Developing an agenda for social science research into drugs in sport

Abstract

This article provides a short introduction and overview to a collection of essays designed to provide a starting point in the form of a research agenda towards developing a social science of drugs in sport. It firstly addresses the paucity of social science research on the issues and then summarizes the approach taken to developing a research agenda to guide social science research into drugs in sport. This is done through describing the conceptual relationship between five pairs of essays comprising of the argument for a social science of drugs in sport (historical and overview of the development of the research agenda), developing policy (sport philosophy and sociology), implementing policy (economics and law), individual response to policy (health and educational psychology), and the research agenda (discipline specific and cosmopolitan).