1st Edition

The Social Impact of Sport Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Edited By Ramón Spaaij Copyright 2011
    180 Pages
    by Routledge

    180 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book critically examines the ways in which sports contribute to, or inhibit, social well-being, the directions these changes take and the conditions necessary for sport to have beneficial outcomes. The themes addressed in the book demonstrate the diversity and versatility of the social impacts sport can potentially achieve as well as the variable benefits of sport in different social contexts. The contributions are focused around four major themes:

    - Sport development and social change: intended and unanticipated consequences

    - Empowerment and personal change through sport

    - Sport participation, social inclusion and social change

    - The impact of sport in society: historical and comparative perspectives

    The volume constitutes the first scholarly attempt to locate, compare and conceptualize the social impact of sport in different local, national and international contexts. Through international comparison and empirically grounded case studies the book provides an important new departure in the study of the social meanings of sport in society, linking themes and areas that have previously been studied merely separately from one another.

    This book was previously published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

    1. Introduction: The Social Impact of Sport: Diversities, Complexities and Contexts  Ramón Spaaij

    Part 1: Sport development and social change: intended and unanticipated consequences

    2. The Transnational View of Sport and Social Development: The Case of Dominican Baseball  Alan Klein (Northeastern University, Boston, USA)

    3. The Glue that Holds the Community Together? Sport and Sustainability in Rural Australia  Ramón Spaaij

    Part 2: Empowerment and personal change through sport

    4. Sport as a Post-Disaster Psychosocial Intervention in Bam, Iran  Valeria Kunz (Swiss Academy for Development, Switzerland)

    5. Esther Phiri and the Moutawakel Effect in Zambia: An Analysis of the Use of Female Role Models in Sport for Development  Marianne Meier and Martha Saavedra (Swiss Academy for Development, Switzerland; University of California at Berkeley, USA)

    6. Developing through Sport: Evidencing Sport Impacts on Young People  Tess Kay (Loughborough University, United Kingdom)

    Part 3: Sport participation, social inclusion and social change

    7. Engaging Sport-for-Development for Social Impact in the South African Context  Cora Burnett (University of Johannesburg, South Africa)

    8. Participation through Sport: Bonding and Bridging as Identity Work  Jeroen Vermeulen and Paul Verweel (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

    9. Race Relations, Indigenous Australia and the Social Impact of Professional Australian Football  Chris Hallinan and Barry Judd (Victoria University and Monash University, Australia)

    Part 4: The impact of sport in society: historical and comparative perspectives

    10. Social Functions of High School Athletics in the United States: A Historical and Comparative Analysis  Ruud Stokvis (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

    11. The social construction and impact of champions  Joseph Maguire (Loughborough University, United Kingdom)

    12. Epilogue: Personal and Social Change in and through Sport: Cross-Cutting Themes  Ramón Spaaij

    Biography

    Ramón Spaaij is a Research Fellow at the Refugee Research Centre and School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University. He is also a Research Fellow at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam.