sports sociology research article

The cultural sociology of sport: a study of sports for sociology?

• Published: 17 October 2022
• Volume 10 , pages 535–542, ( 2022 )

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• Trygve B. Broch 1  

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Despite its universality, the world of sport is magnificently, yet often subtly, playful, and diverse. At the same time, sports’ ubiquitous presence in many of our lives is thoroughly mundane and a spectacle of ritual-like proportions. Kids, youth, and adults play sports and exercise routinely, for fun, with passion, and as a healthy but tiresome obligation. And every four Olympic years, on any given Sunday—or under the glow of the Friday Night Lights for that matter—millions of people assemble to watch sports at the arena or in front of a screen. Again and again, sports, with their familiar seasonal patterns, are created and recreated as cultural systems gravitationally bound by our play to familiar symbols, myth, codes, and narratives.

For anyone concerned with the symbolic dimension of social life, sports offer a laboratory par excellence. Under scattered sociological labels, sport is found to be a great topic with which to theorize. Surely, most cultural sociologists are aware of play, games, and later, sports, as not simply elementary forms of symbolic action (Durkheim 1995 [1912]; Caillois 1979 [1958]), but also as the ludic modalities that beat the pulse of our civilizations (Elias and Dunning 1986 ) and personal existence (Mead 2015 [1934]). As aesthetic renditions of social life (Geertz 1973a ), sports twist and turn our myths and realities, at times predictable and sometimes surprisingly artistic, to hold our attention in their own reality (Barthes 2009 [1957]; Gumbrecht, 2006 ). Doing sports, actors, in split-second dramatics, practice their impression management and dramaturgic loyalties (Goffman 1959 ); form communities (Fine 1987 , 2015 ) generate emotional energy (Collins 2004 ); and make leaps of faith that not only change sporting identities, but our social being (Corte 2022 ). There is something about sport as a symbolic universe, a microcosmos, cut off from but nested within the broader social universe that, to culturally oriented sociologists, makes it good fodder for thinking. Footnote 1

It takes a special set of lenses, and interests, too, perhaps, to clarify the polyvalent capacities of sports. In the parent discipline of sociology, many have been more concerned with the serious topics of the economy, politics, and inequality, preferably in social realms that are not just “silly” play. For a cultural sociologist inclined to combine these serious topics with the study of symbols and cultural institutions, a quick glance at the rules and regulations of games—the standardization and bureaucracy that make up their global language—makes sports seem predictable rather than creative, reproductive rather than transformative, simplistic rather than artistic. The subdiscipline of sport sociology—balancing its integrity amid applied, ameliorative research, and its predominant use of the critical cultural studies tradition (Coakley and Dunning 2002 )—has bred a field content with viewing social inequalities through the lens of sport, to evaluate sport actors and organizations. Accordingly, some sport sociologists want to stick to this script and warn that a pluralistic use of theories can “unwittingly” sustain its own “marginalization and putting its future at risk” (Pike et al. 2015 , p. 361). Others are careful critics who note that in following this unidirectional path sport sociology has lost out on vital dialogs (Bairner 2015 ; Bruce 2015 ) and has offered little to sociological theory (Carrington 2010 ). However, calling attention to cultural sociological analysis—from Durkheim, Geertz, and Goffman to today’s cutting-edge work in cultural sociology—can help revitalize a truly meaning-centered study of sports, and, perhaps, bring sports back into our work of sociologically theorizing symbolic forms.

Sociological checks and balances are important and should not be forgotten, but to make progress, sociology needs to move beyond its prejudicial view of sports as silly, unserious, boring, or simply polluted by ideology and social power. Sports are not mere bread and circuses, but is also transformative. At the sports theater we interpret and stage social life in ways that can help set the public agenda and that can change the life course of communities and individuals. Those of us who profess an interest in culture should therefore embrace and leverage the many examples that can highlight diversity and creativity, and thus challenge simplistic reductions of sport to a stylistic activity pitting winners against losers. Various sports in different cultures shape delicate and radically diverse life worlds. In culturally and aesthetically contingent ways, the many options for figure-skaters’ and pugilists’ artistry, and for soccer and basketball trash-talk, can tell us much about how we symbolically maneuver social and institutional power structures. More attention should be given to the “hows” and “whys” of people who make competition bearable, enjoyable, and to those who challenge unfair sports. In a fragmented and complex modernity (Alexander 2017 ), we need to foreground agency within the plausible limits of fair play and unjust sports.

With ideals of thick description (Geertz 1973b ), I argue that we should flesh out the cultural structures of sports—their codes, myths, and narratives, as well as their modalities of play, games, fun, and sports themselves—with empirical data. The hallmark of cultural sociology, cultural autonomy (Alexander and Smith 2003 ; Spillman 2020 ) will then allow us to show how empirically verifiable symbolic processes within and about sports shape social life. Embracing ambivalence and contradiction as key structural features of culture and of sports is vital, and not just for empirical enrichment through surprising analyses, nor simply to make theoretical advances through cases that allows us to adjust taken-for-granted truths. It is vital because the masking of diversity and the concealment of existential ambiguities are political and ethical mistakes.

Sports are multifaceted, existential spheres. Here, various cultural modalities allow us to imbue games with characters and identities as we aesthetically reshape inequalities, stage altruism, and play out the serious politics that shape today and tomorrow (Broch 2022 ). We immerse ourselves in sports due to the many structural forms that allow us, even serve us, to fuse the personal with shared meaning. This is why we play, for better or for worse. Sports are experiential realms where we stage and process personal and public concerns—a hermeneutic work carried out by contestants and audiences alike. The microcosmos of sport is never far from, and always in, dialog with its orbiting cultural systems of codes, narratives, and myths. To get at these meaning-making processes, to expose how sports shape our lives, it is time to pick up a set of new lenses that can bend the light towards our eyes in ways that reveal more aesthetically attuned and tenacious ways to relativize, historize, and culturalize sports. Footnote 2

At hand is therefore a special issue about sports for sociology. The grand ambition is a cultural sociology of sport that goes beyond sub disciplinarity and prosaic endeavors that are mostly interesting to a very small niche of social scientists. Footnote 3 Yet, all the same, this ambition capitalizes on the unused theory-potentials of the subdiscipline of sport sociology that generously encompass anthropology, history, human geography, social psychology, political science, and even philosophy. As a collaborative effort, this special issue aims to bring sports into the center of sociology by asking how its varied affordances and problematics can help us understand, advance, and adjust sociological ideas about the symbolic dimensions of social life.

If we take Spillman’s ( 2002 ) characterization of cultural sociology to heart, we will look at sports both as one of our specialized institutions that organize social life and see sport cultures as a part of a “whole way of life,” and thus work to join insights from the disciplines of sociology and anthropology, respectively. The reward is a study of sport that not only allows us to explore how sport is different and similar to our many other institutions, but that always situates sports among the many other institutions that make up social life generally.

For this purpose, a generous definition of sports is beneficial. Room should be made for a variety of sport disciplines and cultures: for organized sports and unorganized leisure and play; for cultures concerned with sports and cultures within sports; for symbols used by athletes; and sport symbols, metaphors, and icons used outside sports. This entails a relentless chase to discover how the experiential realms of sports are diverse and how we can use these insights to subsequently diversify cultural and social analyses.

Taking a lead, first out in this special issue are Hartmann, Manning, and Green who explore the well-trodden terrain of race, sport, and politics. Diving into the hyper-commercialized sports media that many a sport sociologist has exposed as cultivating capitalist egotism and limiting the transformative potentials of critically conscious athletes, Hartmann et al. flip the script. Leveraging the moment when the Black Lives Matter movement entered sports, they rethink this familiar topic through observations of athletes’ race-based activism. Combining a collection of luminous examples of protest and activism with the concept of social performance, the critically conscious athlete is given agency, and sports are revealed as stages where we dramatize the dynamics of social struggle. While the sport stage is already there—endzones painted and baskets mounted—we clearly see that athletes still have to make sports into avenues for resistance and political expression. They must perform criticism. “Common sense,” you might say, but Hartmann, Manning, and Green use cultural sociology to ask us to rethink the significance and social political functioning of sports. They urge us to use sports to study how various “deep play” platforms allow “public displays of struggles over race and racisms.” In this way, they challenge our ideas about agency in highly stylized institutions and go far in indicating that the relative autonomy of culture and sports is not only a prerequisite for athlete activism, but that sports are emblematic of the Turnerian (1982) scenes we use to dramatize social struggles.

Commissioners and presidents who say that sports and politics do not mix really get sociologists going. Repeatedly, critical sport sociology has proven that apolitical sports are a myth. Yet, few have theorized the symbolic grammar of this myth, shown how it is recreated and exposed how sports’ apolitical politics are challenged and changed. Our second paper does just this. With the pandemic forcing people to isolate and seek new forms of sociality, Klima takes as his point of departure the thriving world of eSports and the Blitzchung controversy wherein the professional player Ng Wai Chung was banned due to his calling to “Liberate Hong Kong” from China. Klima shows how eSports is not only a gaming community, but also a symbolically structured gaming sphere with a code generating the myth of apolitical sport. To our surprise, Klima does not need critical theory to expound the myth (in the pejorative sense of the term); skillful and politically conscious actors are doing this work for him. In this, he uses civil sphere theory (Alexander 2006 ) to highlight how gamers bring the civil sphere to bear on eSports. Indeed, when politics enter sports, they are often thought to intrude on the apolitical gaming sphere. For politics to influence sports, then, we need code switching that makes general politics into an apolitical, harmless part of the game. Political activism needs to be translated as apolitical, or considered to be politically correct, or “pro-democracy protests,” and therefore perceived as a good cause that sports should adopt. Klima thus opens up a dynamic analytic space no longer satisfied with exposing sports as political. Rather, this is a study exploring when and how sports are part of the social dramatics where contests over good and bad politics, and the very limits of freedom of speech, are fought.

Among the most well-established truths in sports sociology is that sports contests, militarization discourses, and the patriarchy intersect to produce the glorified, machinelike warrior athlete (Trujillo 1995 ; Messner 1994 ). In a relentless fashion, the third paper relativizes and culturalizes to show how a growing public concern about sports as racist, sexist, colonialist, and ableist should make us revisit the sport-as-war thesis. West leverages a case study of the Australian media reporting on the 2018 Invictus Games in Sydney. In this sport event for military veterans wounded, injured or infirmed during their service, the one-sided romanticization of war has been replaced by a shifting, fragmented, critical, and multidimensional view on the military–civilian relation. West uses studies on cosmopolitan sentiments, increased sensitivity towards violence, deliberation on the inadequacies of military welfare models, and a more general disenchantment of war. Together, these make up a civilian-military meaning system about the “unnecessary suffering” caused by war that changes how we think about sports. The Invictus Games allows audiences to support the physical and social rehabilitation of the vulnerable soldier-athlete, as well as the cultural rehabilitation of those who have served their country. As a cultural critic, West argues that this narrative places health responsibilities with the individual, and silences critical voices concerned with the inadequacies in welfare, health systems, and military organization. Notably, imbued with identity politics, the sport-war narrative masks the social structures that put us at advantaged and/or disadvantaged positions.

While the first three papers of this issue elucidate how sport cultures are transformed by emergent social contexts and civil spheric forces, the fourth paper turns the study of sports on its head. Exploring the reality program MasterChef USA , Grindstaff and Grosglik expose how sport itself becomes the background representation , a cultural code, driving interpretations and actions in game shows. Even though sport sociology abounds with studies explaining how social gender relations shape sports, few have explained how sport as a metaphor and symbolic force shapes non-sporting organizations and communities. Grindstaff and Grosglik combine the Eliasian (Elias and Dunning 1986 ) concept of sportification—a process distinctive to the modern development and consumption of competitive play—with critical cultural studies. This allows them to argue that sport competitions are gendered masculine and thusly, when cooking is sportified, MasterChef USA reproduces hegemonic masculinity. Trophies are phallus-like; becoming ‘the best’ separates the masculine restaurant-worthy chef from the feminine amateur cook; the heroism of competition reshapes the everyday chore of cooking into a masculine endeavor. An illuminating piece on how sportification shapes a vast proliferation of reality programming, these authors also make us think about how sport vocabularies shape our social landscape where influence is rated by how we excel in competition that tends to sensationalize mundanity. Perhaps, sports as a metaphor, myth, and code, when used to understand and narratively shape entertainment and social life, is less progressive than actual sports?

In their chase for records, statistical measurements, and “fair” crowning of a one true champion, sports can come off as the epitome of rational and bureaucratic modernity (Guttman 2004 ). Figure skating would seem a relevant example, with the International Judging System (IJS) for the International Skating Union standing as an emblematic form of modern, standardized sports. Surely, being a calculated, cold fish who strategizes to maximize scores seems to be the best option. Yet, instead of taking this familiar route, Ji explores how figure skaters train to be able to present an artistic persona that puts on a social and embodied performance of publicly recognizable emotions. The goosebumps we get from an epic routine, in other words, have been incited by figure skaters who assess how to use the possibilities and limitations of their bodies—being muscular or slender—in cultivating mind-blowing performance of the athletic or the artistic figure skater. These personas are deeply personal, yet culturally recognizable ideal types enchanted with myth-like rationality in technical finesse and the mesmerizing routines that “defy” technical regimes through performances of the “authentic artist.” The performance of a supreme athlete is at times achieved at the expense of the honorable artist and vice versa. Importantly, Ji shows that figure skaters are interpreters that carefully shape their bodies through meaningful training regimes. Here, drills are used as opportunities to imbue routines with the aesthetics of effortless artistry, and of an archetype that resounds the myth of natural talent.

What is the worst thing that can happen if sport sociology connects more with the parent discipline and, say, symbolic interactionism and cultural sociology? Ending this special issue on a high note, DeLand’s ethnography draws us deep into the world of pickup basketball. We can almost hear the ball bounce across the court and swish the net as DeLand illustrates how sport history, public culture, and game rules are spun in evaluations of a player’s character. Joining theories of charisma with the concept of key symbols, micro-sociological and performative moments in pickup basketball are revealed as modalities that serve players to make charismatic statements. At the center of the analysis stands a simple yet powerful declaration. “And one!” As a technical term, this statement refers to the chance for an additional point when having been fouled in the attempt of shooting. Yet, it only refers to the chance, since this additional point is not counted in pickup basketball. Nonetheless, the statement remains powerful as it signifies widely felt cultural and emotional “truths” about the game. As such, a multidimensional study emerges to show how “And one!” moments condense and elaborate the character contests in basketball, and a vast symbolic landscape of urban and Black experience outside the court. In pickup, “the characterological forms of meaning take center stage” DeLand argues as he shows us some of the cultural forces and magnetism that are at play when we, as social beings, maneuver the space between micro and macro symbolic structures.

So, what sociological questions can we ask about social life and culture through the lens of sports? What is it that the experiential realm of sports can tell us about the symbolic processes, characterology, and resonance that are at play when we sustain, break, and enjoy interaction? What does sport tell us about how the iron cage (DiMaggio and Powell 1983 ) is constraining, but also penetrable, legitimated, and made bearable through performance? What can we learn from an intensified study of sportification if we are interested in how a seemingly definite cultural phenomenon spreads to shape social life? And conversely, what are the meaning-making processes that intervene when institutions and their specific interests surrender to civil demands? Indeed, what can sports tell us about the symbolic systems that attract our attention and that generate hope in spite of physical impairment and violence in symbolic and real combat and wars? How should we conceptualize and weigh agency and structure as we study how athletes protest our societies’ overwhelming racial inequalities? All of these big questions are dealt with in this little special issue on the cultural sociology of sports.

In various ways, sports fuse athletic and social performances (Broch 2020 ). Athletes execute left and right turns, jumps, pushes, and pulls, as well as throws, catches and pirouettes. At the same time, or better yet, prior to the moment of action, and in its aftermath, the experiential realm of athletic conquests is interpreted and imbued with codes, myths, and narratives. In this process, sport cultures themselves transform into symbols, metaphors, and background representations that we use to direct social life elsewhere. A cultural sociology of sports, a study of sports for sociology, shows how sports are part of social life in this manner, as a specialized institution and as part of a whole way of life. Comparison and pluralistic theorizing about meaning-making processes become key. Our aim is to reawaken the idea that sports are fruitful to consider as we try to unlock new understandings about the symbolic dimensions of social life.

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Acknowledgements

I am very grateful that Jeff Alexander, Phil Smith, and Ron Jacobs made the gutsy decision to go for an AJCS special issue on sports, for providing much inspiration throughout the process, and for valuable comments to the special issue introduction. An extra thanks to Ron for guiding the process of this issue, and to Lisa McCormick for sharing her experiences as an editor in general. Thanks also to AJCS Managing Editors Anne Marie Champagne, Willa Sachs, and Cass Sever whose hard work and expertise have been invaluable. A warm thanks to all reviewers who held true to the standards of the journal and who allowed us to keep up the pace. Finally, to the contributing authors who joined the project of a cultural sociology of sports: let’s keep up this exciting work!

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Broch, T.B. The cultural sociology of sport: a study of sports for sociology?. Am J Cult Sociol 10 , 535–542 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-022-00177-y

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Accepted : 07 October 2022

Published : 17 October 2022

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-022-00177-y

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By Geneviève Rail. 2012. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29 (2), 227–253

Sporting Spinal Cord Injuries, Social Relations, and Rehabilitation Narratives: An Ethnographic Creative Non-Fiction of Becoming Disabled Through Sport

By Brett Smith. 2013. Sociology of Sport Journal, 30 (2), 132–152

The purpose of the Sociology of Sport Journal is to stimulate and communicate research, critical thought, and theory development on issues pertaining to the sociology of sport. The journal publishes peer-reviewed empirical and theoretical papers; book reviews; and critical essays. Analyses of sport and physical culture from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives are encouraged. Submissions concerned with sport and physical culture as related to race, class, gender, sexuality, popular media, political economy, globalization, technology, and youth culture are especially welcome.

Cheryl Cooky, PhD Purdue University, USA [email protected]

Editors Emeriti

Jay Coakley (Founding Editor: 1984–1989) Peter Donnelly (1990–1994) Cynthia Hasbrook (1995–1998) Christopher Stevenson (1999–2001) Nancy Theberge (2002–2004) Annelies Knoppers (2005–2008) Pirkko Markula (2009–2011) Michael Atkinson (2012–2014) Michael D. Giardina (2015–2020)

Associate Editors

Andrea Bundon University of British Columbia, Canada

Joseph Cooper University of Massachusetts-Boston, USA

Audrey Giles University of Ottawa, Canada

Shannon Jette University of Maryland, USA

Kyle W. Kusz University of Rhode Island, USA

Brad Millington Brock University, Canada

Interim Book Review Editor

Cheryl Cooky Purdue University, USA

Editorial Board

Sine Agergaard, Aalborg University, Denmark

Kristi Allain, St. Thomas University, Canada

Shaonta’ Allen, Dartmouth, USA

Daniel Anorve, Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico

Dunja Antunovic, University of Minnesota, USA

Constancio Arnaldo, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA

Ali Bowes, Nottingham Trent University, UK

Scott Brooks, Arizona State University, USA

Tarlan Chahardovali, University of South Carolina, USA

Jim Cherrington, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Chen Chen, University of Connecticut, USA

Yeomi Choi, University of Lethbridge, Canada

Roxane Coche, University of Florida, USA

Katelyn Esmonde, Johns Hopkins, USA

Kirsten Hextrum, Oregon State University, USA

Michelle H. S. Ho, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Jonathan Howe, Temple University, USA

Janelle Joseph, University of Toronto, Canada

Ajhanai Keaton, University of Louisville, USA

Yannick Kluch, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA

Chris Knoester, Ohio State University, USA

Lucen Liu, Zhejiang University, China

Chris McLeod, University of Florida, USA

Mitch McSweeney, University of Minnesota, USA

Rob Millington, Brock University, Canada

Moss Norman, University of British Columbia, Canada

Thomas Oates , University of Iowa, USA

Joyce Olushola Ogunrinde, University of Houston, USA

Stacey Pope, Durham University, UK

Tatiana Ryba, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Bárbara Schausteck de Almeida, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil

Courtney Szto, Queens University, Canada

Minhyeok Tak, Loughborough University, UK

Sarah Teetzel, University of Manitoba, Canada

Nicola de Martini Ugolotti, Bournemouth University, UK

Meredith Whitley, Adelphi University, USA

Grace Yan, University of South Carolina, USA

Human Kinetics Staff Tammy Miller, Senior Journals   Managing Editor

Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Authors must submit their manuscripts through the journal’s ScholarOne online submission system. To submit, click the button below:

Page Content

Authorship guidelines, open access, specific guidelines for book reviews, specific guidelines for special issues, submitting a manuscript, additional resources.

• Open Access Resource Center
• Figure Guideline Examples
• Copyright and Permissions for Authors
• Editor and Reviewer Guidelines
• Ethics Policy

The Journals Division at Human Kinetics adheres to the criteria for authorship as outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors*:

Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to:

a. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND b. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND c. Final approval of the version to be published; AND d. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Conditions a, b, c, and d must all be met. Individuals who do not meet the above criteria may be listed in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript. * http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

Authors who use artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators) in their work must indicate how they were used in the cover letter and the work itself. These technologies cannot be listed as authors as they are unable to meet all the conditions above, particularly agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Human Kinetics is pleased to allow our authors the option of having their articles published Open Access. In order for an article to be published Open Access, authors must complete and return the Request for Open Access form and provide payment for this option. To learn more and request Open Access, click here .

Manuscript Guidelines

All Human Kinetics journals require that authors follow our manuscript guidelines in regards to use of copyrighted material, human and animal rights, and conflicts of interest as specified in the following link: https://journals.humankinetics.com/page/author/authors

The Sociology of Sport Journal ( SSJ ) publishes theoretical and empirical work, framed by social theory, on exercise, sport, and the (physically active) body. Papers submitted to this journal should not be published elsewhere. If an author uses the same data in previously submitted work, then the author should describe in a cover letter how the current paper is significantly different from other submissions or articles. Submissions should not be under consideration for any other publication at the same time.

The editorial staff for SSJ consists of the editor, two associate editors, and the past editor. Each paper is initially reviewed by the editor. If its content is deemed to be congruent with the mission of SSJ , the paper will be assigned to one of the editorial staff who will then send it to referees for blind peer review. The review process usually takes 10 weeks. The editor will decide, based on the reviewers’ and associate editor's recommendations, whether the paper should be accepted as is, revised, or rejected. Manuscripts will be evaluated in terms of relevance to the sociocultural studies of sport and physical activity, theoretical contribution, methodological appropriateness, clarity and thoroughness of data analysis, and presentation of results and discussion/conclusion.

All manuscripts must be preceded by an abstract of 75–125 words typed on a separate page. Manuscripts should be double-spaced including the abstract, block quotations, endnotes, references, and tables. The length of submitted Articles should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words, references and endnotes included. Articles that are longer might be returned to the authors for shortening. Research Notes should be succinct presentations of contemporary and important sociological issues in sport and physical culture. Research Notes may present preliminary analyses and/or exploratory findings, methodological considerations for data collection and analysis, and/or development of a theoretical point or model. The empirical findings and/or theoretical developments must be explained and documented concisely between 3,000 and 4,000 words, references and endnotes included.

For both Articles and Research Notes, authors should follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition, 2020) guidelines for journal article style. Endnotes should be limited in number (all important information should be included in the text of the article).

Because a blind review process is used to evaluate manuscripts, all clues to the identity of the author must be eliminated throughout the manuscript. Make sure that all references to the author and to other publications by the author are referenced as “author” and not by name. The reference list should not include these references. The first page of the manuscript should not include author names or affiliations, but it should include the title of the paper and the date of submission.

All art must be professionally prepared, with clean, crisp lines, and be camera-ready; freehand or typewritten lettering will not be accepted. If photos are used, they should be black and white, clear, and show good contrast. Each figure and photo must be properly identified. In graphs, use black and white only, no shading or color. Keep labels proportionate with the size of the figures on the journal page. Digital images should be 300 dpi at full size for photos and 600 dpi for line art. Format tables in the table function of your word-processing program rather than aligning columns in text with tabs and spaces or using text boxes. See additional figure guidelines here .

The Sociology of Sport Journal is committed to publishing reviews of recent books that contribute to the sociology of sport or related fields. In most cases, reviews will be solicited by the Book Review Editor. Scholars who are interested in reviewing for the journal should contact the Book Review Editor to indicate their areas of expertise. The current editor is Dr. Guy Harrison ( [email protected] ).

Review Format

Book review authors should follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition, 2020) guidelines for journal article style. Endnotes should be limited in number (all important information should be included in the text of the article). Avoid footnotes. Keep references to a minimum. Check for the correct spelling of proper names. Check quotations for accuracy and make sure to provide page numbers for quotes. Reviews should be approximately 1,500 to 1,800 words. The text, including quotes and bibliographic information, should be double-spaced.

Bibliographic information for the book should be placed at the top of the review in the following format:

Title By Author(s). Publisher, year of publication, location of publisher. Reviewed by: Reviewer, institutional affiliation, location.

For example:

Body Panic: Gender, Health and the Selling of Fitness By Shari Dworkin and Faye Wachs. New York University Press, 2009, New York, NY. Reviewed by: Cheryl Cooky, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Review Content

A good review provides description and analysis and attempts to situate a book in a larger context. You should describe the author’s central argument, intent, or goal and the author’s approach to the subject. Please avoid a chapter-by-chapter listing of themes. You might want to contextualize the text by situating it in relationship to the author’s previous works, to debates in the broader culture, or to relevant literature. Your analysis of the book could include a discussion of what makes it unique, its strengths and weaknesses, the implications of its arguments, and/or its relationship to other texts. You could also comment on the book’s potential impact on the field or on a specific area of study, theoretical approach, or methodology. Illustrate your points with examples from the text. First-time reviewers are encouraged to read reviews that have appeared in past issues of the journal.

Editorial Process

The submission of a review confirms that the review has not and will not appear elsewhere in published form. Book reviews will be received and edited by the Book Review Editor. Reviewers should note that the solicitation of a book review or the submission of an unsolicited review does not guarantee publication in the Sociology of Sport Journal . Reviewers may be asked by the Book Review Editor to revise their reviews. The Book Review Editor makes recommendations for acceptance of reviews to the Editor of the journal. The Editor makes all final decisions about what will appear in the journal.

The following guidelines are intended to help scholars prepare a special issue proposal. In no more than four pages author(s) should address the following questions using the headings provided.

1. Synopsis

In 150 words or less, what is your special issue about? Important: Be sure to include its main themes and objectives.

2. Rationale

What are you proposing to do differently/more innovatively/better than has already been done on the topic (in SSJ specifically, as well as in the field more generally)? Why is now the time for a special issue on this topic? Why is SSJ the most appropriate venue for this topic? What are the main competing works on the topic (e.g., edited books, other special issues)?

3. Qualifications

Why are you the right person(s) to edit a special issue on this topic? Why are you an expert in this area? What have you previously written on the topic? Have you edited/co-edited a special issue before? If yes, please give the citation(s). Have you edited/co-edited a book before? If yes, please give the citation(s). Do you currently serve on any journal editorial boards? If yes, please list. Please provide your vitae.

4. Timeline

Given that it takes approximately 12 months to complete a special issue, please provide a detailed timeline including estimated dates or time frames for the following steps: (a) Call for papers, (b) Submission deadline, (c) Review process, (d) Revision process, (e) Copyediting, (f) Final editing and approval from SSJ editor, (g) Completion and submission to Human Kinetics

Authors should submit manuscripts electronically through ScholarOne (see submission button at the top of this page). Please access the site and follow the directions for authors submitting manuscripts. Problems can be resolved by choosing “Help” in the upper right corner of the screen.

Authors are advised to proofread the final copy carefully and to verify the accuracy of references before submitting. There are no page charges for contributors. Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication must transfer copyright to Human Kinetics, Inc.

Individuals

Online subscriptions.

Individuals may purchase online-only subscriptions directly from this website. To order, click on an article and select the subscription option you desire for the journal of interest (individual or student, 1-year or 2-year), and then click Buy. Those purchasing student subscriptions must be prepared to provide proof of student status as a degree-seeking candidate at an accredited institution. Online-only subscriptions purchased via this website provide immediate access to all the journal's content, including all archives and Ahead of Print. Note that a subscription does not allow access to all the articles on this website, but only to those articles published in the journal you subscribe to. For step-by-step instructions to purchase online, click here .

Print + Online Subscriptions

Individuals wishing to purchase a subscription with a print component (print + online) must contact our customer service team directly to place the order. Click here to contact us!

Institutions

Institution subscriptions must be placed directly with our customer service team. To review format options and pricing, visit our Librarian Resource Center . To place your order, contact us . 

SSJ Article of Year Award

This award is presented by the north american society for the sociology of sport to the author(s) of the best article published in ssj from the previous calendar year., 2023: awakening to elsewheres: collectively restorying embodied experiences of (be)longing.

By Tricia McGuire-Adams, Janelle Joseph, Danielle Peers, Lindsay Eales, William Bridel, Chen Chen, Evelyn Hamdon, and Bethan Kingsley

2022: The Nature of the Body in Sport and Physical Culture: From Bodies and Environments to Ecological Embodiment

By Samantha King and Gavin Weedon

2021: “Where I’m From”: Jay-Z’s “Hip Hop Cosmopolitanism,” Basketball, and the Neoliberal Politics of Urban Space

By Thomas P. Oates

2020: Indigenous Gender Reformations: Physical Culture, Settler Colonialism and the Politics of Containment

By Moss Norman, Michael Hart, and LeAnne Petherick

2019: Educating Parents of Children in Sport About Abuse Using Narrative Pedagogy

By Jenny McMahon, Camilla J. Knight, and Kerry R. McGannon

2018: "We Cannot Stand Idly By”: A Necessary Call for a Public Sociology of Sport

By Cheryl Cooky

2017: Athletic Women’s Experiences of Amenorrhea: Biomedical Technologies, Somatic Ethics and Embodied Subjectivities

By Holly Thorpe

2016: “It’s Recovery United for Me”: Promises and Pitfalls of Football as Part of Mental Health Recovery

By Jonathon Magee, Ramón Spaaij, and Ruth Jeanes

2015: “When Is a Drug Not a Drug? Troubling Silences and Unsettling Painkillers in the National Football League

By Samantha King, R. Scott Carey, Naila Jinnah, Rob Millington, Andrea Phillipson, Carolyn Prouse, and Matt Ventresca

2014: Translation With Abusive Fidelity : Methodological Issues in Translating Media Texts About Korean LPGA Players

By Kyoung-Yim Kim

2013: Corporate Nationalism and Globalization of Nike Advertising in “Asia”: Production and Representation Practice of Cultural Intermediaries

By Koji Kobayashi

2012: Gender Ideologies, Youth Sports and the Production of Soft Essentialism

By Michael A. Messner

2011: Danny Almonte: Discursive Construction(s) of (Im)migrant Citizenship in Neoliberal America

Ryan King-White

2010: New Media and the Repackaging of NFL Fandom

By Thomas Patrick Oates

2009: What's Queer about (Queer) Sport Sociology Now? A Review Essay

By Samantha King

2008: A Governmental Analysis of Children "At Risk" in a World of Physical Inactivity and Obesity Epidemics

By Lisa McDermott

2007: (Un)Disciplined Bodies: A Foucauldian Analysis of Women's Rugby

By Laura Frances Chase

2006: Athletes as Agents of Change: An Examination of Shifting Race Relations Within Women's Netball in Post-Apartheid South Africa

by Cynthia Fabrizio Pelak

2005: From Corporate Welfare to National Interest: Newspaper Analysis of the Public Subsidization of NHL Hockey Debate in Canada

By Jay Scherer and Steven J. Jackson

2004: Posthuman Podiums: Cyborg Narratives of Elite Track and Field Athletes

By Ted Butryn

2003: Mapping the Field of "AR": Adventure Racing and Bourdieu's Concept of Field

By Joanne Kay and Suzanne Laberge

2002: Together We're One? The “Place” of the Nation in Media Representations of the 1998 Kuala Lompur Commonwealth Games

By Michael Silk

2001: The Expendable Prolympic Self. Going Beyond the Boundaries of the Sociology of Sport

By Alan G. Ingham, Bryan J. Blissmer, and Kristen Wells Davidson

1999: Turning the Closets Inside/Out: Towards a Queer-Feminist Theory in Women's Physical Education

By Heather Sykes

1997: Networks: Producing Olympic Ice Hockey for a National Television Audience

By Margaret MacNeill

1995: Participation in High School Competitive Sports: A Subversion of School Mission or Contribution to Academic Goals?

By Naomi Fejgin

1993: Fraternal Bonding in the Locker Room: A Profeminist Analysis of Talk about Competition and Women

By Tim Curry

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International Review for the Sociology of Sport

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• Description
• Aims and Scope
• Editorial Board
• Abstracting / Indexing
• Submission Guidelines

Published eight times per year, International Review for the Sociology of Sport is fully peer reviewed and has a truly global remit to publish the highest quality research articles, commentaries and reviews that match the journal's inclusive scope. International Review for the Sociology of Sport is the official journal of the International Sociology of Sport Association. Individuals who take out a subscription to IRSS automatically benefit from membership of the ISSA. Benefits of membership include:

• Print and online subscriptions to IRSS (including access to the full back archive to volume 1)
• The ISSA eBulletin
• Information about discounts for the ISSA conference and events
• Access to the member area of the ISSA website

For further details on how to become a member of the ISSA and receive the IRSS journal please see the subscription section below.

ISSA Membership Subscription

To take out or renew membership to ISSA (including your IRSS subscription) please use SAGE’s secure ordering system on this page. There are three categories of membership available. To find out which applies to you click here

Click the basket next to the subscription option that applies to you. You also have the choice to take out a two year subscription.

The system used to process payments is not an instant transition system, human intervention is involved, and therefore all individuals will be able to enter their order here regardless of card restrictions. You receive a receipt once the transaction has been completed, which will be accompanied by information about how to use the online version of IRSS.

Alternative methods of renewal are available for those not wishing to use the online facility. Please download the membership form here . To contact SAGE directly with a membership query, please email [email protected] or telephone +44 (0)20 7324 8500.

The SAGE postal address is:

SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP UK

The International Review for the Sociology of Sport is a peer reviewed academic journal that is indexed on ISI. Eight issues are now published each year. The main purpose of the IRSS is to disseminate research and scholarship on sport throughout the international academic community. The journal publishes research articles of varying lengths, from standard length research papers to shorter reports and commentary , as well as book and media reviews.

The International Review for the Sociology of Sport is not restricted to any theoretical or methodological perspective and brings together contributions from anthropology, cultural studies, geography, gender studies, media studies, history, political economy, semiotics, sociology, as well as interdisciplinary research.

Since sport is a truly global phenomenon, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport is strongly committed to publishing contributions from all regions of the world, thereby promoting international communication among scholars.

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Manuscript Submission Guidelines: International Review for the Sociology of Sport

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/IRSS   to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of International Review for the Sociology of Sport will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

International Review for the Sociology of Sport  offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit  Sage Open Access . For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit  Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines  and  Publishing Policies .

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

• What do we publish? 1.1 Aims & Scope 1.2 Article types 1.3 Writing your paper
• Editorial policies 2.1 Peer review policy 2.2 Authorship 2.3 Acknowledgements 2.4 Funding 2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests 2.6 Research Data
• Publishing policies 3.1 Publication ethics 3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement 3.3 Open access and author archiving
• Preparing your manuscript 4.1 Formatting 4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics 4.3 Supplemental material 4.4 Reference style 4.5 English language editing services
• Submitting your manuscript 5.1 ORCID 5.2 Information required for completing your submission 5.3 Permissions
• On acceptance and publication 6.1 Sage Production 6.2 Online First publication 6.3 Access to your published article 6.4 Promoting your article
• Further information

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to International Review for the Sociology of Sport , please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope .

1.2 Article Types

International Review for the Sociology of Sport publishes research articles and commentary of varying lengths. This ranges from the standard length research papers to shorter reports and commentary. In addition, the IRSS publishes book and media reviews. All articles must be submitted in English.

Articles  Articles of standard length that report on original research or analysis are normally of 5000-8000 words in length, inclusive of references, notes, tables, and figures. Such research articles should include an abstract of 100 - 200 words and 5 key words must also be supplied, placed at the beginning of the article. While style and organization may vary according to theoretical and methodological traditions, these research articles normally include (1) an introduction (no heading) that clearly states the purpose and rationale for the article and places its importance in context (2) a review of literature that sets the stage for the investigation and basic approach, (3) a methodological summary that situates and details the approach and frames basic questions or hypotheses, (4) a report of results or analysis of findings, followed by (5) a discussion that emphasizes new and important observations of the study, (6) a conclusion that considers the study’s limitations and implications for future research.

Articles of shorter length may report on the results of a pilot study, present a case study, or provide a brief commentary on a methodological, theoretical or ethical issue and are normally of 3000-4000 words in length, inclusive of references, notes, tables, and figures. Such articles should include an abstract of 100 - 200 words and 5 key words must also be supplied, placed at the beginning of the article. While the approach taken in these shorter articles may be varied, each submitted manuscript should introduce and situate a topic in a way that facilitates new insight about subjects that advance scholarly understanding of sport in social and cultural contexts.

Article manuscripts are considered for publication only on the understanding that they are not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere, that they are the original work of the author(s), and that any previous form of publication and current consideration in other languages are disclosed at the time of submission. Please attach to every submission a letter confirming that all authors have agreed to the submission and that the article is not currently being considered for publication by any other journal.

Book and Media Reviews Reviews of books or media provide a scholarly assessment of key works that may advance understanding of sport in social and cultural contexts. Reviews that provide an assessment of one work by a single reviewer are normally of 1500-2000 words in length, inclusive of references, notes, tables, and figures. Reviews that provide a comparative assessment of more than one work or an assessment of one work by multiple reviewers are more substantial integrative essays and are normally of 2000-3000 words in length, inclusive of references, notes, tables, and figures. IRSS accepts book or media review essays comparing 2 or 3 items on one topic and written by a single author as well as book or media review symposia in which the same item is reviewed by 2 or 3 different reviewers. Reviews do not require an abstract or key words.

Book or Media Reviews should contain a heading which includes the Book or Media Title, Author, Publisher’s Name and Location, Date of Publication, Number of Pages, ISBN Number (and, if appropriate) eBook Number. Book or Media Review authors may refer to previous issues of IRSS for format guidance.

1.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published , plus links to further resources.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online

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2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

International Review for the Sociology of Sport operates a strictly anonymous peer review process for articles. In order to ensure anonymity, all material and self-references that identify the author(s) should be removed from the manuscript, and the author name(s) should appear only on a separate first page. This page should also include the first author's email and postal addresses, and telephone and fax numbers. Manuscripts for articles are evaluated by at least two reviewers and the Editor and are processed through the Sage track web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. 

As part of the submission process you will be asked to provide the names of 3 peers who could be called upon to review your manuscript. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Please be aware of any conflicts of interest when recommending reviewers. Examples of conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) the below: 

The reviewer should have no prior knowledge of your submission The reviewer should not have recently collaborated with any of the authors Reviewer nominees from the same institution as any of the authors are not permitted Please note that the Editors are not obliged to invite any recommended/opposed reviewers to assess your manuscript.

2.2 Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools .

2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

  Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.

2.3.1 Third party submissions Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

2.4 Funding

International Review for the Sociology of Sport requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.  Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

International Review for the Sociology of Sport encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway

2.6. Research Data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages .

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• share your research data in a relevant public data repository
• include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
• cite this data in your research

3. Publishing Policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway

3.1.1 Plagiarism

International Review for the Sociology of Sport and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway

3.3 Open access and author archiving

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Perspective article, activism for intersectional justice in sport sociology: using intersectionality in research and in the classroom.

• Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, United States

This perspective paper considers what scholars and teachers of sport sociology can (un)learn by applying the concept of intersectionality in research and in the classroom. I focus on contemporary forms of activism in the context of sport in the United States (U.S.) and demonstrate intersectionality's utility through three examples of athlete activism from the past 10 years led by sports people. Although each example is focused on a particular axis of difference and domination, such as sexual harassment (read: gender) and Black Lives Matter (read: race), I show that the cause at stake is always already intersectional. This has consequences for the field of sport studies/sport sociology; in engaging in intersectional research, sport sociologists and researchers alike can inform policymakers in sport in the decision-making process. In the final part of the paper, I offer insight from my positionality as a graduate student through reflection on how I—and my colleagues—might understand our role within the “matrix of domination” that characterizes both our subject and our field. As novice sport scholars, graduate students can translate the theoretical meanings and purpose of intersectionality into lived reality by being intentional in what and how we teach and research. In this case, I suggest that intersectional justice in sport does not just mean on the track/field/court; it can also mean in the classroom, thereby expanding our notion of what activism “in sport” is and looks like.

Introduction

Standing on the podium at the summer 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, U.S. shot-putter Raven Saunders raised her arms into an “X” shape above her head after the silver medal was placed around her neck. Her tacit and peaceful yet resounding protest represented the “intersection where all who are oppressed meet” ( 1 ). As a member of the Black and LGBTQIA community, as well as an avid advocate for mental health, Saunders used her “X” to symbolize the cultural, political, and social minoritized positions many are forced to occupy: “For me, just being who I always aspired to be, to be able to be me and not apologize for it…[and] show the younger generation that no matter what they tell you, no matter how many boxes they try to fit you in, you can be you” [( 2 ), para. 6].

Saunders' very peaceful and very public protest represents a generation of fourth wave athlete activists who are deeply cognizant of and attuned to the sociopolitical climate in which they compete ( 3 ). Many of this generation of athletes–both professional and collegiate–hold multiple minoritized identities [e.g., ( 4 )]. As a result, athletes speaking out on systemic issues within and/or beyond sport are forced to confront the very issues they seek to eradicate (i.e., sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.). Moments of calls to action by sportspeople in recent years, like Saunders', have reenergized the collective global movement of Black Lives Matter and galvanized conversations across geographical borders about anti-racism, including the ways in which race as a system of classification and difference-making operates. The power intersectionality holds as a concept guiding methodological and analytical studies emerge from its ability to recognize how social and cultural processes of domination and difference-making are mutually constitutive.

Saunders' story as a Black American athlete who identifies as a queer woman is unique and not uncommon. However, the quick dismissal of a story like hers is common in academic and non-academic spaces. There lies a myriad of questions (and possible answers) as to what led to Saunders' decision to peacefully protest at this specific moment at this specific event in the way that she did and what it may mean. What can we learn from Saunders' story as an Olympian and her journey to get there in relation to what it means to live “at the intersection”? What barriers did she face and what obstacles did she overcome in sport as a person living “at the intersection”? In what ways can her experiences reveal the intersecting oppressions that Black queer women are often forced to confront in a system that privileges whiteness, maleness, and straightness ( 5 – 9 )?

In the aftermath of first wave feminism that focused exclusively on the needs and wants of white women in the U.S., feminists of color argued that social equity does not mean giving the same to everyone; rather, it means acknowledging the diversity of experiences of women in U.S. society and meeting the individual needs and rights of different groups of women accordingly ( 10 ). In other words, a multidimensional way of being and living requires a multidimensional framework of inquiry ( 6 , 11 , 12 ).

Importantly, there is no hierarchy of oppression ( 13 ). First wave feminism intentionally hierarchized oppression by treating one form of discrimination as more important than other forms. In other words, sexism preceded racism, classism, ableism, etc., thus first wave feminism focused solely on white women's issues. The sexism and racism and classism and ableism, etc., experienced by women of color was consequently discounted. In perhaps the first to do so, Sojourner Truth captured these contradictions in her 1851 speech “Ain't I A Woman?” Here, Truth ( 14 ) expounded the nature of her experiences in enslavement as a Black woman, enforcing the realities of racist and sexist practices to her majority white audience.

This perspective paper thus considers what sport sociologists can (un)learn by applying intersectionality in research and in the classroom. To demonstrate this, I focus on three examples of athlete activism from the past 3 years led by sportswomen in the U.S. Although each example is focused on a particular axis of difference and domination, my aim is to show that the cause at stake is always already intersectional. This has consequences for how the root cause of social (in)justice is explained by sports sociologists, coupled with how we can encourage sports policymakers to respond. In the final part, I offer insight from my positionality as a graduate student, reflecting on how I and my colleagues might understand our role within the “matrix of domination” that characterizes both our subject and our field. I suggest that intersectional justice in sport does not just mean on the track/field/court; it can also mean in the classroom, thereby expanding our notion of what activism “in sport” is and looks like.

Intersectionality in sport sociology

Intersectionality's utility rests on dispelling oversimplifications or generalizations of a particular group of people and their lived experiences. Western patriarchal society is built upon various systems that interact to constitute a person's everyday experiences, treatment, and livelihood (i.e., racism, sexism, capitalism, ableism, heterosexism). These systems do not operate independently from one another. Intersectionality is a way to examine such interlocking nature of these systems and the ways in which they may simultaneously converge and/or diverge ( 11 ). Black women living in the U.S. experience sexism, racism, etc., often at the same time; the nature of that experience, however, differs among individual Black women ( 6 , 11 ). That is, systems of oppression are not experienced in the same way. Intersectionality is a “complementary tool to other forms of knowledge for combating white racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, elitism, ageism, xenophobia, ableism, and ethnocentrism in qualitative research practices and paradigms” [( 15 ), p. 14]. In this case, learning about and listening to individuals whose lives are lived at the intersection in sport serves as an integral, productive way to move forward with sport sociological research and teaching for intersectional social justice.

To think intersectionally is thus to think about how lives are impacted through a prism of multiple systems of oppression as they interact with one another to create “effects.” This requires critical thinking about why and how the livelihoods of individuals living at the intersections, like Raven Saunders', are impacted in more ways than one in certain contexts, as well as how and where dynamics of power show up (or do not) ( 16 ). To examine the activism of athletes–who and how–and the effects of said activism–legal, social, and/or organizational consequences faced by athlete–is one way to go about facilitating this critical thinking and encouraging intersectional analysis into the classroom by examining the meanings made and sociological implications of such activism. This in turn challenges established ideas of what is known, enables deeper understandings of what is yet to be known, and the impact of such on the knower (i.e., the athletes).

Because sport, culture, and society are deeply intertwined to the point of inseparability [e.g., ( 17 )], sport sociology looks to examine the meaning of sport in/to society, and how sport–including physical culture, including dance and fitness ( 18 ), and sport organizations ( 19 )–operates as a tool of socialization, as well as a barrier to inclusion–specifically, the ways through which sport facilitates structures of power 1 and the impact this has on its participants. Accordingly, examining sport through a sociological lens allows deeper understanding into the relationship between sport, cultural ideology, and politics. More critically, the function of sport in western society depends on who you ask: from a sociological perspective, the operationalization and purpose sport is complex, often enmeshed in larger institutional practices that serve a certain purpose for a certain people. As a critical framework, intersectionality allows for in-depth exploration into why and how power and difference-making operate, and what contexts and categories are unmarked or unaccounted for. Such exploration leads the way to revealing solutions by filling in necessary gaps. Intersectionality's relevance in the study of sport thus lies in its ability to reflect the complexities of living within systems of power that help certain groups of people in some contexts and hurt another group in other contexts since “no one is ever just privileged or oppressed” [( 16 ), p. 133].

When written and presented in a way that is accessible for all ( 20 , 21 ), sport sociology can and should add nuanced reality that informs sport policy and social practice ( 22 ). This way of studying sport has the potential to transform how people experience sport and how sport experiences people. As Newman ( 22 ) argues:

To add reality is not necessarily to present one's politics as science. Rather, it is to dig deeper and to reveal new associations—to produce new gatherings—which might reveal how old associations are at work in the social world; to reveal the political physics of the hyperobject that is sport (p. 272).

A growing number of studies across a range of topics/issues in sport elicits the in-depth knowledge and meaning making possible when intersectionality is used as methodological and theoretical frameworks [e.g., ( 23 )]. To study sport critically, then, means to examine the inequities it (re)produces and enables as an institution that was historically created by and for white men. Rooted intellectually in Black feminism ( 11 ), intersectionality has made major contributions to these kinds of critical studies; what is known and can be known about the role and impact of sport on the experiences of women and minoritized communities is foundational to intersectional research and teaching.

Intersectional research reveals, for example, the impact of race and gender on the representation, opportunity, and experiences of Black women in sport ( 24 – 28 ), the role media plays in constructions of women athletes of color ( 29 ), the complexities of sports coaching ( 30 , 31 ), the homogenizing nature of white feminist scholarship of sport and leisure ( 32 ), and stories of athletes with disabilities [e.g., ( 33 )]. Further, a handful of sport sociology research that employs intersectionality is embedded in activism for social justice through its explicit aid in calls to action for inclusive, empowering practice within and beyond sport. For instance, intersectionality's use in youth sports policy and intervention for social inclusion and emancipation ( 34 ), intersectionality's purpose in exposing sport as a structure that contributes to racialization and economic injustice ( 35 ), and the benefit of intersectional research to understand the enabling factors for women in leadership positions in sport ( 36 ).

Utilizing intersectionality as a methodological and analytical framework in research design and practice would benefit the field of sociology of sport in ways that would deepen understanding and broaden knowledge about the interactions of, and contexts around, systems of power and privilege ( 16 ). For example, intersectionality could reveal valid and valuable information about not just how and why activism is occurring and by whom, but also the importance of when and where and why of that activism. These contextual elements provide a gateway into discovering the intricate relational, non-hierarchal, and non-linear workings of history, power, and privilege ( 16 ). As such, I consider intersectionality as system-centered ( 16 ); the interactions of systems of power and privilege that constitute the lives of individuals who are marginalized and privileged are processes that are “fully interactive, historically co-determining, and complex” (p. 129). Systems of power rely on the negative meanings society allocates to and reproduces in articulations of difference ( 11 ); to be perceived and thus categorized as different is to be lumped together as the ‘other' to the point of assuming everyone in that group experiences sexism or racism, etc., in the same way. Yet, the “social power in delineating difference need not be the power of domination; instead it can be the source of social empowerment and reconstruction” [( 11 ), p. 1242]. Moreover, grouping people by their social identities can lead to ignoring intragroup differences ( 11 ). For this reason, I see intersectionality as less group-centered (which can fetishize the study of “difference”) as it is system-centered. In other words, questioning how and why and by whom “difference” is made, and the impact this difference-making has on individuals on a structural, political, and representational level ( 11 ).

Intersectionality's relevance thus lies in its ability to reflect the complexities of living amidst such systems of power, and the operationalization of these systems in terms of helping some individuals in certain contexts and hurting many in other contexts–or “thinking about the way power has clustered around certain categories and is exercised against others” [( 11 ), p. 1297]. Ultimately, employing intersectionality in sport sociology research can expose inequities, the realities of those inequities, and possible solutions that may not be otherwise discoverable.

Examples of athlete activism that reveal intersectional causes

Activism can be defined as intentional action that challenges the status quo and aims toward positive social change and equity ( 37 ). Reflecting the heterogeneity of actions to achieve a certain goal in life, activism is not confined to one way of doing; there are indeed a myriad of ways to ‘do' activism in and through sport. In what follows, I provide three examples of athlete activism from the past 10 years led by sportswomen. Because the lived experiences of all women in sport are always constituted by the systems of power that shape them ( 5 , 7 , 38 ), focusing on sportswomen's activism illuminates the reality that the cause at stake is always intersectional. Again, since “no one is only privilege or only oppressed” [( 16 ), p. 133], stories like these are a way of underlining this complex reality.

Megan Rapinoe

In September 2016, U.S. national women's soccer player, Megan Rapinoe, took a knee during a pre-game playing of the national anthem in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, former National Football League player. This very peaceful, very public protest was Rapinoe's nod in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, specifically police brutality against people of color in the U.S. Given the centrality of nationalism in U.S. soccer [e.g., ( 39 )], this form of activism was perceived as unpatriotic through the refusal to conform to American ideals; therefore, Rapinoe's kneeling garnered significant backlash from sports fans online, specifically on social media [e.g., ( 40 )], and from the National Women's Soccer League (USNWSL)–so much so that new polices prohibiting future kneeling were created in the aftermath of Rapinoe's protest.

Rapinoe has never been shy about speaking up for causes she believes in. For example, Rapinoe channeled a vibrant blue, red, and white suit accompanied by an unmissable sparkling red handbag bearing the words, “in gay we trust” at last year's MET Gala. Here, Rapinoe, through creative and personal style, capitalized on her social status as an athlete at a major cultural event to raise awareness for LGQBT+ rights within and beyond sport. She was also a focal leader of the soccer team's case for equal pay to the courts and won ( 41 ).

This demonstrates, in part, her recognition of the platform from which she speaks (i.e., professional U.S. sport) and her continual courage in challenging the status quo and the powers that be.

Speaking to her kneeling during the national anthem, Rapinoe reflects on her identity and experience as a gay woman in the U.S.: “I know what it means to look at the flag and not have it protect all of your liberties. It was something small that I could do and something that I plan to keep doing in the future and hopefully spark some meaningful conversation around it” ( 42 ). Although Rapinoe was kneeling for Black Lives Matter, the cause of such kneeling stems from the complex realities of living as a person with multiple minoritized identities–in this case, as a gay sportswoman–due to sexism and homonegativism 2 ( 9 , 43 ). In other words, Rapinoe's activism is intersectional because the relations between these systems affect her life intersectionally ( 16 ). The purpose of her protest was to challenge a single system of difference-making (i.e., racism), yet the cause and consequence of the protest accounts for multiple systems of difference-making and the interaction of such systems (i.e., sexism, homonegativism, capitalism).

In the context of the U.S., Rapinoe's whiteness affords her a privilege that her teammates of color and athletes of color in other sports are not 3 . For instance, in Kaepernick's case, kneeling during the national anthem garnered significant attacks online on his identities as a Black man; conversely for Rapinoe, kneeling called for questions and comments around athletes' role in sport and the larger society ( 40 ). Although Kaepernick and Rapinoe were both attacked online, the frequency and content of attack was not the same. In other words, Kaepernick's racial and gender identity was under persistent direct scrutiny, whereas Rapinoe's identities as a white gay sportswoman were not directly attacked. A reason for this may be that whiteness is the unmarked category wherein the “more powerful are defined as the normative standard” [( 16 ), p. 133]. Rapinoe's activism was not perceived as threatening or exasperating as Kaepernick's because, in that moment, racism and white supremacy worked together to create different experiences for and treatment of the athletes. In this context, Rapinoe protested without any real threat to her life, unlike Kaepernick ( 44 ). Her intersecting identities mean that different forms of discrimination and privilege are always in process; the interaction of these systems that largely constitute and shape those identities (i.e., racism, sexism, homonegativism) mediate reactions to and meanings of her explicit activism toward a specific cause.

Hailey Danz

In many cases, visibility and representation can serve as forms of activism wherein someone's presence in sport is the protest. U.S. Paralympian Hailey Danz, who won silver in paratriathlon at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, feels “for the first time in [her] life…proud to be gay” ( 45 ). Writing about her story of self-discovery and affirmation, Danz penned an essay on Team USA website:

I know there are a lot of people who say that sexuality has no place in sport; that the press should stop sensationalizing who we love and simply focus on the game. To those people let me say this: it was by seeing openly gay athletes that I've been able to work through my shame and insecurities and accept who I am [( 45 ), para. 16].

Although not a direct challenge to the powers that be nor, like Rapinoe, an action that many may consider a threat to American nationalism, stories like Danz's that are available to the public (and will be for long time on account of the internet) and written by athletes who are marginalized in a multitude of ways demonstrate the power of sport as a site for cultural visibility and representation. The inclusion of voices like Danz's in professional sport paves the way to reimagine the meaning and role of sport in identity formation, identity mediation, and, at times, identity negation ( 46 ).

That said, it is no secret that sport is an institution that privileges able-bodiedness [e.g., ( 47 )]. Progress has been made relative to access to and participation in sport for differently-abled bodies. Problems persist, however, including stereotypes around and lack of holistic inclusion and care of disabled athletes in sport and physical activity, which is indicative of wider society's treatment and attitude toward people who have a disability ( 48 , 49 ). Moreover, the centrality of the empowerment rhetoric by leaders in and organizers of elite disability sport (such as the Paralympics) implies that athletes with cognitive and/or physical disabilities are not empowered anywhere–that they are in constant influx of disempowerment ( 50 ).

Danz's explicit activism for LGBQT+ inclusion and rights cannot be divorced from her experiences as a gay female athlete with a physical disability. In this instance, multiples systems of power (i.e., ableism, sexism, and homonegativism) converge and interact with one another to create a process of difference-making. Danz paradoxically uses the very thing that often marginalizes her (i.e., sport) as a platform from which to speak about the ways sport is integral in the sociocultural formation and affirmation of people's identities. Seeing “openly gay athletes” in elite sport as inspirational and using this representation as a tool for self-acceptance infers that seeing straight athletes in elite sport is the norm. Moreover, like Rapinoe, Danz's whiteness is key to her story of activism, including how it is told (i.e., positive narrative framing in sport media) and how it is received (i.e., little to no direct attack on her character and life).

Naomi Osaka

Before the 2021 French Open began, then-world number two Naomi Osaka revealed to the world her intentional absence from any press before or after matches, citing the lack of consideration for athletes' mental health and her personal “long bouts of depression” ( 51 ). Similar to Danz, although this was not an explicit action against a particular social inequity, it was an action that challenges the status quo and inadvertently called for meaningful change. In refusing to speak to press, Osaka disrupted the norms of professional sport culture by prioritizing her mental wellbeing. Accordingly, Osaka stood up for herself and athletes like her who so often are told to “shut up and do their job.”

Osaka is not the first to decline press conferences and interviews ( 52 ); she is, however, one of the first among a new generation of professional athletes to leverage their sociopolitical power in sport ( 3 ). In this case, Osaka unapologetically supported people and causes close to her heart, especially for the communities of which she is a part. For example, during the 2020 U.S. Open amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she wore seven masks for her seven matches, each of which bore the names of unarmed Black Americans murdered by armed law enforcement. This peaceful protest demonstrated Osaka's discursive power as an athlete who holds multiple identities ( 53 ).

Osaka's activism for mental health is a by-product of the interactions of various systems of difference-making in sport and the wider society in which she competes, specifically toward Black women ( 6 ). Racism and sexism are rife for a Black woman in the U.S.; this is exacerbated in sport culture by constructions and (re)productions of hegemonic white femininity ( 54 – 56 ). That said, Osaka's age, ability, and socio-economic status no doubt warrants privilege in most, if not all contexts; these markers often mean that when Osaka engages in activism–whether direct or indirect–more power is afforded to her than others, and, ultimately, her message is heard (Calow, 2021). The interactions among and across other markers (i.e., race and gender) also mean, however, that her activism is sometimes met with criticism, particularly through media ( 57 ).

Moreover, to openly advocate for mental health as a Black sportswoman is to directly challenge common expectations about the role of the athlete in society. The seemingly rebellious act of prioritizing wellbeing over performance and profit–to effectively put oneself at the expense of others' entertainment–is to actively disrupt the dominant cultural narrative that athletes can and should “do it all.” Although the single issue at stake is about professional athletes' mental health, the cause is multi-issued about the livelihoods, treatment, and experiences of Black women in sport and beyond.

What we can (un)learn from learning about intersectionality

Looking to the examples of athlete activism noted above, using intersectionality as a mode of critical analysis allows a recognition of and points toward the intricate realities and processes of what it can mean to engage in activism for social justice in sport, including the nuanced power dynamics that constitute said activism ( 58 ). For example, in Rapinoe's case, in what ways did Rapinoe's whiteness contribute to the reception of her activism for Black Lives Matter? What role do systems of difference-making, such as sexism and homonegativism, play in informing the causes and consequences of Rapinoe's activism? These are the kinds of critically evocative questions that intersectionality brings to the forefront as a methodological and analytical framework. Moreover, these examples of activism can be brought into classroom as part of a pedagogical premise rooted in intersectionality. In Osaka's case, for example, centering her voice and examining her activism valorizes a women of color's experience as a form knowledge-production ( 59 ). That is, a key action step teachers can take is asking students to unpack taken-for-granted sporting events/moments that expose the realities of discriminatory systems: What is going here? Who is making the decision and why? Who is impacted and how? In what ways can we address the inequity? What policies would you create/dismantle? Etc.

Choosing to teach, let alone to learn, about intersectionality is not an easy undertaking, especially in a predominantly white institution with majority first-generation students who most likely have never had to think about what it means to be minoritized in a multitude of ways. Like most things in life, to teach and learn about intersectionality is an ongoing, messy process. Nonetheless, the purpose of employing and embodying intersectionality in the classroom is to guide students in their critical understanding of the workings of systems of difference-making, in turn empowering them to become engaged thinkers and doers beyond the classroom in their local and global communities. The choice to undertake the teaching of intersectionality within a field whose history is unidimensional (i.e., the exclusion of non-white voices and the lack of critical attention to the multidimensional issues in sport that affect individuals/athletes of color) in a classroom is in itself a form of activism; this is perhaps the first key action step teachers of sport sociology can take.

As a doctoral candidate, I teach Introduction to Women's Studies, Introduction to Ethnic Studies, and Sport and Social Justice. It is in these classes wherein learning and unlearning moments materialize for students and I. These classes have different content but the same premise: how and why and where power operates in everyday society and culture. It is through these teaching experiences and moments that my understanding about the ways through which intersectionality can be used as a critical thinking tool to approach certain topics and issues deepens. It is in the classroom where I embody intersectional justice through pedagogical practices that in turn informs what and who is the focus of my research and in teaching. For example, including work by and voices of individuals who look different to students into class weekly readings is one practice I have seen is integral to facilitating learning about the purpose of intersectionality.

I think often about the ways in which I contribute to systems of difference-making and discrimination since I largely benefit from them 4 , and in what ways I can disrupt this process. Learning about intersectionality and unlearning what I have been socially and culturally conditioned to believe and think has taught me thus far that I can use my positionality for meaningful change, albeit slow, steady change. As a graduate student whose work is rooted in feminist methodology, part of my task is to translate the complex theoretical meanings and purpose of intersectionality in ways that enable undergraduate students to relate, connect, and understand so as to apply intersectionality as a mode of thinking and/or doing in their own lives through different contexts and experiences. As such, intersectional justice in sport does not just mean on the track/field/court; it can also mean in the classroom, thereby expanding the notion of what activism “in sport” is and looks like.

In research, sport sociology needs intersectionality to fill in necessary gaps of how power operates in certain everyday sporting contexts and culture–gaps that may not be filled otherwise. Sport sociologists can and should be critically attentive to what systems of difference-making are at play in a given context, who is affected (both negatively and positively or both), and how these processes and relationships can be analyzed and in turn unpacked. In so doing, sport sociologists can relay data to policymakers and decision-makers to ensure sport is a more socially just space than it stands today 5 . This is why we need to think and do intersectionally: the kind of work we choose to do on a day-to-day basis as teachers and scholars is imperative to enhancing what we know and do not know about sport from a sociological perspective.

At the 2019 Pan American Games, U.S. hammer-thrower Gwen Berry raised her fist on the podium during the national anthem, akin to Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Games. Justifying her fist-raising, Berry claimed that the national anthem never spoke to her or people who look like her ( 63 ), placing her in the cannon of athletes who have taken it upon themselves to politicize sport in a public manner through peaceful means. As a result, Berry was banned from competing for a year and fined by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (U.S.O.P.C), effectively rendering her a “broke Black woman” (para. 10). Meanwhile, Smith and Carlos' names were inducted into the USOPC Hall of Fame in reward for their activist efforts fifty years prior.

The cause and consequences of Berry's activism underscores why intersectionality belongs in the field of sport sociology. Intersectionality teaches us who is pushed out and why and in what they are pushed out. It legitimizes the need for marginalized voices, but also emphasizes the necessity of a system-centered approached if change is to be attained ( 16 ). For example, questioning how oppression manifests and in what contexts. In so doing, sociologists of sport can intervene in scholarship and in the classroom. That is, intersectionality can be used a research lens and has a pedagogical practice. Sport has never not been political ; the structures of power and systems of difference-making that constitute people's lives have been and are always already embedded within sport as it stands today ( 64 ). If we are to change how sport is conceptualized, operationalized, and taught, we must utilize intersectionality to reveal what and where problems persist and how to fix them, including whose voices and knowledges are subjugated and whose are privileged ( 59 ). As Crenshaw ( 11 ) asserts, “through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us and negotiate the means by which these differences will find expression in constructing group politics” (p. 1299). Most of all, the use of intersectionality in the study of sport on the premise of social justice is integral if we are to enhance the critical scope and depth of the sport sociology field [e.g., ( 65 )]. To do so is not without risk and will not be easy. But nothing worth doing is ever easy.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to personally thank Dr. Madeline Pape and Dr. Akilah Carter-Francique for their continued support throughout this process.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

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1. ^ At this time of writing, I conceptualize “system” and “structure” as interchangeable, since both imply formidable scaffolding of organization, categorization, and treatment of individuals and institutions across the U.S. That's not to say they are definitively the same, however. Here, the terms structure/system are used in a connotative, rather than a denotative, sense.

2. ^ The term homonegativism ( 9 , 43 ) places more accountability on people than to merely excuse their discriminatory attitudes and behavior. Homo phobia implies an irrational fear of people who identify within the LGBQT+ community; homonegativism describes purposeful, not irrational, negative ideologies and behaviors, thus encompassing the social and cultural contexts that facilitate such behaviors.

3. ^ Race is just one structure of privilege; Rapinoe is also an able-bodied successful athlete, but for this case I focus on race, specifically whiteness, given the issue she is protesting is racism.

4. ^ I am a white, Northern Irish, straight, able-bodied woman from a middle-class family. Understanding these intersecting identities is to recognize that it is possible to be objective utilizing a critical theory to analyze and teach the importance of intersectionality with vantages of power/privilege.

5. ^ For example, the International Swimming Federation's most recent ban of transgender women athletes from elite/international competition has created an uproar among sport scholars and sportspeople alike. Emerging research in this area continues to prove the ubiquitous and varied everyday discrimination and systemic barriers trans athletes are forced to confront in their respective sporting spaces [e.g., ( 60 – 62 )]. This research reveals the complex ways in which systems of difference-making operates and affects individuals living at the intersections, thereby pointing to why thinking and doing research in a multi-dimensional way matters.

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Keywords: intersectionality, activism in sport, sport sociology, graduate students, athlete activism, methodology, teaching

Citation: Calow E (2022) Activism for intersectional justice in sport sociology: Using intersectionality in research and in the classroom. Front. Sports Act. Living 4:920806. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2022.920806

Received: 15 April 2022; Accepted: 26 September 2022; Published: 18 October 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Calow. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Emma Calow, ecalow@bgsu.edu

This article is part of the Research Topic

Thinking and Doing Intersectionality in Sociology of Sport

What Sports Reveal about Society

Sociologists find that sports are inextricably intertwined with the people, countries, and politics surrounding them.

Sports have been in the news lately, from  Serena Williams’s controversy at the U.S. Open  to Caster Semenya’s fight to be allowed to race as a woman . Perhaps most dramatically, Nike and Colin Kaepernick  have set some parts of the country aflame (sort of) as they force consumers to reckon with questions of power structures, race relations, and patriotism.

In traditional views, sports are a recreational pastime and often positioned as the cultural antithesis of intellectualism. But anyone who is actively engaged in sports knows that they’re far from simple. Any sport is inextricably intertwined with the people, countries, and politics surrounding it, as sociologists Rick Eckstein, Dana M. Moss, and Kevin J. Delaney writing in  Sociological Forum discovered.

Eckstein and colleagues posit that  sports extend beyond games and individual athletes . They also found that sport fed into “ideologies of gender, affect gender relations, and support or challenge racial and social class hierarchies.” They examine how micro-studies in sports could yield profound structural insights if broadened in scope, and urged the field to see how small-scale athletic culture and phenomena have important underlying statements about our world.

For example, one study examined how women athletes balanced intensive training with other obligations. Most of the study participants were upper-middle-class, with access to subtle but powerful privileges. They might be able to afford sitters or outside help. They might have jobs with flexible hours, or private transportation that cut down their commute.

In contrast, the scholars point out, “working-class women (who may or may not have a domestic partner) who cannot afford sitters, and who must take three buses to reach their tenuous minimum wage job, do not have the option of training for such an intense sport even if they so desired.”

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Another athletic phenomenon with eloquent subtext that they point out is the seeming arbitrary nature of whether a certain country prefers baseball or soccer.

Our students inevitably focus on cultural preferences and argue that some people just seem to like certain sports. But when we introduce the macro notion of imperialism and empire, those micro-level decisions take on a whole new meaning and the students begin to see the interrelationship between agency and structure.

There are myriad examples, but the authors come to the same conclusion that we can see reflected in our newspapers, our talk shows and our social media: that sports are a powerful reflection of ourselves, and that they warrant investigation both up-close and on an international, global scale.

They conclude: “we believe that sports sociologists, perhaps more than most sociologists, have a great untapped potential to practice meaningful public sociology.”

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Sociology of Sport: Meaning, Theories and Overview

Sociology of sport, otherwise known as sports sociology, is a discipline of sociology that studies sports as a social phenomenon. Sports sociologists critically examine the functions, impacts and roles that sports have on different societies. The sociology of sport encompasses research in various other fields such as political science, history and anthropology (Maguire 2013). This article describes the origin of the sociology of sports as a sub-field of sociology. It then moves ahead to detail the four major sociological theories that are employed in the study of sports. These are the functionalist theory, conflict theory, interactionist theory and feminist theory . Afterwards, the topics of gender and race and ethnicity are touched upon. The article concludes with a description of what the future holds for the domain of sports sociology.

ORIGIN OF SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT

Sports sociology began to emerge as a formal discipline in the second half of the 20 th century. By the 1960s, television had started to dedicate copious amounts of time to sports. Professional leagues for various sports such as baseball and football began to emerge in the United States. This was accompanied by the Olympics being a playground for the Cold War. During this period, many social scientists like David Reisman, Charles Page and Erving Goffman published works related to sports. In 1978, the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport was founded with the objective of exploring this field. A few years later, their research outlet called the Sociology of Sport Journal was formed in 1984 (“Sociology of Sport” 2018).

It is important to note that Harry Edwards is considered by many to be the founder of sports sociology. His career has spanned five decades and encompassed professions such as professor, consultant and athlete-activist. Edwards asserted that sports is a recapitulation of the power relationships in a society and hence it is impossible to have a non-racist sports structure within a racist society. He has advocated diversity within the major leagues of NFL, NBA and the MBL in the United States (O’Neal 2018).

THEORETICAL PARADIGMS

Four major sociological paradigms can be applied to the field of sports. These are the functionalist theory, conflict theory, interactionist theory and feminist theory.

Functionalist Theory

The functionalist theory views each sport in terms of its contributions to the whole world of sports. Sociological research using this theory focusses upon positive outcomes of sports for both individuals and the society at large. Those who follow this theory emphasize the growth and development of organized sports. But this theory has many weaknesses since it overstates the positive impact that sports have on society by assuming that all social groups benefit equally from them. Moreover, it also fails to recognize that sports are social constructions that might be more accessible to few as compared to others (Coakley 2001).

Conflict Theory

The conflict theory asserts that society is shaped by economic forces and that sports must be studied in terms of capitalist expansion and economic exploitation. Sociologists often use this theory to throw light upon how sports perpetuate the privilege and power of the existing elite group within society. However, this theory is seldom used in mundane sports discourse since it portrays sports as an opiate that deadens awareness of social issues. This theory also has one shortcoming since it only emphasizes the economic determination of social life and fails to acknowledge that participation in sports may also be a socially and personally empowering experience (Coakley 2001).

Jean- Marie Brohm is a French Sociologist that popularized a Marxist critique of organized sports in her book titled, “Sport: A Prison of Measured Time”. While talking about sports, she referred to the institutionalization of mass sports rather than natural physical activities like exercise. Brohm viewed sports as an instrument used by the bourgeoisie for subordination and indoctrination of the masses. Her contributions to the field of sociology of sports are important since she brings to light the fact that sports acts as a distraction from the issues of the real world by whitewashing many genuine problems (Brohm 1978).

Interactionist Theory

The interactionist theory focusses on how people’s identities are created and maintained due to participation and interaction with sports and cultures. Sociologists studying sports through this perspective aim to make sports associations less autocratic, more democratic and condemn the hierarchical organization of sports. However, this theory ignores issues of power relations in society by choosing to look at society from a micro-scale (Coakley 2001).

Feminist Theory

Feminist research studies how sports reproduce gendered ideas and practices related to sexuality, physicality and the body. Sociologists use this theory to study how different sports help produce ideas of masculinity and femininity and how women are represented in media sports coverage. Feminist theorists also take social action by challenging those aspects of sports that systematically privilege men over women. They also expose oppressive forms of homophobia and sexism in sports (Coakley 2001).

GENDER WITHIN SPORTS                          

A sociological insight into the gendered realm of sports is required to understand the minute and major differences between men’s and women’s sports. In most societies, gender roles related to sports are enforced from a very young age. The idea that sports are too masculine for women and that they must stick to non-competitive games is planted through socialization in schools and within families. The separation of male and female roles within the sports world is exposed through their representation in media. For example, men’s sports are more prominent within media and have a larger viewership as compared to women’s sports. Moreover, there is a contrast in the types of sports that each gender is expected to play. Men’s sports are usually confrontational, coordinated and combative such as wrestling and rugby while women’s sports are more individualized and less aggressive such as gymnastics and figure skating. Participation in traditionally “masculine” sports leads to gender identity conflict for women and the same applies to men that take part in traditionally “feminine” sports.

Read: Sociology of Gender

Those studying sports, and especially sociologists interested in the field, must recognize the theoretical importance of feminism in their research. More importantly, the discourse on gender and sports must move away from a restricted focus on women, to the nature and impact of gendered social norms on the behavior of both sexes (Scraton & Flintoff 2002).

RACE & ETHNICITY WITHIN SPORTS

In the past, sports were viewed as an apolitical space where athletes were insulated from the real world and their focus solely on their performance. But despite these views, the realm of sports does not operate in isolation from the wider society. Race and ethnicity have always played an important role in social activism within the field of sports. Recent actions, especially those taken by African- American athletes have raised the topic of activism within sports (Cooper et al. 2019). The Black Lives Matter movement has triggered a range of protests among the most popular competitive sports.

• Basketball : In August 2020, the Milwaukee Bucks staged a boycott over the police shooting of African-American Jacob Blake. This forced the NBA to halt its playoffs and also prompted a wave of walkouts by other teams. Basketball superstar LeBron James also voiced his solidarity with the Buck’s boycott and stated that the Los Angeles Lakers had voted to abandon the season.
• Tennis: Naomi Osaka, a two time Grand Slam champion also recently announced her withdrawal from the Western & Southern Open semi-finals this year. She explained her actions by stating that she was a black woman before she was an athlete. And as a black woman, she felt that were more important matters that needed attention at the moment than people watching her play tennis (Staff 2020).
• Formula 1 Racing: The Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton also spoke up about the movement in July of this year. As the only black driver in history, he has regularly used the Black Lives Matter slogan. But this year, he also urged others in the industry to do the same. He and other drivers kneeled when the national anthem was played as a sign of protest whose history can be traced to Colin Kaepernick kneeling at the NFL four years back.

FUTURE OF SOCIOLOGY OF SPORTS

The sociology of sports has recently begun researching new areas within the field of sports. The analysis of the following topics is being done through various theories and methodologies:

• Sports and globalization have gained popularity among sociologists and new areas of research are dealing with the relationship between social development and sports within developing nations.
• A few sociologists have also employed qualitative and quantitative data to shed light on the relationship between sports and social class.
• Finally, democratization studies has gained vast popularity within the last few years within the field of sports. In the future, issues of participation in sports will also be studied through the lenses of social exclusion and inclusion (“Sociology of Sport” 2018).

Brohm, J. (1978).  Sport, a Prison of Measured Time: Essays . Ink Links Limited.

Coakley, J. J. (2001).  Sport in Society: Issues & Controversies (7th ed., Health professions series). McGraw Hill.

Cooper, J. N., Macaulay, C., & Rodriguez, S. H. (2019). Race and resistance: A typology of African American sports activism. International Review for the Sociology of Sport ,  54 (2), 151–181.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690217718170

Maguire J. (2013) Sport, Sociology of. In: Runehov A.L.C., Oviedo L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_1332

O’Neal, L. (2018). Harry Edwards, a giant of sports activism, still has people shook. Retrieved August 28, 2020, from https://theundefeated.com/features/harry-edwards-mexico-city-olympics-sports-activism-john-carlos-tommie-smith-1968/

Scraton, S., & Flintoff, A. (2002).  Gender and Sport: A Reader . Psychology Press.

Sociology of Sport (2018). Retrieved August 28, 2020, from https://sociology.iresearchnet.com/

Staff, S. (2020). Black Lives Matter: NBA walkout sparks historic sport boycott in US; Osaka withdraws, tennis halted. Retrieved August 28, 2020, from https://scroll.in/field/971490/black-lives-matter-nba-walkout-sparks-historic-sport-boycott-in-us-osaka-withdraws-tennis-halted

About Author: Arushi Chopra is currently an undergraduate student pursuing sociology and environmental studies. She is passionate about writing and researching about these two fields. She has a keen interest in social work and has collaborated with many volunteering programs in the past. Her hobbies include horse riding, trekking and painting.

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