Sociology of Sport: Expanding Horizons in the Subdiscipline

Abstract

Sport sociology … is a value-free social science. It is not an effort to infl uence public opinion or behavior, nor is it an attempt to find support for the “social development” objective of physical education. … The sport sociologist is neither a spreader of gospel nor an evangelist for exercise. His function is not to shape attitudes and values but rather to describe and explain them. (Kenyon & Loy, 1965/1969, p. 38) The replication of so called scientific studies of sport have done little to enhance either our knowledge or understanding of the nature and meaning of sporting practices. By separating sport from its developmental and social features, the “variables” approach completely ignores the sociohistorical and political dimensions of cultural life. (Hollands, 1984, p.70) Scholars on the forefront of the sport/cultural studies movement have emphasized that its fusion of perspectives carries the promise of developing a comprehensive model to analyze relations of dominance and subordination simultaneously contoured along class, race, and gender lines. … (Sage, 1997a, p. 333) It would … seem wholly appropriate for the sociology of sport to use poststructuralist thought as a vehicle for excavating the discursive formations, and allied subjectivities, of contemporary sport culture. (Andrews, 2000, p. 116)