Search results

This chapter explores the emergence, growth, and current status of the sociology of sport in Canada. Such an endeavour includes acknowledging the work and efforts of Canadian scholars – whether Canadian by birth or naturalization or just as a result of their geographic location – who have contributed to the vibrant and robust academic discipline that is the sociology of sport in Canadian institutions coast-to-coast, and who have advanced the socio-cultural study of sport globally in substantial ways. This chapter does not provide an exhaustive description and analysis of the past and present states of the sociology of sport in Canada; in fact, it is important to note that an in-depth, critical and comprehensive analysis of our field in Canada is sorely lacking. Rather, this chapter aims to highlight the major historical drivers (both in terms of people and trends) of the field in Canada; provide a snapshot of the sociology of sport in Canada currently; and put forth some ideas as to future opportunities and challenges for the field in Canada.

Basil Bernstein’s theoretical ideas have been called upon by far fewer higher education researchers than would be expected. We argue that the international higher education field of research is ripe for further application of Bernstein’s theoretical ideas. Through reference to our own and that of others, we illustrate five key affordances of Bernstein’s theoretical framework. First, it provides a unique approach that leads researchers to pose formerly unthinkable questions and encourages the development of new knowledge to address them. Second, Bernstein’s valuable concepts raise questions about the specific but inter-related macro- (societal), meso- (organisational) and micro- (individual) level processes involved in producing (in)equalities. Bernsteinian analysis can help to identify how inequalities emerge from and can be addressed at these levels. Third, we contend that the approach encourages empirical exploration of the ways in which education may be disruptive of the social order. Fourth, we suggest Bernstein’s concepts can be adapted to capture the complexity of intersecting inequalities in a way that allows the object of analysis to determine what inequalities are foregrounded. Finally, we argue that concepts help to orientate questions around inequality and social justice in a way that does not over-determine answers.

The research for this study engages and assesses the relationship of the media from the 20th to the 21st century, combining scholar activism and public leadership in the disability rights movement. Having chronicled the disability rights movement from its roots, this chapter presents the discourse of media and movement, sampling mainstream media along with the advocacy and alternative media in support of disability rights. A range of media forms are engaged from advocacy bulletins to mainstream news media to public broadcasts that represent the diversity and complexity of the movement as it continues into the 21st century, pressing for the universalism of human rights for all.

This chapter provides readers with a summary of sport sociology in the United States. It begins with a brief overview of sport in the United States before describing the development of the sociology of sport in the United States and some of the major contemporary patterns in sport research. They key movement in US sport sociology was the critical-cultural turn that took place during the 1980s and 1990s when critical theory and feminism became dominant approaches to research. Scholarship in the 21st century has largely developed upon that turn and is generally qualitative and cultural. Contemporary US sport sociology is a critical endeavor heavily influenced by cultural studies, post-structuralism, feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, post-colonial theory, and theories of globalization. Despite a fairly consistent approach to sport research in the United States, sport sociology remains contentious and in disunity. This chapter argues that the contention and disunity results from broader structural patterns that guide sport sociologists’ social actions.

Pat Allatt is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Teesside, U.K.Tim Dant is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of East Anglia, U.K.Carolyn Dixon is a researcher and an independent artist.John Donnelly is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology and Criminology Division at the University of Northumbria, U.K.Alan Felstead is Professor of Employment Studies at the Centre for Labour Market Studies at the University of Leicester, U.K.Barbara Harrison is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London, U.K.Rosalind Hurworth is Director of the Centre for Program Evaluation within the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia.Nick Jewson is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Labour Market Studies at the University of Leicester, U.K.John Martin is Principal Lecturer in Economic and Social History at De Montfort University, U.K.Ruth Martin was the Research Assistant for the “Asian Leicester” project.Sarah Pink is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Loughborough, U.K.Christopher Pole is a Reader in the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester, U.K.Andrea Raggl is a Research Assistant in the Department of Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Innsbruck, Austria.Michael Schratz is Professor of Education at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research of the University of Innsbruck, Austria.Matt Smith is a Lecturer in the Sociology and Criminology Division at the University of Northumbria, U.K.Sally Walters is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Labour Market Studies at the University of Leicester, U.K.

This chapter outlines how Pearson, the world’s largest education company, and its CEO John Fallon are acting as trailblazers of Jugaad Innovation (https://hbr.org/2014/12/what-frugal-innovators-do) in education by embedding a focus on learner outcomes – “efficacy” – at the heart of the company. The purpose of the chapter is to highlight practical examples of how this innovation has affected business strategy and decision-making, enabling the company to be able to have a greater impact on learning with the aim of simultaneously helping the business to grow financially. Many of these examples are from products and units that are continuing to embrace and adopt efficacy; they represent live examples of best practice.

This chapter provides an overview of how the drive toward efficacy represents a new, innovative way of doing business. The approach is not new to education, but putting a focus on learner outcomes at the center of traditional business operations represents a step-change from how other companies in the sector operate. The chapter will also look at the Office of the Chief Education Advisor, a central intrapreneurial unit that continues to lead the global efficacy agenda, with the aim that efficacy becomes so embedded in the company fabric that it becomes irreversible. In addition, the chapter provides some other examples of specific frameworks, tools and units that operate with an innovative and intrapreneurial mindset.

This study presents a case study in a major private company and the way the applied approach affected the company. The content of the chapter is taken from a live case and represents a unique insight into the ongoing application of innovation and intrapreneurship in the field.

This chapter responds to calls to “reclaim” the work of Erving Goffman, and specifically his conceptualization of stigma, arguing that Goffman’s ideas can inform a critical social theory of mental illness in sport. The analysis pays particular attention to the challenges to social identity for those experiencing mental illness stigma, the role of personal identity in negotiating mental illness stigma, and strategies for stigma reduction including the adoption of stigma symbols.

The first section of the chapter revisits the concept of stigma, before proceeding to relate this to mental illness stigma as applied to sport. The second section overviews several high-profile cases of mental illness stigma of elite athletes, before presenting some examples of campaigns to address the perceived stigma related to mental health issues in sport.

The chapter proposes that Goffman’s work maintains relevance when related to social contexts other than those directly observed by him, and that the conceptualization of stigma helps understanding of, and challenges to, mental illness stigma in sport.

While sport continues to be proposed as an arena for positive character development, analysis informed by the work of Erving Goffman demonstrates that the culture of sport provides a context within which athletes experiencing mental health issues may be stigmatized. This, in turn, undermines the potential for them to secure the health care that they need, with participation and performance often taking precedence over well-being, even in the campaigns ostensibly designed to address mental illness stigma.