number of surveys, interviews, and investigations of sport practices and participants.

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.

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 focuses on the theoretical and substantive innovations developed by Michel Foucault, and specifically his understanding of the disciplined nature of bodily existence. Foucault's understanding of the human body is then linked to the critical discourse within sport sociology. This illustrates how his research has been appropriated by critical scholars in the past and briefly outlines how his work could be used to develop innovative research agendas. The paper concludes by putting the onus on the critical element within sport sociology to confront poststructuralist and postmodernist theorizing, such as Foucauli's genealogy. This is the only way to ensure the intellectual development of a critical, and legitimate, sport sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and comment upon recent developments in the measurement and conceptualization of attitudes toward play, or "game orientation." Recent scholarly work has become critical of the traditional measurement instrument, the Webb Scale, focusing primarily on the issues of situational ambiguity and unidimensional artificiality. These critiques are analyzed in comparison with the conceptual and measurement approach offered by an alternative instrument, the Game Orientation Scale. It is concluded that the case in favor of the GOS and its Liken format is not as strong as it first appears. Until further research is conducted, the two competing approaches should be treated as of comparable methodological quality. Substantive and methodological recommendations for future research are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, the issue of relevance and application has become the focus of concern for many sport sociologists. The need for an applied sociology of sport has been discussed in the literature, and has been the subject of deliberation at three major national conferences. Yet, efforts to develop an applied sociology of sport are still hindered by widely held beliefs that such activity is not worthy of our best efforts. This paper explores issues that continue to hinder the development of applied work in sociology and sport sociology today. The discussion focuses on such issues as value neutrality, the relationship of theory to application, and problems of definition, among others, and provides a theoretical context for grounding the present discourse. The result is the development of a conceptual model that clarifies the transfer of knowledge from applied research to implementation in various physical education, coaching, marketing, policy analysis, and counseling contexts. Also identified is a variety of roles (e.g., applied researcher, knowledge broker, change agent) that an applied sport sociologist may legitimately engage in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the ideas behind the structure of physical education and examines the questions that have formed its boundaries. These questions include if physical education equals an individual disciplinary goal, what the educational significance is behind such concepts, and if a suitable definition of such an education can be meaningfully formulated.

The article presents the authors views on the effects of social changes on sports in the U.S. The article refers three papers on this subject. These paper includes sociologist August Cornte's concern for the social changes in the early portion of the 19th century. Comte viewed societies in terms of their statistics and dynamics. It is apparent in the article that scholars have approached the study of social change in society and sport from diverse perspectives and hold differing views as to its outcomes for society in general and sport in particular. The papers referred to here, explore diverse aspects of social change in sports. The first paper, criticizes the discipline of sociology of sport for its lack of attention to social change in play, sport, and leisure contexts. Arguing that social change is ubiquitous and deserving of our attention, she provides an overview of theoretical frameworks for the analysis of social change, including cyclic theories, a variety of developmental formulations in sociology and anthropology, and structural functionalism. The second paper provides an excellent case study of social change in a nation state and its influence on sport.

In this article the author presents his views on the comments of sport sociologist John J. MacAloon on sport sociology in the U.S. The author agrees with most of the thinking contained in MacAllon's conference address. Many of the sport sociologists have been too slavishly committed to classical sociological theories or to quantitative empiricism. Sport sociologists have failed to remember that sports are a collection of highly differentiated phenomena that necessitate qualifications as to which sports, engaged in by which groups of people, and in which broader social contexts. They have been influenced in their scholarly thinking by their own society's popular discourse about sport, and this has undoubtedly blinded them in some ways to interesting research problems. However, in spite of the fact that MacAloon wishes to avoid naming names, it should be noted there are several good examples of research on ludic activities conducted along the lines that he favors, although none deals with a pervasively popular American sport.

This article presents the author's view of sport sociology. He argues that American sociology of sport is in the most unsatisfying state, both intellectually and politically. He remarks that whether or not sport sociology wastes too much energy taking stock of itself, as some would argue, complete reviews of activity in the field cannot easily be written these days in any case. The impression one gets is of a larger number of North American academicians defining themselves, at least in part, as sociologists of sport. Busily at work in a large number of university courses where what is said is largely inaudible to outsiders, they direct graduate students in papers and theses, most of which will not be published, and are published themselves as frequently in out-of-the-way places as in the visible journals of the field. The foundational hypothesis of sport sociology, stated in its simplest form, is that sport is of capital importance in the social life of societies such that of U.S. Yet what is seen when one looks at the sociological landscape of sport today is not confusion, indeed one might well wish for more of it, but a certain unremitting intellectual sameness, a dead hand of competence.

This study proposed and tested a theoretical explanation of how social class background influences sport participation. Two theoretical constructs of social class were operationalized within the context of sport participation and tested to determine how well they explained the social class-sport participation link: life chances/economic opportunity set (the distribution of material goods and services), and life-styles/social psychological opportunity set (values, beliefs, and practices). Life chances consisted of the availability and usage of sport equipment, facilities or club memberships, and instruction. Life-styles consisted of selected parental achievement and gender role expectations that encourage, fail to encourage, or discourage sport participation. Social class background was determined by father's occupation as ranked in the Duncan Socioeconomic Index. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to a stratified random sample of high school students, with some questionnaires eliminated to control for cultural and/or racial differences and variation in parental influence. The construct validity of the instrument was supported by factor analytic results. The test-retest reliability of the questionnaire was r = .956. Partial correlation analyses revealed that while individual life chances/economic opportunity set variables explained a greater portion of the relationship between sport participation and social class back- ground than did the individual variables of life-styles/social psychological opportunity set, a combination of all three economic opportunity set variables and two social-psychological opportunity set variables accounted for more than 50% of the relationship between sport and class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been no attempt to compare the sociological functions of organized sports in British and American boarding schools, yet for over a century they have been an essential component of the class ideals taught in the best known schools. This paper examines five critical functions of team games: the extension of institutional control, their role as molder of "manly Christian character," the importance of closer involvement of faculties in games as surrogate parents, the emergence of school leaders from the successful athletes, and their preparation of athletes for elite colleges and universities. Team sports in boarding schools in both England and New England were introduced to teach boys to be gentle men, which is what most of their parents hoped they would become. Team sports socialized boys into class and gender roles that corresponded to moral expectations of legitimate behavior. Success in sports became a crucial prerequisite for acceptance at school; the sports also fostered powerful bonds between classmates and inculcated a strong attachment to the school. The competition of team games in school encouraged the love of winning, which in turn encouraged a concern with success and doing well in one's later endeavors, derivative of the enjoyment of schoolboy success in sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a bibliography on sociology and socio-psychological aspects of sports or leisure during the period 1976-1983. Some of the papers included are: "Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Recreation and the Contest for Control," by Peter Bailey; "Sport and Public Policy: International Seminar on the History of Physical Education and Sport, Sixth Proceedings Supplement," by Dennis Brailsford; "The Social Roots of Football Hooligan Violence," by Eric Dunning, J.A. Maguire, P.I Murphy, J.M. Wallrams; " Authority, Power and Intergroup Stratification by Race and Sex in American Sport and Society," by Harry Edwards; "Power and Play in Canadian Society" by Richard S. Cetuneau; "Sports Spectators From Antiquity to the Renaissance;" "Authority, Power, and Intergroup Stratification," by Race and Sex in American Sport and Society, by Harry Edwards in Handbook of Social Science of Sport; "Sport, Hegemony and Logic of Capitalism: Response to Margraves and Bearish," by Alan G. Ingham in the journal "Sport, Culture and Modern State."

For operational purposes, physical development is characterized using a multidimensional hierarchical model. Optimal physical development is described as a combination of good physical fitness and a high level of skill development. Physical fitness has multiple subdimensions of its own. Developing each subdimension requires regular physical activity, which is not likely to occur without the collaboration of many, including the individual, family, friends, schools, community, and private agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines which values attributed to sport would be more compatible with differing educational purposes. The basic criterion used for determining which values deserve priority is that those values that are most compatible with a particular purpose deserve priority. Jewett and Bain's five curriculum value orientations are used to establish five different educational purposes. Sport values particularly relevant to each of these purposes are identified, and some emphases in the organization of sport to enhance those values are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical education lacks a set of superordinate research questions to guide our crossdiscipline, and it also lacks an overarching mission and set of goals to guide our profession. It is contended here that clarifying the possibilities and limitations that exist in our society for provision of services by experts in exercise and sports could help us to clarify the mission and goals of our profession, and this in turn could facilitate the development of a set of vital, superordinate scholarly questions around which our crossdiscipline could coalesce. This enterprise requires scholarly investigation of sports and exercise in relation to the social contexts in which they are most frequently embedded—health, leisure, and education. Sociocultural inquiry is ideally suited to examine such phenomena, and therefore it is contended that sociocultural scholars are of crucial importance to the future of our field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early linkages between physical education, sociology, and sport sociology are set in the American 1960s context of increased focus on the discipline of physical education, expansion of higher education, and fragmentation of knowledge. In the last 20 years sport sociology has become a subfield of both physical education and sociology. Positivist and descriptive/sensitizing perspectives of the nature of knowledge—two paradigms used by sport sociologists—are compared and contrasted. In sociology there continues to be considerable debate between proponents of these two orientations, while in physical education the positivist tradition has been espoused almost exclusively. Much American social research is positivist in nature, and this, coupled with the strong physical education positivist tradition, has tended to guide sport sociologists in this direction. But interdisciplinary sport studies perspectives that have evolved out of the descriptive/sensitizing paradigm and draw on a wide range of the social sciences and humanities are currently becoming more popular in sociology and sport sociology. Sport sociology can make important broadening and humanizing contributions to physical education curricula, most of which are very technically and/or professionally oriented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents strategies that have been useful in helping undergraduates develop a critical view of sport. This is usually a difficult task in teaching introductory students with backgrounds in physical education, kinesiology, and human movement studies because they tend to have a positive, uncritical perspective of sport. Such students often react in an incredulous or hostile fashion when sociologists present evidence that questions or contradicts typical assumptions about sport. It is argued that the fundamental objective in teaching sociology of sport and sociology through sport is to help students develop what Bierstedt terms the "liberated mind." Some teaching strategies are then presented to help students grasp the rudimentary principles of thinking critically about sport. Finally, some ethical problems that arise from teaching sociology of sport in this way are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has often been asserted that the sociological study of sport is confronted by a theoretical and methodological malaise (Beamish, 198 1 ; Ingham, 1979). In the spirit of this type of inquiry, it is argued that the developing field of cultural studies can provide some provocative frames of reference for understanding the multidimensional nature of sport in society. The first section of the paper briefly traces and critiques some of the major theoretical and methodological developments in North American sport study. The midsection of the essay introduces the related field of cultural studies, and suggests a number of ways in which it might aid our understanding of the relationship between sport, culture, and society. It is asserted that cultural studies can provide an effective critique of elitist definitions of culture, in addition to making available the conceptual tools necessary to link the production of cultural forms (such as sport), to broader social and political questions. The final section of the paper attempts to sketch out a plausible framework for integrating cultural anaylsis and sociocultural criticism into professional schools of sport science. Such an objective ultimately involves reinterpreting and analyzing the scientific basis (and bias) of contemporary physical education departments, while demonstrating the necessity for a critical/historical/interpretive component of sport study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competition is a very different proposition from one person to another. Debates surrounding the effects of competition on culture and on the individual often lack specific reference; such debates are necessarily problematic. A literature review of definitions of competition revealed great diversity among writers. A model for the conception of competition was offered as a possible solution to some of the confusion and differences surrounding the nature of competition. When examined metaphorically, the constituents of competition take on increased significance. Positive and negative analogies of definitions serve to reaffirm or reconstruct one's understanding of the construct. Congruent articulations between the theoretical framework, the antecedent belief structures, and workable definitions of competition provide the basis of the Model for the Conception of Competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alan Ingham has criticized the prevailing positivist and blatantly ideological methodologies used in sport study and offered a Weberian alternative. This paper presents a different methodological approach; one based on a materialist understanding of the relationship between sport and society. By examining the totality as the real object of study and integrating the conception of dialectical analysis, it is argued that the labor process constitutes the ontological basis of social history and thus of sport study. Using labor as the take-off point, the paper illustrates in some detail how sport study can be integrated into the materialist framework. The final section discusses the ideal-type approach offered by Weber pointing out that it is a redundant methodological construct once the pivotal relations of social history have been identified. Finally, it is argued that the Weberian position also harbors certain ideological elements that often go unnoticed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the methodology of sports sociology. A methodology of Max Weber which focuses on the sociocultural study of sport is presented. Weber's approach to sociocultural research in sports demands to view sport as a part of historical and sociocultural reality. It requires the researchers to recognize that sport cannot be isolated from public issues and human troubles in the society. Weber's methodology emphasizes the interpenetration of sociocultural disciplines that lead to the contextual and critical analysis of sports.

The article features a discussion on the sociology of sport. Much of the confusion in the sociology of sport is based simply on impatience and boredom. What people want is some understanding of how the sociology of sport can relate in a useful fashion to their particular areas of professional, personal and intellectual concern. The sociology of sport represents little more than the ad hoc use of sociological research findings and theory for problem solving at the applied level in areas like program design in physical education, skill instruction, or the improvement of athletic performance.

The article examines research considerations and topics which demonstrate the relationship between the subdiscipline of sociology of sport and the practice of physical education. According to the author, there are critical issues facing the subdiscipline of sociology of sport. These include the role of the sport sociologist and the isolation of sociology of sport from physical education, which can be seen in the structural and organizational separation between departments of athletics and physical education in higher education. She also cites the nature of research directions in sociology of sport. These are the paradoxical relationship between sport or athletics and physical education; the institutional sanction of physical education and sport programs and the status image of physical education.

The article talks about the basic conceptual model of socio-cultural doctoral study in a Human Kinetics Doctoral Program. To describe, explain and predict human sport behavior in modern society, the socio-cultural area is delineated. The socio-cultural area deals with the individual acting in a sport situation, along with the factors influencing such individuals and the individuals' influence on the specific system. More information on the subject matter is given and more issues are discussed in the article.

The article focuses on the Hungarian sport culture. In most of the previous studies, the role and status of sport in Hungary is determined as an important ideological process. Sport, physical education, and recreation are conceived as integral parts of general education, which can determine the place and role of an individual in the socio-cultural hierarchy in Communist countries. Hungary, however, differs from other Communist countries. It has constituted an integral part of the international sport-community since the end of the nineteenth century and its sport traditions are rooted in the English heritage of sports. Hungarian people, reportedly, are very sport-minded. Most of the Hungarian people regularly read two popular sport newspapers, "People's Sport" and "Sport in Pictures." Sports are so deeply rooted in the national consciousness of the people that during the finals of the Soccer World Championship of 1954 the government ordered public places such as bistros and restaurants to provide live broadcasting of the final match. The formal patterns of physical culture begin with the enrollment of the child in the elementary school. The general organizational framework of competitive sports resembles the usual pattern of the other Communist countries.

The article presents information about the relationship that exist between international sports and the social sciences. Many viewers were exposed to international athletics as important social and political events. But in most countries, such a significant transnational activity as international sport has been neglected by the social sciences. According to the author, the Olympics were found to be incapable of transcending nationalism and politics. It is hoped that further ideas will mature into a greater realization of the social and political aspects of international sport. The fact that several social classes attend or follow different sports is an interesting subject in itself. The author informed that sports provide a common basis for international understanding, positive experiences for the individual competitors and international relations in general. International sport is indicative of a process of social, cultural and political maturation. Sometimes such events are the only sources of awareness of other nations.

The article presents information about Pierre de Coubertin, who was the founder of the modern Olympic Games. He was one of the first persons to realize the importance of physical activity in the lives of women, but he failed to recognize the legitimacy of women's strivings for social equality. He firmly believed that women should stay within the limits prescribed by the laws of nature. However, after the turn of the twentieth century, the interest and involvement of women in various sports activities increased. He foresighted the event as the most inaesthetic sight that human eyes could see. He always wished to exclude women from the Olympic Games, because he hated the sight of a lightly clad, sweating women engaged in strenuous activity. Coubertin believed that women appearing in public competitions had no right to complain if they were booed. He criticized women's participation in sports although he had no particular objection to the sports of tennis and swimming for women. Coubertin stated that a woman's glory depends upon the number and quality of the children she grows.

The article reproduces the four original papers which served as the thematic base for the media production of the 1970 National Convention of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (AAHPER) in Seattle, Washington and at the Canadian Biennial AHPER Convention of 1971. These papers are "Is Sport the Struggle or the Triumph?," by W. R. Morford, "Are Sports Education?," L. F. Locke, "Is Sport Really Colorblind?," and "Is Sport Experience?," by Seymour Kleinman. The papers examine the relevance of sports in a changing society.

Discusses guidelines in teaching elementary aged students in the United States about the importance of fair play and being a good sport. K-6 physical education fair play unit objectives; Development of fair play guidelines; Fair play practice games. INSET: K-6 Physical Education Fair Play Unit Objectives.

In this article the author presents his views on the comments by sport sociologist John J. MacAloon on sport sociology in the U.S. According to the author MacAloon's comments are scholarly objective, positive, and programmatic. But in the face of MacAloon's clear explanation of the problems created when people join and follow leaders in academic traditions or paradigms, this approach is not taken in this article. Instead, an attempt is made to draw out the implications of his comments as they relate to the professional activities and roles of social scientists concerned with sport. Starting from a general acceptance of MacAloon's main ideas. The authors remarks that perhaps the ugly secret that undermines much of the study of sport is that most people who engage in sport value it, while those who study them believe it unacceptable that persons actually find meaning in mere games. In the sociology of sport is the often unacknowledged assumption that people ought not place so much emphasis on sport, either personally or socially, because sport is alleged to have no redeeming personal or social value.

The article focuses on the sport culture of Nigeria. The cultural attribute of sport refer to those physical and mental activities and traditions engaged in for fun and exercise. The cultural aspects have ever been omitted in most of the literature of cultural and physical anthropology. Now, it is accepted that the influence of sport in modern industrial society is particularly important. A nation's play, suggestively, is very revealing of its society and values, and other facets of political and economic life. In Nigeria, there are many traditional sports, including wrestling, folk dancing, swimming, horse-racing, hunting, and boxing. These sports feature prominently in cultural activities such as the funeral rites of significant persons, new yam festivals, initiation to manhood and "Argungu" festivals. The degree to which the different ethnic groups practice the above sports depends on religious beliefs, geographic locations, and availability of natural facilities. Traditional sports are by and large practiced in the villages. The social position of women in Nigeria greatly influences their participation in sports. The place of sport in education in Nigeria is better reflected through the physical education programs in the schools.

One of the main topics in philosophical work dealing with physical education is if and how the subject can justify its educational value. Acquisition of practical knowledge in the form of skills and the provision of positive and meaningful embodied experiences are central to the justification of physical education. The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between skill and embodied experience in physical education through the notion and concept of habit. The literature on phenomenology of skill acquisition is first considered. In particular, we draw on Merleau-Ponty’s notion of habit. Further, we introduce pragmatist philosophy and in particular the work of John Dewey as a useful complement to the phenomenological perspective. It is in particular Dewey’s emphasis on habits, experience and education that are found to be useful in our exploration of the relationship between the two justifications under consideration, because it allows us to point out the importance of habits of attentiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Connections have been drawn between masculinity, muscularity and physical or social status in sport. Not only are sporting bodies often related to masculinity but also to whiteness, leading to the devaluing of Asian boys' bodies and sporting experiences. This paper draws on three British Asian teenage boys' visual and verbal narratives to enquire how they negotiate these connections in their physical education and recreational sport experiences. Bourdieu's notion of capital is used to make sense of boys' ways of investing in their bodies to manage their status in school. Drawing from focus-group interviews which used participant-driven photography and photo elicitation techniques, the research indicates how three boys invested in their bodies by doing particular types of physical activity that would enable them to develop muscularity, fitness and/or motor competence, to attain or retain physical and social capital in school. Along the way, they add pertinent comments on the intersections of masculinity and ethnicity in constructing and performing a sporting body. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background. According to various research publications, physical education teachers work in the environment where the teaching process is often hindered by low physical education subject status, insufficient number and quality of lessons, lack of facilities and equipment for learning and the environment which is neither functional nor safe or hygienic. Concerned about pupils' physical activity decrease in secondary schools, Education and Sports Department of Šakiai District Municipality submitted a request to Physical Education study programme director of Lithuanian Sports University to carry out research revealing the existing situation about physical education and sports infrastructure in Šakiai district secondary schools. The aim of our study was to compare physical education environment in Šakiai and Šakiai district high schools, junior gymnasiums and lower secondary schools. Methods. We used a questionnaire for the survey drafted in the international study by Sport Science and Physical Education Council (ICSSPE / IOC) (Hardman & Marshall, 2009) and other references. During the study, we interviewed 13 physical education teachers from 14 Šakiai city and Šakiai district schools (2 women and 11 men). Results. The quality of learning tools in city schools was seen as excellent or good, while the quantity was also seen only as extensive or above average. Obtained results in the district schools varied, but most of them indicated that the quality (33%) and quantity (50%) was only adequate or sufficient. Physical education subject status in comparison with other subjects in half of the city schools was seen as the same and in the other half - as lower. In most schools in the district, it was seen as the same (92%). City schools did not lack hygienic equipment, but a significant number of district schools did not have changing rooms with lockers and hangers (33%) and showers (25%). In the district schools that had showers, they were not used in 56% of them. Conclusions. Schools in the city are supplied with more and better teaching tools and equipment. Physical Education subject status in half of city schools is perceived as inferior to other subjects. Hygiene conditions in city schools are good compared to the district schools, where they are poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]