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This chapter draws upon the sociological concept of rationalization to explore the role and practice of sports medicine. It highlights attempts by the profession to create a rationalized model of health care for sports participants – particularly those involved in high-performance sports settings and the enabling and constraining elements of its enactment.

The chapter explains how changes in the organization of sports medicine have dovetailed with the increasing rationalization of sport which has been significant in enacting changes in sports medicine that are aligned with a more rationalized model of care.

Key findings from the literature highlight the difficulties of implementing rationalized health care policy into practice. Specifically, the chapter examines macro-organizational changes to the structure of sports medicine and the extent to which sports medicine represents a rationalized model of health care by virtue of micro-organizational constraints.

While the discussion draws upon a breadth of research by sociologists of sport who have examined sports medicine practices, the chapter draws heavily on the UK model of sports medicine care in high-performance sport and thus the conclusions may not be wholly transferable to non-UK and non-sports contexts.

To examine the ways in which sports-related brain injury (concussion and subconcussion) is both similar to and different from other injuries and to set out a sociological understanding of the injury, its manifestation and management.

There is a broad contextualization of the ‘issue’ of concussion and the processes that have brought this to the fore, an examination of the ways in which concussion has been figuratively clouded from plain view, and an outline of the main contributions of the social sciences to understanding this injury – the culture of risk and the mediating effect of social relationships. The chapter concludes by questioning whether the emergence of concerns over chronic traumatic encephalopathy has stimulated a fundamental change in attitudes towards sport injuries, and if this has had a significant impact on the social visibility of concussion.

The two available sociological studies of the lived experiences of concussion are situated within a broader analysis of the politicization of sports medicine and the emergence of a particular social discourse around sports-related brain injury.

The difficulties emanating from the dominance of a biomedical approach to concussion are discussed along with the need for further research, incorporating a more holistic view of concussion, as a bio-psycho-social phenomenon.

In this final paper in the series we set out the energy efficiency standards which should be pursued over the next five to ten years. Compared with a business as usual scenario based on past improvements, our proposed standards could go a long way to nullify the increase in carbon dioxide emissions which would be expected from the projected increase in the size of the housing stock in the next 20 years (an increase of some 4 million by 2021). Such an approach would provide an important breathing space so as to allow the development of even higher new build standards and to allow improvements in the efficiency of the existing stock. In addition to establishing an improvement programme for 2000/1 and 2005/6 the paper also assesses a number of important implementation issues. It deals with the barriers of practicability, technical risk and cost and concludes that such barriers are largely perceptual. We argue that with the establishment of very clear goals and implementation programmes, the Government together with the house building industry could achieve significantly higher standards than current regulations without major upheaval and, in the process, take a very large step towards the overall goal of creating a truly sustainable housing stock.

This paper presents a critique of the energy efficiency aspects of the Building Regulations for England and Wales as they relate to dwellings. It is argued that a significant improvement in the regulations is required if large reductions in CO₂ emissions are to be achieved in the first half of the next century and that considerable scope for regulation improvement exists (almost 90 per cent reductions in space heating are achievable). The paper identifies the shortcomings of the methods used to demonstrate compliance and proposes new approaches which would increase consistency and enable a clear programme of improvement to be established.

This paper (and Part 2, to appear in the next issue) set out the results of a housing field trial designed to evaluate the impact of an enhanced energy performance standard for dwellings. The project was designed to inform the next review of Part L of the Building Regulations for England and Wales, which, following the publication of the UK government's white paper on energy policy, is expected in 2005. The project explores the implications of an enhanced standard in the context of timber frame construction. Although for programming reasons it was necessary to terminate the research project at the end of the design phase, the results suggest that the standard investigated is well within the capacity of the industry but it was clear that the whole supply chain will need to take a positive approach to the development of new solutions. The secret to a smooth and cost optimised transition is for the necessary development work to begin immediately, not when regulation changes.

This paper and part 1, which appeared in the last issue, set out the results of a housing field trial designed to evaluate the impact of an enhanced energy‐performance standard for dwellings. The project was designed to inform the next review of part L of the Building Regulations for England and Wales, which, following the publication of the UK government's White Paper on energy policy, is expected in 2005. The project reported explores the implications of an enhanced standard in the context of timber frame construction. Although, for programming reasons, it was necessary to terminate the research project at the end of the design phase, the results suggest that the standard investigated is well within the capacity of the industry. It was clear, however, that the whole supply chain will need to take a positive approach to the development of new solutions. The secret to a smooth and cost‐optimised transition is that the necessary development work begins immediately, not when regulation changes.

If the building control system is to deliver housing which achieves major reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, it is important to ensure not only that energy efficiency standards are set at an appropriate level but also that the specification of standards takes into account realised performance. It is argued in this paper that, in many cases, there is a large gap between notional performance, as defined by the calculation methods embodied in the Building Regulations, and performance achieved in practice. Although it is accepted that some variation in performance is to be expected, there are a number of areas where closer attention to the methods used to estimate thermal performance, and the inclusion of hitherto unregulated aspects, could help to achieve a much closer match between what is expected and what is achieved. In particular, the paper discusses ways in which the Regulations could be improved so that the impact of thermal bridging, construction quality, window performance and airtightness are more closely controlled.

The aim of this chapter is to examine and problematize the taken-for-granted conceptual understanding of risk practices in sport cultures. By inspecting the mainstay, and one might argue relatively stagnant, constructions of risk in the sociological study of sport, a case for attending to a wider range of risk-based ideologies and cultural practices is presented. The chapter ventures away from viewing risk as predominantly physical in sport settings and constructing athletes as oppressed agents who naively acquiesce to practices of self-injury and self-alienation in sport cultures. Emphasis is given to a broad spectrum of risks undertaken in the practice of sport, and the reflexive, personal nature by which risk may be understood by sports and physical culture participants.

In the first part of the chapter, the relatively simplistic or unidimensional construction of risk in sociological research in sport is reviewed. In the second part, the complexity of the concept of risk is then discussed alongside case examples that push the analytical boundaries of how risk is a multidimensional construct of athletes’ minds, bodies, selves, beliefs, values, and identities in a host of relational contexts.

Risk is best understood as a set of practices and belief that exists on a continuum in sport and physical cultures. Risk-taking in sport, however, can be personally injurious and detrimental along a number of lines but is also often calculated, personally/group satisfying and existentially rewarding at times. If the concept of risk is to be applied and interrogated in sport and physical cultures, it should be done so, therefore, in radically contextual manners.

This chapter illustrates the need for new and exploratory theoretical understandings of what risk means to athletes and other participants in sport and physical culture. New substantive topics are proposed, as are methodological suggestions for representations of the unfolding risk in the process of “doing” sport.