Acting Accordingly or Authentically:

The purpose of this study was to investigate how holistic sport psychology consultants can begin to think with concepts from sport sociology to enhance the provision of their services to athletes. More specifically, this study explored the ways in which various dominant practices within sport can affect holistic sport psychologists’ efforts to help athletes act authentically. Empirical material included observations of athletes and coaches, who were all part of the Gold Medal Soccer Academy, along with a series of interviews with four athletes. The results indicated the importance of holistic sport psychology consultants taking into consideration a variety of social influences that can limit and restrict athletes’ opportunities to develop their authentic selves through their sport participation.

Fastest on the Playground: Four Generations of Female Sport Experience

The life sport experiences of four generations of females were explored through narrative family research and presented through research poetry. Their stories powerfully represent the transformation of sport and exercise culture across seven decades of overlapping life experiences and demonstrate the generational transmission of value for, expectation of, and experiences with sport. A poem representing each girl/woman’s story was crafted by the author, through the process of poetic transcription, and is presented alongside a photo illustrating each individual’s experiences. The generational experiences and implications of the findings are discussed within the broader sport psychology and sport sociology literature.

The medical sociology and the sport sociology in Poland – the dissimilar twins

The article concerns the medical sociology of and the sport sociology in Poland. Despite some similarities (cooperation with institutional fields outside the humanities, partial sharing of the subject of interest and dealing with various dysfunctions in this area, the applicative nature of their research and analysis, emergence at a similar time), an important difference can be noticed in the academic functioning of both sub-disciplines, including their attractiveness for subsequent generations of sociology students. The purpose of the article is to identify the reasons for this situation. The global conditions analysed by the author include greater interest of the classic authors of sociology in the discussion of medicine rather than sport, the depreciation of sport as a subject of sociological reflection, as well as a different level of prestige of the disciplines with which the specific sociologies cooperate. Among the national determinants of the relatively weaker academic establishment of the sport sociology is the fact that – in contrast to the medical sociology – it developed in a certain isolation from the general sociological milieu, and did not manage to avoid ideological entanglements.

Athletes as “Sites of Normative Intersectionality”: Critically Exploring the Ontology of Influence in Sport Coaching

Social structure remains an equivocal term in (sport) sociology. Our understandings of its constitution and role in causally influencing behavior are arguably underdeveloped. Using a critical realist approach, this paper examined how structural entities and reflexive agency combined to influence behavior in an elite youth cricket context (e.g., athletes, coaches). A methodological bricolage was used to generate data and Elder-Vass’s theorizing provided the principal heuristic device. The analysis illustrated how coaches acted on behalf of norm circles in their attempts to shape dispositions of athletes. In turn, athletes engaged in a process of dialectical iteration between reflexive deliberation and (intersectional) dispositions, which influenced their social action in this organizational context. This study holds significance for researchers and practitioners concerned with social influence.

Sport Sociology, In Question1

In this article, which is an expanded and updated adaptation of the 2018 North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Presidential Address, I look at the challenges and opportunities presented to the field by the Sokal 2.0 hoax. Specifically, I look at issues of epistemology and politics as expressed in, and produced through, the field(s) of sport sociology, physical cultural studies, and critical studies in/of sport. I conclude with a discussion regarding how sport sociologists and scholars in related fields might look to form new associations as they continue to produce politically-meaningful scholarship and seek social justice and social equality there through.

Assessing a Two-Pronged Approach to Active Learning in Sport Sociology Classrooms

Active-learning research has explored 2 distinct areas: pedagogy and physical space. As existing research has most often explored only 1 area per study and few have been done in the area of sport sociology, additional research is needed. This research combined both areas of active learning through a quasi-experimental design. Using 2 different classes, Sport and Society and Gender and Sport, students were exposed to an unchanging physical space or manipulated physical space, as well as active-learning tasks of varying complexity. No differences in student perceptions of engagement or learning were found when comparing space variations; however, task complexity did lead to significant differences in student perceptions of engagement and learning.