The following items of Sport Study Group News have been submitted to the editors and will be published in Network (November 2014)

Three Events are planned for 2015.

April 2015
A Sport Study Group proposal for a Culture, Media, Sport and Consumption stream plenary on 'Sport and National Identity in Transitioning Scotland' at the BSA Annual Conference 2015 in Glasgow (Glasgow Caledonian University) has been accepted by the conference organising committee. Speakers will include Professor Alan Bairner (Loughborough) and Professor Raymond Boyle (Glasgow). The provisional scheduled time slot in the programme is Wednesday 15 April 2015, 17:45-18:45. The conference runs from 15-17 April 2015.

To register and/or submit an abstract for the conference (deadline 17 October 2014) please go to:

http://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/conference/

May 2015
A Sport Study Group conference on ‘Sport and Social Protest’ will take place at the British Library Conference Centre, London on Friday 15th May 2015 (Registration from 9am, conference starts: 9:30am, conference ends 5:30pm). The conference examines the relationship between sport and collective mobilizations for social change. It will explore protests around the staging of mega-events, the actions of athletes and spectators within sports arenas, and the role of sport in celebrated campaigns such as the global anti-apartheid and British suffragette movements. The conference will commence with a keynote speech about sport and the anti-apartheid movement from Peter Hain MP. Other confirmed speakers include: Professor Jean Harvey (Ottawa), Professor Chris Gaffney (Zurich), Dr Malcolm MacLean (Gloucestershire), and Dr Gemma Edwards (Manchester).

For registration and other details please follow the link:

http://www.britsoc.co.uk/media/67868/Sport_and_Social_Protest_150515.pdf?1410777092385

September 2015
The annual Sport Study Group Postgraduate Forum will be hosted by Edge Hill University in September 2015. The aim of this forum is to continue efforts to develop a postgraduate research community, providing students with the opportunity to develop an appreciation of current postgraduate research within sport and the social sciences. Further details and the call for papers will be available in the New Year.

Books, collections and textbooks written by Sport Study Group members and published since April 2014 include:

Coakley, J. & Pike, E. (2014) Sports in Society. 2nd edition, Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill.

Using a topics-based approach organized around provocative questions about the interaction of sports, culture and society, Sports in Society presents an accessible introduction to research and theory in the sociology of sport. This new edition continues the legacy of the previous editions while introducing new material and examples that bring theory to life. Current debates in sports, such as how youth participation can be increased or sport funding allocated, have been integrated throughout the text to provide a holistic view of society. An Online Learning Centre accompanies this book offering a range of lecturer support materials as well as resources and tests for students.

Dashper, K, Fletcher, T & McCullough, N. (Eds.) 2014. Sports Events, Society and Culture. London: Routledge.

This edited collection explores the core themes of consumption, media technologies, representation, identities and culture to offer new insight into how sports events contribute to generation of individual and shared meaning over personal, community and national identities as well as the associated issues of conflict, resistance and power. Chapters promote a critical (re) evaluation of emerging empirical research from a diverse range of sports events and locations from the international to local level. A multi-disciplinary approach is taken with contributions from areas including sports studies, media studies, sociology, cultural studies, communications, politics, tourism and gender studies.


Dixon, K. & Gibbons, T. (Eds.) 2014. The Impact of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games: Diminishing Contrasts, Increasing Varieties. Hampshire, Palgrave Pivot.

This book contains a collection of original sociological case studies critically assessing the diverse impacts of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. During the event and in its immediate aftermath, London 2012 was heralded a success and the hosts (Great Britain) were celebrated for the outward promotion of equality, tolerance and unity as well as inspiring a legacy to continue these core Olympic and Paralympic values. This book attempts to question these assumed “successes” using academic research studies. Each chapter negotiates a different sociological topic relating to the juxtaposition between the assumed equality, tolerance and unity of London 2012 and some key controversies that emerged before, during and after the spectacle of the Games which, instead, illustrate the many inequalities and divisions that were also apparent. Using the sociological concept of “diminishing contrasts, increasing varieties”, the book concludes that the real impact of London 2012 continues to be contentious.

Horne, J, Jary, D. & Tomlinson, A. (eds.) 2014. Sport, Leisure and Social Relations. Routledge Library Editions (RLE) Sports Studies, London: Routledge.

When this book was first published sociologists had largely neglected the study of sport. The contributions to this volume bring the sports field, the leisure centre and everyday leisure activities to a more central position within the sociological enterprise. Whether amateur or professional, sport contributes to wider relations of power, privilege and domination and this debate represents an important phase in the sociology of sport and leisure.