What is the significance of sport in contemporary society?
To what extent can sport be seen as an agent of socio-cultural change?
In the decade or more since publication of the first edition of Understanding Sport, both sport and wider global society have experienced profound change. In this fully updated, revised and expanded edition of their classic textbook, John Horne, Alan Tomlinson, Garry Whannel and Kath Woodward offer a critical and reflective introduction to the relationship between sport and contemporary society and explain how sport remains both an important agent and symptom of socio-cultural change. Fully integrating historical, sociological, political and cultural analysis, the book examines every key topic in the study of sport and society, including: debate, interpretation and theory sport and the media sport and the body sport and politics commercialization globalisation research methods.
Retaining the accessibility and scholarly rigour for which Understanding Sport has always been renowned, this new edition includes entirely new chapters on governance, global transformations, bodies, sites, places and events, and a succinct guide to researching sport. With review and seminar questions included in every chapter, plus concise, helpful guides to further reading, Understanding Sport remains an essential textbook for all courses on sport and society, the sociology of sport, sport and social theory, or social issues in sport.
Introduction Chapter 1. Industrial Society, Social Change and Sports Culture Chapter 2. Case Studies in the Growth of Modern Sports Chapter 3. Debates, Interpretations, Theories Chapter 4. Social Stratification and Social Division in Sport Chapter 5. The Social Construction of Identity and Cultural Reproduction Chapter 6. Sport and Representation Chapter 7. Sporting Bodies: Disciplining and Defining Normality Chapter 8. Sport, The State, and the Politics Chapter 9. Governance and Sport Chapter 10. The Labour Market Chapter 11. Sport, Commercialisation and Commodification Chapter 12. Global Transformations Chapter 13. Sport Spaces, Sites and Events Afterword – Methods for Understanding Sport Culture
John Horne is Professor of Sport and Sociology in the School of Sport, Tourism and the Outdoors at the University of Central Lancashire, where he is Director of the International Research Institute for Sport Studies (IRiSS). Alan Tomlinson is Professor of Leisure Studies and Director of Research and Development (Social Sciences) at the University of Brighton, and has authored and edited numerous volumes and more than 100 chapters/articles on sport, leisure and popular culture. Garry Whannel is Head of the Centre for International Media Analysis, Research and Consultancy (CIMARC) at the University of Bedfordshire, is one of the world’s leading experts on the cultural analysis of media sport, and has written extensively on media and culture for over thirty years. Kath Woodward is Professor of Sociology and Head of Department at the Open University and works in the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) on feminist materialist critiques, most recently in the field of sport, especially boxing. She has published extensively on identities and diversity and on issues in social science.
