A Sociology of North American Sociology of Sport: Disunity in Unity, 1965 to 1996

Abstract

As we pass the 30th anniversary of a recognized sociology of sport in North America, it is appropriate to develop a current sociological analysis of the subdiscipline. In the first part we examine the origins of the field and the development of the Wisconsin socialization paradigm and the social problems perspective. In the second part we explore the critical shift in the field, emerging from an engagement with C. Wright Mills, and the development of a political economy perspective. In the third part we review the turn to Antonio Gramsci and cultural studies, focusing particularly on the themes of gender and the body. We conclude by considering whether, given the current eclecticism, sociology of sport is still a legitimate description of our field.

Sports review: A content analysis of theInternational Review for the Sociology of Sport, theJournal of Sport and Social Issuesand theSociology of Sport Journalacross 25 years

“…Writing in the IRSS, Coakley (1987: 76) suggested that, based on a content summary of papers published in the first 14 issues of the SSJ, 'American authors show that sociology of sport research in the United States emphasises descriptive and 'issue-related' quantitative studies rather than qualitative or theory based studies'. Others have tracked the evolution of the sociology of sport as a sub-discipline (Atkinson, 2011;Ingham and Donnelly, 1997;Krawczyk, 1990;Loy and Sage, 1997;McPherson, 1975;Rowe et al, 1997;Silk and Andrews, 2011;Silk et al, 2010), its related professional associations and conferences (Greendorfer, 1987;Melnick and Sabo, 1987), with Nixon's (2010) commentary on the relationship between North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS) and academic programmes of study in the USA being a recent contribution.…”

The social construction of the sociology of sport: A professional project

“…Moreover, when Snyder and Spreitzer presented an outline of research in the field in 1974, two of the five areas they highlighted ('small groups' and 'social-psychological aspects') would, with the passing of 23 time, become more firmly situated within psychology. Sage's (1981) overview, andDonnelly's (1997) more recent account, demonstrate a similar division, with one ('sport as a subsystem') of three themes, and two ('socialization' and 'group dynamics') of seven themes respectively, becoming topics which would ultimately be partly or wholly positioned outside the subdiscipline.…”

“…In their overviews of the field Snyder andSprietzer (1974/1980), Lüschen and Sage (1981), and Ingham and Donnelly (1997) all cite something akin to 'definitional attempts' as among the main strands of literature in the emergent field. Loy (1968), Lüschen (1970) Edwards (1973) and Ingham and Loy (1973) are identified as amongst the key works.…”

“…Yet as the field developed a sociological focus became more uniform. Ingham and Donnelly (1997) attribute the division to 'methodological origins', there being a chasm between the 'field study, field experiment, laboratory experiment' of sports psychology and the ethnographic study of sociologists (Ingham and Donnelly, 1997: 370). Sociologists of sport's engagement with the work of Marx and C. Wright Mills further fuelled the break with psychology.…”

“…Yet there is a tendency for these accounts to essentially be 'self descriptions' of the field (Coakley, 1987: 63). Ingham and Donnelly (1997), for instance, chart the development of North American sociology of sport in terms of the dominant theoretical approaches at particular points in time, with the initial and largely functionalist paradigm first being replaced by a Millsian-informed Marxist approach, before itself being superseded by a variant of Gramscian cultural studies. Coakley and Dunning (2000) and Dunning (2004) similarly chart theoretical developments, identifying the principal epistemological and ontological divisions and concluding with some 'concerns' about the field's future development.…”