Sociology of sports

Sociology of sport
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Sociology of sport, alternately referred to as "sports sociology", is an area of sociology that focuses on sport as a social phenomenon and on the social and cultural structures, patterns, and organizations or groups engaged in sport.
There are many perspectives from which sport can be referred to. Therefore, very often some binary divisions are stressed, such as: professional — amateur, mass — top-level, active — passive/spectator, men — women, sports - play (as an antithesis to organized and institutionalized activity). Following feminist or other reflexive and tradition-breaking paradigms sports are sometimes studied as contested activities, i.e. as activities in the centre of various people/groups interests (connection of sports and gender, mass media, or state-politics).
The emergence of the sociology of sport (though not the name itself) dates from the end of the 19th century, when first social psychological experiments dealing with group effects of competition and pace-making took place. Besides cultural anthropology and its interest in games in the human culture, one of the first efforts to think about sports in more general way was Johan Huizinga's "Homo Ludens" or Thorstein Veblen's "Theory of the Leisure Class".[1]
So the first texts on sport sociology appeared in the early 1920s; however, this sub-discipline of sociology did not fully develop until the 1960s, prominently in Europe and North America. Scholars from both physical education and sociology formed the base of the International Committee for the Sociology of Sport (ICSS) in Geneva (1964). The organisation was formally founded in Warsaw (1965), presently known as the International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA). One year after the first international seminar, "Small Group Research and Sport", took place at the University of Cologne (1966). Since then international symposia and meetings are held on the regular basis. ISSA co-operates with national and regional organisations. It continuously tries to exchange information between national bodies, identify current problems and organise research programmes. There are now some well established research centres throughout the world, e.g. University of Waterloo (Canada), Loughborough University (England), Seoul National University (South Korea), or University of Otago (New Zealand).[2] [3]
Scholars from various countries contributed to development of this relatively new branch of sociology. E.g. Harry Edwards, former Professor at UC Berkeley and professional sports consultant to the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League.[4]
Current research areas include: sport and socialisation, sport and social stratification, sport subcultures, the political economy of sport, sport and deviance, sport and the media, sport, the body and the emotions, sports violence, sport politics and national identity, sport and globalisation. [1]
Several colleges and universities currently teach courses in sociology of sport, and graduate degree majors are offered at an increasing number of schools.