Why Study Sports Sociology?
Let Harry Edwards tell you about Bill Walsh:
“Over the past three decades top-level sporting events have increasingly been converted into mass media events. This phenomenon raises questions about why sport appeals to the masses. What is it that creates and sustains the interest and enthusiasm of millions of media viewers?” (Hughes & Coakley, 1984)
“In order to discuss this question it is necessary to look at the ways in which sport has changed as it has become a form of mass media entertainment.” (Hughes & Coakley, 1984)
What does it mean to Study Sports Sociology?
“The stratification system generally operates in our society to bind persons to the class circumstances to which they are born. Nevertheless, in any given generation a number of individuals do free themselves of the restraints of their class of origin and change their position in the social structure.” (Ellis & W. Clayton Lane, 1967)
Further Impact
“The United States has long been characterized as a nation of joiners, whose democracy is rooted in civil society (Tocqueville [1848] 1988). The participation in families, schools, workplaces, and voluntary associations greatly influences their involvement in voting, campaigns, political parties, and community projects.” (McFarland & Thomas, 2006)
Sources
Ellis, R. A., & W. Clayton Lane. (1967). Social Mobility and Social Isolation: A Test of Sorokin’s Dissociative Hypothesis. American Sociological Review, 32(2), 237-253.
Friedenberg, E. Z. (1959). The vanishing adolescent. Beacon Press.
Hughes, R., & Coakley, J. (1984). Mass Society and the Commercialization of Sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 1(1), 57-63.
McFarland, D. A., & Thomas, R. J. (2006). Bowling Young: How Youth Voluntary Associations Influence Adult Political Participation. American Sociological Review, 71(3), 401-425.
Tocqueville, A. D. (2003). Democracy in America. Penguin Classics.
StudySports.net is a new site where academics studying law, social work, sociology, and other disciplines come together with one focus: the advancement of the study of sports in society. Through music, art, pop culture, and other issues regarding sports – this blog is “the premier network of sports academics.”
StudySports.net is a program of the OMIA Foundation. The foundation’s President and Founder is John Girdwood.
RT: @CoachFinamore: Did anyone see this handshake between Tom Crean and Thad Matta? http://youtu.be/MhHt_niPrGo
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