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This article seeks to explain why it has proved so difficult for sociologists of sport to assume the mantle of public intellectuals even in relation to sport itself. Using a case study relating to sport in Northern Ireland and rooted in personal experience, the article examines alternative ways in which intellectual activity, albeit unconventionally understood, can influence the world of sport. Specifically, the analysis draws upon Antonio Gramsci's distinction between traditional and organic intellectuals. It is argued that only through engagement with organic intellectuals who exercise authority within the subcultures of sport can critical sociologists hope to influence sporting practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents an analysis on the job of sports sociologist, challenges laid out by the athletic industrial complex. He argues that sport sociology allows one to study critically the relations between sport to large social issues, including race, class and gender. The author infers that sport sociology is a discipline of affecting how the people think about sports world.

This article aims at developing a theoretical framework for analysing the implementation of sport policy, as it is conducted by voluntary sport clubs at grassroots level. First, three options are presented and discussed: i) a classical top-down implementation model, ii) the governance theory of policy tools, and iii) the Advocacy Coalition Framework. Second, the theoretical perspectives are discussed, and criticized for failing to take sufficiently into account the implementing body of sport policy, namely the voluntary sport clubs. In that respect, an alternative theoretical framework is suggested as a possible solution for analysing the implementation of sport policy; which is the translation perspective of neo-institutionalism. It stresses that, if elements of central policy influence the implementation process at the local level, it does so by the active import, interpretation and implementation of it in the local context. The autonomy of the local sport club in relation to central policy is reinforced by the fact that the activity in sport clubs is mainly done on a voluntary basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subcultural theory associated with the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) has received numerous and wide-ranging critiques. Debate has been particularly prevalent within sociological work on youth, music, and style, a context in which some commentators have rejected the idea of subculture, favoring more fleeting, transient socialites. However, these debates have rarely been considered within the context of the study of sporting subcultures. In this article, the author reviews the post-CCCS oeuvre, exploring the implications for the study of sporting subcultures, questions of individuality, difference, and collective identity, and the possibility and nature of cultural or subcultural resistance. The author evaluates Atkinson and Wilson's proposition that bodily experiences or performances can resist constraints imposed by mainstream culture, illustrating this in the context of lifestyle sport culture. Thus, this article contributes to a revised agenda for the study of subcultures in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following on from studies focusing on the working of the state administration, the aim of this study is to conduct an empirical examination of the way in which one particular public policy — that concerning the dual social and sporting training of high-level athletes in France — is implemented. Because the aim is to respond as effectively as possible to the specifics of the problems encountered, it is on the local level that stakeholders have to come to an agreement and find common solutions built around coordination between departments. Through an analysis of the registers of action elaborated by the stakeholders in charge of this mission — the local civil servants of two Ministries (Sport on the one hand, National Education on the other) — the aim here is to see how they construct the rules of the collective action required to manage this dual project. This investigation was conducted through semi-directive interviews and reveals that the institutional positions and professional logic of each category of stakeholder create tensions within the partnership, that have a negative influence on the effectiveness of the way this dual project is organized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have witnessed a Vast expansion in research and writing on the sociology of the body and on issues of embodiment. Indeed, both sociology in general and the sociology of sport specifically have well heeded the long-standing and vociferous calls ‘to bring the body back in’ to social theory. It seems particularly curious therefore that the sociology of sport has to date addressed this primarily at a certain abstract, theoretical level, with relatively few accounts to be found that are truly grounded in the corporeal realities of the lived sporting body; a ‘carnal sociology’ of sport, to borrow Crossley's (1995) expression. To portray and understand more fully this kind of embodied perspective, it is argued, demands engaging with the phenomenology of the body, and this article seeks to contribute to a small but growing literature providing this particular form of ‘embodied’ analysis of the body in sport. Here we identify some useful intellectual resources for developing a phenomenology of sporting experience, specifically its sensory elements, and also subsequently examine the potential for its evocative portrayal and effective analysis via different kinds of textual forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Georg Simmel is one of sociology's most influential early figures, although arguably his work has been under-utilized in many scholarly fields, including sport studies. Some of Simmel's most important theoretical and substantive arguments are deployed to develop a sociological analysis of a specific sports subculture: the 'Tartan Army' of supporters that travels to Scotland football matches. Of particular interest are Simmel's formal sociological standpoint, differentiation of social and cultural forms, development of dualistic thinking, analyses of human sociability, writings on 'the stranger' and 'the adventure', and his concern with individuality in modern metropolitan culture. In applying Simmel's insights, I explore the formal emergence and organic development of the Tartan Army as a distinctive supporter culture. The Tartan Army, like many sports crowds, affords an outstanding study in Simmelian sociability, while providing adventure and a possible escape from our overwhelming modem culture. The article concludes by considering Simmel's wider utility within the sociology of sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section provides an overview of articles dealing with the sociology of sport.

The article discusses the development of inquiry on sport and globalization in the social sciences. The author considers the development of inquiry on sport and globalization in the social sciences. Key definitional terms such as modernization, cultural imperialism, and cultural hegemony are mentioned in the context of debates over Americanization and globalization. Sociologist M. Archer identifies the active processes of globalization that people currently are living through and participating in, and she asserts that they have not yet achieved globality. However, although she retreats to the passive language of emergence when dealing with the specific trends, it is possible to see the active processes of globalization in the economic, political, and cultural movements that are emerging. Of the world's 100 largest economies, 47 are multinational corporations. Economic globalization became a reality for most people with the final removal of international barriers to capital in the late 1980s. Researcher M.P. Marchak describes how the decline of PaxAmericana, beginning in the late 1960s, led corporate leaders in the U.S., Japan, and Western Europe to join in a self-interested restructuring of the global economy.

Presents an introduction to the August 1996 issue of the "Journal of Sport & Social Issue."

The article discusses natural science model of research on social science and the sociology of sport. The undermining of the Enlightenment code of values most extensively theorized by postmodern theorists translates into a wide-ranging critique of the natural science model of research. Researchers from various theoretical perspectives have questioned the ontology epistemology, and methodology of approaches to social science which are based on the natural sciences. The natural science model of research or positivism has been the dominant paradigm for social sciences and for sport sociology alternative paradigms have presented a wide-ranging and powerful critique of its ontological and epistemological assumptions. Although alternative paradigms certainly do not all embrace the same ontological and epistemological positions, they are united in a critique of the fundamental assumptions of Enlightenment science. Researchers influenced by postmodernism are increasingly looking toward literary and narrative models for ways to legitimate their work. Researchers from a wide range of disciplines argue that forms of validation in the social sciences should bear more resemblance to those in the literary world than those in the natural sciences.

The article discusses sport sociology as normal social science. Knowledge is relative to one's status, sport sociology is equivalent to the sociology of knowledge and objective scientific knowledge of social relations in sport is unattainable. Sport sociology is seriously threatened by these kinds of ideas because they imply that knowing is inevitably constrained by social location, and that all knowledge is subjective. These ideas also imply that what we know always reflects our personal, political and ideological biases and agendas. If such biases and agendas differ according to our social location, then it will be impossible, for people in different social locations or with different statuses to know the same thing or to know reality in the same way. Furthermore, with the rejection of the scientific method, there is unlikely to be agreement about what knowledge is and how it should be generated, which implies a blurring of the lines that divide journalism, biography, fiction, and sociology. Skepticism about sport sociology as normal science and outright rejection of this conception of sport sociology have not been restricted to the critics in the 1992 North American Society for the Sociology of panel session. Such skepticism and rejection have been evident in the major streams of work in sport sociology over the past decade.

This article provides views of the author on Cheryl Cole's paper on feminism, published in the August 1993 issue of the periodical "Journal of Sport and Social Issues." There is now a movement to reconstitute sociology and social theory through a focus on the body which not surprisingly has spilled over into debates about what should comprise the sociology of sport. Cole suggests that feminist cultural studies provides a framework with which to examine the gendered body, specifically women's bodies in the United States, in a time of increasing state intervention, surveillance, and control over both social and individual bodies. However, before she gets to these important issues, Cole takes the reader through a discussion of socialist-feminism to ideas about the body. She concludes by reiterating her plea that we need to reconsider how the knowledges, discourses, and technologies produced by sport are deployed in everyday lives, and how they can be opposed and resisted. should comprise the sociology of sport.

This study provides a general description of the social characteristics of the 1955, 1965, 1975, and 1984 rosters along with an analysis of the performance differentials of the three major racial/ethnic categories---white, black. and Hispanic--participating in major league baseball. Comparisons, contrasts, and syntheses with previously collected and analyzed data are made. Special attention is focused upon Hispanics since they have been relatively neglected in the sociology of sport literature. The findings reveal that black (particularly) and Hispanic performances are superior to whites and support the marginality hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines some ethical problems prevalent in contemporary American sport. Thee topics are considered: (1) the ethical principles that should guide sport; (2) the ethical dilemmas that confront various constituencies in sport; and (3) the structural sources of unethical behaviors in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for research on three meaningful sports experiences (track and field, volleyball and military sport) in post war Rome. The main key concepts, such as the one of political arena, considered as a historically defined place of conflict among the elites, are borrowed from political sociology. This approach, inspired by the neo-institutionalistic viewpoint, is considered to be the opposite to both an improperly extended use of the historians' categories, and the suggestions of micro-organizational theories. A sports association is described rather as the product of manifold organizational logics, which concur in defining its structural, organizational and cognitive outline. In the final section, a hypothesis is provided, which describes a division of the organizational history of the Roman sports movement in different periods, in connection with the national and local political cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the present-day situation of the Sociology of Sport in Spain. In the first place, it analyzes how sport progressed from being a social concern to an object for sociological study. The second part of the article deals with the institutional framework in which the teaching of and research into the Sociology of Sport take place, considered to be a crucial dynamic factor in the emergence of the discipline. The final section deals with the themes, authors, theories and methods predominant today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dramatic changes have occured in the every day life of Eastern Europe, in the world of sports as well as in politics: the breakdown of state top sports, the public attention to doping, the uncovering of deficiencies in "mass sports", the emigration of a professional sport elite...But when analyzing beneath the surface of the events, things are not so simple. Some very different and contradicting theses are possible.1. The change of systems: The Western world has won the cold war of sports, and a commercial sport system is being established with capitalist sponsorship, media market, sale and migration of professionals, etc.2. A delayed modernization: The Eastern countries are "underdeveloped" and now trying to catch up (in vain?) in the same way as Western sport did before them: Sport for all. An evolutionist interpretation.Both interpretations - dominating the public discourses today - ignore the fact that "the Western sports" is not monolithic either, but is also changing fundamentally since the 1960/70s:- Top sport is changing from the production of individual results towards a media circus, the putting on stage of a - often fascinating - show sport.- A commercial market of body culture is expanding, threatening the traditional system of club sports.- New alternative movement cultures have arisen, redefining - repractizing - the popular (in Nordic language: folkelig) grassroot aspect of sports.3. Therefore a third interpretation is obvious: Are the events happening in the East (and the West), rather a revolution of body culture? A fundamental change creating something structurally new that has never been seen before? In this perspective - and maybe only in this one - the Eastern European peoples have the chance of non-synchronicity. We learn today, that popular games in Georgia and Kazakhstan have not disappeared as they did in Denmark and West-Germany. The peoples of Eastern Europe and Soviet Asia can use an experience - of resistance, of change, of underground alternatives in sports - which they have, whilst the Western countries have not.Or have we, too? New problems are rising at the horizon of sports sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humor is a pervasive aspect of sport. While there are sociological writings that focus on the sociology of humor, little consideration has been given to the sociology of humor and sport. Yet, the problematic nature of sport outcomes provide a fertile area for the emergence of humor. Humor in sport may be viewed as a play, socially integrating, promoting superiority and disparagement, and a means of examining the social problems that exist in modern port. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is not a direct response to the articles of Cole, Dewar, Maguire, and Young. Rather it is an attempt to situate their perspectives within the changing face of sociology and the sociology of sport as fields of inquiry. In this essay, I try to address the conflicts that exist between conventional sociologists (orthodox-mainstream) and those of us who oppose the conventional agendas. I ask the question "Which sociological imagination will prevail?" I ask how we connect political agendas to intellectual agendas, and to practices in physical culture. Using Giddens, I ask whether or not North American sociology has recovered from or has regenerated from functionalism and empiricism après la lutte. The articles of my colleagues are highlighted in my discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical exercises, like social life in general, have changed remarkably during the last two centuries. Violent games have become "civilized", special patterns have been replaced by a temporal structuration of sports. Time, and in particular, speed, seem to be the dominant principles which shape the modern form of sport. "Sport and Speed" analyses this recent transformational period in the history of body techniques, employing a theoretical framework provided by cultural history and genealogical sociology respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the tradition of an empirically oriented action theory and von Brentano the sociology of sport as playful competition should contribute to a unified sport science, to sociology proper and it should reflect on its methodology and theory of science. New structuralism (Stegmβüβller, Sneed) is being advocated for theory-building. The basic intentionality in sport is being pursued with von Wright for individual motivation, institutionalized norms, ability and situation. This `logic of events' suggests only limited uses for causal and teleological argumentation and the figure of practical syllogism as well as intentionality imply a definite linkage to notions of application and practicality in sociology of sport. A number of empirical studies of sport are cited to corroborate the methodological argument for action theory, new structuralism and practical meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is based on a content analysis of all 457 articles which have appeared in the INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT in the last 25 years. After a short description of the conception of the content analysis, it gives an overview of the structural peculiarities of international research into sport sociology, the object of research into the sociology of sport, the issues in sport sociological research and empirical and theoretical approaches and trends in sport sociological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a survey of Recent GDR Sport Sociology Publications since 1985. "Results of a comparison of empirical studies on the state of development of sport-related interests among students," is a contribution that presents results and comparative studies from analyses carried out during the past ten years in the GDR on students' interest in sport. The results reveal that the importance of "sport" within the students' range of interests is essentially determined by the terminological precision of the object proper to which attention, thoughts and intentions of the subject are related. According to the report, "The conditional framework for sport activities in different social groups," sport activities are based on a conditional framework of objective and subjective conditions. One essential theoretical problem within the scientific discipline of sociology is to ascertain to what degree these conditions have a stimulating or a hampering effect on sport activities. The 4th sociology congress gave a strong impetus to theoretical and practice- related research in the second half of the 1980s. This article provides first implications for research and development of sport sociology.

Patients with vascular spiders and angiomas, especially on exposed sites, demonstrate considerable psychological morbidity and therefore request treatment. Traditionally, electrosurgical modalities have been used to treat such lesions, but more recently lasers have been introduced. This open study assesses the efficacy of these two treatment modalities, scoring patients' preference and psychological morbidity before and after treatment. All patients had two vascular spiders or angiomas. One lesion was randomized for treatment with the hyfrecator, whilst the other lesion was treated with the potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) vascular laser. The end-point of the study was either clearance of lesions or a maximum of three treatments at 2-month intervals. In this first comparative study, we demonstrate that both therapeutic modalities were effective in treating these lesions and in significantly reducing the post-treatment psychological morbidity score. However, on average, only one treatment with the KTP laser was required to achieve clearance compared with two treatments with the hyfrecator. This would result in less clinic visits. In addition, patients favoured the KTP laser because of the lack of side-effects. Both the KTP vascular laser and the hyfrecator were able to clear vascular spiders and angiomas, but the KTP laser was superior as fewer treatment episodes were required and patients preferred this treatment modality because of the lack of side-effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper updates and extends previous analyses of the sociology of sport in the United States. It provides a chronology of major events in the history of the field as well as a description of the social context in which the field emerged and grew. Then a review of data from both sociology and physical education leads to the conclusion that the sociology of sport in the United States continues to lack full legitimacy and a critical mass of members in both disciplines. In fact, there are reasons to conclude that the continued numerical growth of those calling themeselves sport sociologists has peaked and will not change significantly in the immediate future. Finally, a content summary of papers published in the first 14 issues of the Sociology of Sport Journal reveals the priorities given to research topics and research methodologies among those Americans doing some of more significant work in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade philosphical and methodological problems of social sciences have been widely stressed again. This is also true for the Sociology of Sport. In the present contribution two theses are presented, analysed and defended: "(1) Philosophy of sport without sociology of sport is void; (2) Sociology of sport without philosophy of sport is blind." Besides that, a plea for a necessary integration of philosophical and social science approaches to the scientific analysis of sport is propounded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of sport as a structured body of specialized knowledge was established quite late (not before 1970). However, it developed quite rapidly, showing some original features, with a particular stress on social change. The main interests are in studies devoted to sport as social practices, to sports areas, to socio-economical aspects of sport and to ethno-sociology of sports. It is noticeable that a number of universitary institutions and the Institut National du Sport et de 1 'Education Physique (I.N.S.E.P.) are involved, as major partners, in the sociology of sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the contribution of Norbert Elias to sociology. According to the author, Elias established theoretically and empirically both the quintessentially social character of individual human animals. He developed the emergence of sociology as a science by correcting the homo clausus view of humans and replacing it with an orientation towards homines aperti or pluralities of open people. Elias also observed that each human individual is a process bound by interdependence. Moreover, Elias was the first major sociologist to stress the significance of the study of sport by focusing on the problems of aggression, violence and violence-control.

Earlier versions of the five papers that follow were presented at a conference session with the above title. They were given in November 1988, at the Cincinnati meetings of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport. The session was conceived as an opportunity for young scholars who were engaged in new and exciting work outside the mainstream of sport sociology to present their work. The researchers' biases are as open to interpretation as the data provided by subjects, and the old polarities of theory and method have been abandoned. Kevin Young is interested in interpreting the way in which ideology makes "willing victims" of athletes.

This article presents information regarding the International Committee for Sociology of Sport (ICSS). Combining all these objectives will not be a simple matter, as sport sociology, similar to sociology as a whole, is at different stages of development in the various countries. It has to be seen against the background of different traditions and is subject to disparate scientific standards. Being oriented towards different objectives and ideologies its functions and tasks may vary from country to country. All this has to be minored in an international journal which should strive to reflect the diversity of scientific trends which have emerged in the respective countries. The standards prevalent in North America or western Europe for example cannot be the sole criteria when assessing whether or not an article is to be included. It should also be taken into account whether the article in question is characteristic of and significant for the sociology of sport in the respective country. The editors will endeavor to attain the objectives of the periodical by providing articles on new scientific investigations and surveys on selected topics highlighting the situation of research in the various countries.

This article presents information on the publication of March 1, 1978 issue of the "Journal of Sport and Social Sciences." This issue launches the tenure as editor of the journal. The editor hopes to accomplish several tasks. The first, is that the journal will remain as the leading outlet for alternative thinking and research on subjects of significance in the athletic world. Second, the academic credibility of the journal will be enhanced by including a greater portion of articles which are grounded in empirical research and by continuing to attract contributions from leading scholars and practitioners.

The article provides information on the 1987 Junior Scholar Award for a scholarly work on the sociology of sport presented by The International Committee for Sociology of Sport (ICSS). Applications are invited from junior scholars by submitting a substantial scholarly work on sociology of sport of theoretical and/or empirical nature. The award carries a prize of $ 300 plus an allowance for up to $ 200 for travel costs for the recipient of the award at the next meeting of the ICSS 1985. Submissions of the scholarly work should be made in four copies in either English, French, German, Russian or Spanish.