Search

The period from 2013 to 2019 was one of relative continuity in policies for physical education (PE), school sport and physical activity (PESSPA) in England. Starting from the advent of the government's flagship PE and Sport Premium (PES Premium) initiative in 2013, the end of the period was reached 20 with renewed uncertainty in 2020 about the future of PESSPA policy. It is therefore an appropriate point for this article to 'take stock' of PESSPA policies and their consequences since 2013. The political science literature on policy design underpins the approach to considering the mix of both policy goals and those instruments used by governments to achieve them. To do so, a comprehensive set of policy documents, published reports, academic literature and empirical research on schools' use of the PES Premium was interrogated. Policy goals articulated by government since 2013 reinforced, rather than resolved, long-standing debates about the purpose of PESSPA. Health-related objectives rose in prominence, but sat uneasily alongside continued commitments to competitive sport. Only a narrow range of the policy instruments available to governments were used in pursuit of their policy goals. PES Premium funding was solely distributed to primary schools, with limited use of regulation and information systems to shape PESSPA provision. These aspects of policy design contributed to increasing reliance on external coaches in primary schools and indicators of a decline in secondary school provision and participation, resonant of prioritisation of short-term approaches over longer-term strategic development. Possibilities for improving future PESSPA policies are considered as a result.

Sociological studies on the manifestations and reproduction of inequality through cultural consumption have focused on few domains of culture and have mostly neglected intensity in consumption. Using large-scale survey data about professional sports following in Canada, we investigate how socioeconomic position is associated with intensity of professional sports following ('voraciousness'). Our multinomial logistic regression analyses suggest that social class, gender, and geography are predictors of voraciousness in each of the major professional sports leagues. Our latent class analysis (LCA) reveals seven sports following profiles marked by differences in range and intensity of following. We find that the most voracious sport followers are also the most omnivorous but are not distinctively the most privileged group. Findings suggest a distinct sport following profile of the predominantly male and economically dominant group in the field of social classes and point toward groups of sport followers with different styles of aversion and passing knowledge, perhaps in a type of deployment of Bourdieu's (1984) disinterested aesthetic. Overall, however, gender and region appear to be stronger predictors of voraciousness in sports following than social class in the Canadian context. Les etudes sociologiques sur les manifestations et la reproduction de l'inegalite par la consommation culturelle se sont concentrees sur quelques domaines de la culture et ont surtout neglige l'intensite de la consommation. A l'aide de donnees d'enquete a grande echelle sur les adeptes du sport professionnel au Canada, nous etudions comment la position socio-economique est associee a l'intensite de l'adoration du sport professionnel ('voracite'). Nos analyses de regression logistique multinomiale suggerent que la classe sociale, le sexe et la geographie sont des predicteurs de la voracite dans chacune des principales ligues de sport professionnel. Notre analyse de classe latente revele sept profils de suiveurs sportifs marques par des differences dans l'etendue et l'intensite de leur suivi. Nous constatons que les adeptes de sports les plus voraces sont aussi les plus omnivores, mais ne constituent pas distinctement le groupe le plus privilegie. Les resultats suggerent un profil d'adepte du sport distinct du groupe majoritairement masculin et economiquement dominant dans le domaine des classes sociales et indiquent des groupes d'adeptes du sport avec differents styles d'aversion et de connaissance passagere, peut-etre dans un type de deploiement de l'esthetique desinteressee de Bourdieu (1984). Dans l'ensemble, cependant, le sexe et la region semblent etre des predicteurs plus forts de la voracite dans le suivi des sports que la classe sociale dans le contexte canadien., INTRODUCTION Sociologists have studied associations between social position and tastes in music, arts, food, and leisure activities (Bourdieu 1984; Bryson 1996; Chan and Goldthorpe 2005; Johnston and Baumann 2007; Veenstra [...]

Recent research into religion's intersection with social class, specifically in the UK, represents a conspicuous gap in recent scholarly work. I seek in this article to help fill this gap by focusing on the specific element of social capital. Adopting the lesser used lens of Bourdieu, and using a UK-wide survey, I measure various elements of social capital and employ advanced statistical methods to ascertain social capital composition for various groups of religious identity. Results show that the primary difference between religious groups is social network variety. Those who assert multiple religious identities show the highest level of social network variety. Therefore, results suggest that as either a product or cause, it is those asserting multiple religious identities who may possess the greatest amount of aggregate and bridging social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A traditionally salient topic of empirical investigation in the sociology of religion, this paper seeks to offer a recent investigation into the intergenerational transmission of religion and the parental forms of religious engagement that predict adult engagement with religion. The study of this paper explores the intergenerational transmission of religion, focusing on the parental forms of religious identity and engagement that influence religious identity, beliefs, and practices in adulthood. By analyzing the 2018 GSS dataset in the United States with multiple regression analyses, I found strong parental and childhood influences on adult religiosity, religious service attendance, and belief in God. Indeed, this engagement often mirrors parental engagement for these variables. However, while paternal religious identity often predicts these religious variables, I found that the religious identity and engagement of parents generally do not predict religious identity in adulthood. Ultimately, while these results generally show strong predictive mechanisms of intergenerational transmission, they also illustrate that these relationships are variably dependent on the form of parental and adult religious engagement, and which parent participates or is associated with that engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on social class occupies a particular pedestal in British sociology. However, recent research into the connections between religion and social position is conspicuously absent. Using a UK-wide survey, I employ Bourdieu and various statistical methods to investigate the complex cultural capital compositions of various religious identities. The findings identify a four-group typology of cultural engagement. I also identify those holding multiple religious identities as a new and prominent religious identity in the UK today, one that is highly culturally active. I explain these results through neo-Bourdieusian theories of the reconfiguration of distinction in the forms of openness and cosmopolitanism, and through arguments for the importance of cultural and social variety in accumulating capital. The unique group that has these multiple religious identities is also a prime candidate for further research into how religious dispositions may operate as its own form of cultural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on sports following represents a burgeoning field of inquiry in the sociology of sport, yet sport following's connections to, or ability to facilitate, social capital remains underexplored. Drawing on a contemporary nationwide survey of the United States and employing the foundational theories of social capital by which we operationalize statistical analyses using regression modeling, this study investigates the nuanced contributions of sports following to various dimensions of social capital. Our analysis reveals complex relationships of sports following to social network size, community engagement, neighborhood trust, and social network variety, highlighting sports following as a significant predictor for all our operationalized social capital measures, although negatively so for neighborhood trust. Exploring the interplay between sports following, individual characteristics, and socio-political affiliations, results underscore the powerful predictive capacity of sports following even controlling for other characteristics, highlighting strong potentiality for building social capital, although along some dimensions more than others. These findings spotlight the domain of sports following as fertile ground for further investigation into its capacity to serve as a unique facilitator of social capital on the increasingly divided American socio-cultural landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women sports fans have been substantially understudied compared to their male counterparts. While a growing number of studies seek to redress this, there remains a stark absence of quantitative approaches that would allow investigations regarding patterns of women's sporting consumption and historical trends in the potential growth of this fandom. Using large-scale survey data from Canada from 1990 through to 2015, and employing quantitative methods of latent class and regression analysis, this study seeks to redress these issues by testing the 'feminization' thesis of increased women's sporting fandom over the past three decades. In addition, we consider whether women's fandom has become increasingly 'omnivorous' over this time period and the nature of this consumption today. Results show support for the feminization thesis. These findings are significant as through the use of quantitative methodologies we evidence the narrowing gender gaps in professional sports following between men and women, and women's increasingly omnivorous consumption of sports. However, we find substantial gender gaps and inequalities in omnivorism by which the evidence suggests increased socio-economic and cultural barriers to omnivorous consumption of sport for women. We suggest that these women omnivores may be able to utilize their sporting knowledge in an instrumental way for benefits in various social settings, especially workplaces. It is hoped that this article will pave the way for further quantitative studies on women sports fans across different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The participation in different forms of leisure has often been ascribed the power to reflect and reproduce social inequalities. While some came before, this intellectual endeavour increased substantially with the seminal work of Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction. While Bourdieu's writings on culture did not neglect sports, sport is often neglected in subsequent studies of culture. Most of the subsequent theoretical and empirical work on culture has focused upon music and the arts, many also arguing that Bourdieu's work is now dated. This paper seeks to provide an important empirical examination of social position and sports participation. It also seeks to test of the relevance of Bourdieu's theories today in this area of culture. For these investigations, I use large-scale survey data and various statistical methods to test the relevance of the Pierre Bourdieu's foundational theories and explain these patterns. The findings show direct sports participation relying primarily on dispositions towards the body which are stratified by education and income, especially for the most elite sports. These results therefore highlight the contemporary relevance of Bourdieu's theories of the relationship between sports, social class, and the stratification thereof. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between social capital and sport has been an increasing focus of scholarly literature in recent decades. However, very few of these studies consider social capital alongside theories of cultural consumption. Even fewer seek to assess the place of social capital in sports spectatorship. Taking primarily a Bourdieusian and neo-Bourdieusian theoretical approach, this study seeks to rectify these gaps by analysing three key components of social capital – social network size, social network prestige and social network variety – and how they relate to patterns of sports spectatorship and participation. Results indicate that the type of social capital that is most predictive seems to rely heavily upon the nature of the cleavages between cultural patterns of sports engagement. While the size of social network seems most universally applicable to predict sports engagement generally, network variety also seems to be highly applicable to the most omnivorous engagement profiles. Finally, network prestige appears applicable to some highbrow profiles of sports engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the prevalence of professional sport in contemporary societies, there is little known by academics about professional sports consumers. We know much more about other cultural domains, such as music and the arts. This study examines consumption and sport in Canada to further understand how patterns of sports consumption fit into broader leisure lifestyles. Through investigation of how five professional sports leagues in Canada are consumed, this paper draws conclusions about the lifestyle of these consumers to assess which prevailing theories of cultural consumption are most useful for this segment. By utilising latent class analysis and regression modelling, this paper finds that cultural omnivores are the most likely consumers of these leagues. This group also maps onto theorisations of omnivores as high-status persons. Additionally, this paper suggests that theories of cosmopolitanism in omnivorous consumption may have particular salience for the Canadian case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural consumption writ large has had a prominent place in the sociological discipline since Pierre Bourdieu. While Bourdieu often considered sport in analyses of culture, there have since been relatively few studies that are focused on considering sport within the broader landscape of cultural consumption. This paper seeks to assess the place of sports participation within the cultural lifestyles of Canadians. To this end, this paper employs multiple latent class analyses of various cultural and sporting variables from a large-scale Canadian government survey. It also employs regression analyses of those latent class groups. The results show three primary groups of consumers, pointing strongly to confirming the omnivore thesis in Canada. The results of the core of the analysis show, however, strong delineations in which sports these different groups consume. Ultimately then, the cultural domain of sports may be an area where omnivores practise more distinctive consumption, eschewing the sports of other consumer groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of the cultural omnivore has been applied to many cultural domains. However, given the pervasiveness of professional sport in contemporary societies, less is known about omnivorous behaviour when it comes to consuming this cultural form. This study sets out to find if indeed there is an omnivorous consumption profile for professional sport. Using a latent class and regression analysis of survey data on five major professional sports leagues from Canada, this paper seeks to determine if this professional sport omnivore exists, how prevalent it might be, and if it maps onto wider socio-economic differentiations. The latent class analysis does show that there is an omnivorous consumption profile. However, it is the second smallest professional sport profile and does not map onto wider socio-economic differentiations, even as other patterns of professional sports' consumption do display such distinctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]