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In a recent study examining coaching philosophy within English football academies, researchers uncovered intriguing insights into how coaches perceive and utilize this concept. The findings shed light on the complex interplay between symbolic identity, practical coaching approaches, and institutional norms.…
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, athletes faced unprecedented challenges, prompting researchers to investigate the role of self-compassion in their coping strategies. This mixed-methods study explored how self-compassion influenced athletes’ coping through cognitive appraisal during the pandemic, offering valuable insights into mental…
In a recent study examining the effects of pressure on performance in golf putting tasks, researchers uncovered surprising insights that challenge conventional wisdom. Contrary to the belief that pressure uniformly impairs performance, the study reveals that different types of pressure…
This study investigated the impact of a school-based karate intervention on academic achievement, psychosocial functioning, and physical fitness in 7-8-year-old children across five European countries. Twenty schools participated in a cluster randomized controlled trial, with children assigned to either traditional…
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, rehabilitation access was disrupted. This study compares late-stage ACLR rehabilitation outcomes before and during pandemic-related restrictions. It analyzes return-to-sport test data from two periods: pre-pandemic (Dec 2018 – Mar 2020) and during the pandemic (Jun –…
This study delves into the efficacy of compression garments (CGs) during athletic endeavors, particularly exploring their influence on balance, sprinting, jumping, and change of direction performance. Employing a sample of 24 recreationally active participants, the research compares the effects of…
This paper examines the use of the term “athlete” in scientific literature, particularly in studies related to Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) rehabilitation. It highlights a significant lack of standardization in the definition and usage of this term across various research…
This article delves into the nuanced development of swimmers during puberty, aiming to distinguish between those on track to elite levels and those who are not. Over three swimming seasons, data was collected from 90 talented sprint and middle-distance swimmers,…
This paper systematically examined the impact of post-exercise cold water immersion (CWI) in conjunction with resistance training (RT) on muscle growth. Through a comprehensive meta-analysis of available data, the study aimed to shed light on whether CWI, when used as…
The latest research on women’s football delves into readiness monitoring and the menstrual cycle’s impact on performance. It emphasizes the need for a balanced approach, combining objective metrics like heart rate with subjective measures such as athlete-reported outcome measures (AROM).…
This paper aimed to investigate the effects of mental fatigue (MF), induced by a cognitively demanding task, on repeated sprint ability (RSA), repeated jump ability (RJA), and psychomotor vigilance. The study conducted utilized a randomized within-participant design and measured various…
Examining the landscape of sleep variability among athletes, a systematic review was conducted to delve into how researchers have conceptualized and investigated these fluctuations in sleep patterns. This comprehensive analysis, spanning 16 studies, highlights the varied approaches and limitations in…
We sought to identify concepts that may facilitate National Collegiate Athletic Association efforts to assist member institutions in addressing the mental health needs of student-athletes of colour. A two-step process was followed to generate and refine concepts, guided by Delphi…
Global well-being (GWB) is a complex, multi-dimensional, and multi-faceted construct that can be explored from two different, but often overlapping, complementary perspectives: the subjective and the objective ones. The subjective perspective, in turn, is comprised of two dimensions: namely, the…
The purposes of the present study were to compare selected psycho-behavioral characteristics between Australian adolescent-aged ballet dancers and non-dancers linked to disordered eating patterns, and to determine selected psychological characteristics that most likely predisposed ballet dancers at risk for developing…
Background: The purpose was to: 1) perform a systematic review of studies examining the relation between physical activity, fitness, and health in school-aged children and youth, and 2) make recommendations based on the findings.Methods: The systematic review was limited to…
The purpose of this study was to examine the development of six leader-athletes. In-depth qualitative interviews were used to explore the various activities that leader athletes engaged in from an early age as well as the roles and influences that…
The frequency of involvement in sports often has been concurrently and longitudinally associated with higher self-esteem. The interpretation of this association consistently has been framed as involvement in sports leading to higher levels of self-esteem over time (i.e., socialization effect),…
This review is designed to summarize and critique current life skills through sport research. In particular, life skills are defined, the conditions needed to examine life skills development are explored, and the possible theoretical explanations of how, when, under what…
Sport coaching scholars extol the hope that relations of care will bring to sport. Yet, the insidious nature of relations of power and domination have been under-theorised with respect to care theory in sport coaching. Therefore, the purpose of this…
Despite widespread anecdotal accounts of coaches’ emotional abuse in intercollegiate sports, empirical literature is lacking. To address this gap, the present exploratory study was designed to explore how former intercollegiate student-athletes interpreted experiences of emotionally abusive coaching. Former female NCAA…
The correlates of coach-athlete relationship quality have been the focus of research for over a decade; however, little is known about the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying these associations. The present study conducted a moderated mediation analysis to examine (a)…
This article adopts the theory of social practices as a critical lens for understanding computer game consumption as multiple ‘nexuses of doings and sayings’, which represent the elements of and are situated within the broader context of consumer culture. Specifically,…
This work contributes to an understanding of college athletes’ experiences with campus climate and its relationship to perceptions of their academic success. This work extends race work to include Latina/o and Asian and Pacific Islander college athlete populations across multiple…
This paper explores the role of recreational sport as a means and marker of social integration by analysing the lived experiences of Somali people from refugee backgrounds with sport. Drawing on a three-year multi-sided ethnography, the paper examines the extent…
Sport is among the most potent institutions in the production, maintenance and contestation of race in the modern world. The last decade has witnessed a significant increase of sport-based research on the cutting edge of theorizing race and racism in…
Football is the most popular sport in Zimbabwe and across the globe. It has been asserted elsewhere that the game is not limited to scoring goals on the pitch but that this also occurs in politics and power struggles. This…
This article considers the relationship between Big Data and the athlete. Where Beer and Hutchins have focused on Big Data and sport, this article concentrates on the athlete’s potential response to Big Data monitoring. Drawing on the work of Andrejevic,…
Although much has been said about football concussions in the media, academic inquiry into the National Football League’s (NFL) strategies for containing critique and shaping public discourse remains limited. I investigate the league’s multi-sided “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) campaign, which…
In this paper we examine how practices and logics associated with the cultural ‘outsider’ underpin one particular fusion of contemporary art, alternative sports, and marketing interests which are endemic to post-Fordist economies. We describe a skateboarding-infused art exhibit, Beautiful Losers,…
The aim of this article is to examine a meeting between discourses of gender and age at the macro-level, applying an intersectional research approach. The discussion of intersecting discourses is based on empirical material from Poland. It refers to the…
Why some young people start to tattoo their bodies? And why some of them keep going on with this practice, until having all body tattooed? What doing so means to them? These are some of the questions that underlie a…
The article shows how young men who take part in a ‘feminine’ sport — rhythmic gymnastics — construct their masculine identity. In order to be considered as men, boys performing rhythmic gymnastics have to work to construct their identity, a…
Ethnographic data have frequently been used to examine socialization, but rarely to ground theories of socialization. This paper is an exception. Interest in indigenous representations emerging in situations involving socialization has led to the building of a relational model of…
This article explores how the global revival of roller derby as an alternative sport for women has been mobilised through online social networks, league promotion and fan sites that create imagined communities of ‘roller grrrls’. In the creation of sport…
Football supporters worldwide organise protests, petitions, campaigns, workshops and congresses and are engaged in political lobbying. These expressions of supporters’ activism are nourished by both discontent with developments in football culture and an effort to change them. The aim of…
This article reports findings from a study designed to examine cricket’s role as an international development tool – with a particular focus on how decisions are made at the highest institutional levels to support cricket-related development initiatives. Data for the…
The purpose of the current study was to examine how head coach–player racial dissimilarity was associated with negative treatment from the head coach. Data were collected from 212 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I women’s basketball players (124 Whites,…
This article offers a critique of the dominant ways in which well-being has been conceptualized and researched within social policy, focusing in particular on the significance of this for policy relating to older people. It conceptualizes well-being as relational and…
‘Being while black’ is ultimately an ‘everyday revolution’, Despite the fact that people manage themselves by their own choosing, especially as their desires are being shaped (Foucault, 1977), their selves remains the basic revolutionary unit. Foucault’s oeuvre on power and…
The present study set out to assess the impact of attributional beliefs about success on the susceptibility for doping use in adolescent athletes. The sample consisted of 309 adolescent athletes participating in both team and individual sports. Participants completed a…
During the 1970s, a new corporal and aesthetic standard emerged in women’s artistic gymnastics. No longer was grace and elegance the main feature, but acrobatic and somewhat robotic performances. These exercises were increasingly performed by highly trained and sexually immature…
The purpose of this paper was to explore the benefits and barriers influencing participation for athletes with disabilities from a developing country (Malaysia). Two independent studies were undertaken: Study 1 included a sample of 123 athletes (95 males, 28 females)…
The first purpose of this study was to examine low-income parents’ and their children’s perceptions of the benefits associated with participation in youth sport. The second purpose was to examine parents’ perceptions of the challenges associated with providing their children…
Sports provide one of the most prominent fields in which one can study the interaction between globalization and glocalization processes. Drawing on recent theoretical developments in globalization theory and on both primary and secondary data, the present article examines the…
This paper argues that a reflexive, late modern volunteer culture coexists with a collectivist, traditional one at major sporting events. Those who regularly volunteer at such events and are affiliated with organized sport tend to be older and male, and…
Drawing on a case study involving mediated vitriol targeting cheerleaders, this article identifies two potentially problematic aspects of the media studies concept of anti fandom. First, it critiques the classification of vitriolic texts produced by anti fans as belonging primarily…
Gramsci’s theory of intellectuals is widely cited but rarely closely studied. This article makes a case for a rereading of this theory. This is both desirable and necessary because, as the article shows, it is a more nuanced and yet…
The percentage of older adults who are active gamers has increased tremendously in recent years. Although research shows that video games enhance physical and cognitive well-being in older adults, the role of video games in enhancing social interactions has been…
On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, Jay Coakley, a foundational scholar in the development of the sociology of sport, reflects on the lasting power of the Great Sport Myth (GSM) to shape cultural understandings of sport. Situated…
On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, Cora Burnett, one of the world’s leading scholars on studying the ways that sport has been used for development, considers the trajectory, challenges and future for understanding sport’s role in conflict…
On the fiftieth anniversary of the International Sociology Of Sport Association and the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, the three guest editors for this special fiftieth anniversary issue of the IRSS, current ISSA president, Elizabeth CJ Pike, the…
This paper explores three female swimmers’ relationships with their male coaches and the body practices they were exposed to within Australian swimming. Particular attention is given to how the relationships and practices might relate to gender. Additionally, the article examines…
Do digital games and play mean the same things for different people? This article presents the results of a 3-year study in which we sought for new ways to approach digital games cultures and playing practices. First, the authors present…
Sport is often perceived as healthy and safe. However, research has demonstrated that problems involving sexual, psychological, and physical abuse exist in this context and that very few protection measures are available in sport organizations. Quebec’s sport organizations are not…
As one of the world’s most recognizable athletes, Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James is emblematic of the modern athlete-activist; as such, it is important to understand how the media frame him in the context of a controversial issue. In recent…
Few studies have examined how groups of individuals enact different patterns of gender relations within and across contexts. In this article, I draw upon nine months of fieldwork and 15 semistructured interviews conducted with eight- to 10-year-old swimmers on a…
The purpose of this study was to provide a systematic review of studies on athletes’ career transition out of sport from 1968 until the end of 2010. A total of 126 studies were evaluated and reported in three sections: sample…
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to describe the psychological effects of poor coaching reported by collegiate, professional and semi-professional athletes. Design: The present study employs a qualitative research design. Existential phenomenology is a contemporary qualitative research method that…
Research independently examining athletic identity and sport aggression is quite extensive; however, the relationship between these variables has yet to be explored. Findings from both the identity literature and the sport fandom literature regarding team identification and aggressive fan behavior…
Although seatbelts save lives, adolescents may be disproportionately likely to omit their use. Using data from the 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a national survey of more than 16,000 U.S. public and private high school students, the authors employed a…
Over 400,000 student-athletes participate in NCAA intercollegiate athletics programs. Due to their dual roles as student and athlete, they have a different college experience than the general student population. Specialized academic centers and resources for student-athletes are part of the…
Within the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Division I men’s basketball many profit-athletes travel to Predominantly White Institution (PWI) work sites for “pre-professional” sport opportunities. At most PWIs the Black male student population is less…
The purpose of this study was to explore participants’ academic experiences and confidence about their academic achievement. Participants (N = 27) consisted of high-achieving African American male student—athletes from four academically rigorous American Universities in the Pac-Ten conference. Most of…
Taking inspiration from Nikolas Rose (2007a, 2007b) and feminist new materialists, this paper creates space for athletic women’s voices of their biological and social bodies, and particularly their interactions with the medical professions and biomedical technologies. Drawing upon interviews with…
This study examines sport as a source for youth popularity, and its variation by gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status and grade level, using a nationally representative U.S. sample of 2,185 3rd—12th graders. Results indicate athletes are more likely than non athletes…
Participation in elite sport, and in particular those sports with special demands in terms of weight and shape, is associated with a higher risk for eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa [Sundgot-Borgen, J., & Torstveit, M. K. (2010). Aspects of…
Football hooliganism, defined as episodes of crowd trouble inside and outside football stadiums on match days, is commonly perceived to have adverse effects on the sport. We are especially interested in the effects of football-related fan violence on a club’s…
In recent years, individuals who do not conform to healthiest body shape and weight norms are the target of an increasingly fervent moral panic about “obesity” (Gard & Wright, 2005). As a subculture within the gay male community (Wright, 1997a),…
Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) refers to the use of sport to promote varied outcomes beyond the playing field and has been defined as ‘the intentional use of sport, physical activity and play to attain specific development objectives in…
This paper features a critical examination of recent legislation banning cosmetic pesticide applications in the province of Ontario, Canada. It focuses in particular on the exemption of golf courses from the province’s Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act of 2009. Drawing from…
This article presents qualitative findings which cast light on experiences of job-related geographical relocation for professional footballers and their families. Job relocation is an issue for players and partners, as labor market migration is commonplace in this profession. Although cultural…
Aim: The aim of the paper was to identify changes in the extent and patterns of anabolic steroid use in the United Kingdom to better understand the public health implications within the context of the current health-related evidence base. Methods:…
This article seeks to expand the conceptual boundaries of sport media research by investigating the utility of a postfeminist sensibility for analyzing depictions of women in sport. Rosalind Gill’s (2007) notion of a postfeminist sensibility is situated within UK-led feminist…
Recently, sociologists have argued in high-profile journals that racial categories are linked to genetically distinct clusters within the human population. They propose theorizing race as a socially constructed categorization system that is related to biological groupings within our species. This…
Blood sport—the practice of pitting animals against each other (or against humans) in bloody combat to the death—is a tragic form of human entertainment that has been resilient since antiquity. While animal blood sport is a form of human driven…
This article explores the reasons behind the expression of anti-English sentiment by Scots in relation to both sporting and wider social contexts, whilst also considering the impact of migration to England on the attitudes expressed by members of the Scottish…
This article explores how sport, frequently seen as the foremost meritocracy in New Zealand, is a site that can produce and reproduce social class-based distinctions. Specifically, we explore how participation in youth sport is connected with the consolidation of social…
Although most sport organisations are encouraged to better manage the relationships they maintain with fans, little is still known about the types of relationships that fans want to establish with sport organisations. Also, as most suggested management and marketing practices…
In recent years it has become widely accepted that one of the greatest demographic challenges facing most developed societies is the shift to an ageing population. Older people are often constructed as dependent and over-burdening societal resources, with many consequently…
While college sport can impact a campus’ sense of community (Clopton, 2007), no empirical research has established a connection with college sport and social capital, an increasingly researched social phenomenon defined as the sum of trust and reciprocating relationships amongst…
Researchers commonly use sports betting lines as predictions of the outcome of sporting events. Betting houses set betting lines conditional on bettors ex ante beliefs about game outcomes, which implies that the predictive power of the sports betting market could…