In this article, Gunn Engelsrud and Birgit Nordtug use the practice of well-known sport psychologist Britt Tajet-Foxell to elaborate on and theorize about how relationships become sources of embodied and verbalized knowing. As research material they chose a sample of media texts portraying collaboration between Tajet-Foxell and the Norwegian cross-country skier and the highly decorated winter Olympian, Marit Bjørgen. The selected media texts were analyzed to highlight the knowledge created in the dialectic relationship between the sport psychologist and the athlete.

Camilla Strömbergs doktorsavhandling Att vinna utan att förlora (Malmö universitet) handlar om barn- och ungdomsfotbolls­tränarnas balansgång mellan å ena sidan att låta alla få vara med, å andra sidan att vinna matcher. Idrottsrörelsen har – påhejad av staten – en ambition om att idrott ska vara till för alla. Men tävlingsidrott i en prestationskontext utmanar ledarna när de ska förhålla sig till denna ambition. Syftet är att visa hur spänningsförhållandet mellan ”idrott för alla” och tävlingsidrottens prestationslogik tar sig uttryck i barn- och ungdomsidrotten.

idrottsforum.org’s weekly newsletter gives you the past week’s on-site activities in your mailbox every Monday morning, in the form of a letter with a link to a web page presentation of new publications. Click below to access that page, which also offers you a chance to subscribe to the Monday morning mail in case you’re not already a subscriber. And do friends and colleagues a great favor by telling them about this invaluable and totally free service.

Join us at Breaking Barriers, a transformative conference exploring Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Sports. Unveil the power of equality and sustainability, disrupting norms in the sports industry. Gain insights, forge collaborations, and be part of shaping a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable future for sports. Break barriers with us! This conference offers not only innovative papers and engaging keynotes but also industry-expert led workshops and discussion panels. It is open to both academics and professionals, creating a unique platform for dialogue and collaboration.

In 1998, Bill Clinton hosted a town hall on race and sports. ‘If you've got a special gift,’ the president said of athletes, ‘you owe more back.’ The idea is that a gifted athlete who received something for nothing runs up a social debt, whereas the gritty athlete received nothing and owes no one. The distinction between gift and grit is racial, but also racializing. Our reviewer of Joseph Darda’s Gift and Grit: Race, Sports, and the Construction of Social Debt (Cambridge UP), Duncan R. Jamieson, finds that the author does not present a clearly organized and defined response to his title.

The University of South-Eastern Norway is looking for applicants with an exciting research idea who is motivated to pursue a doctorate in the fields of humanities, culture, and educational sciences in an academic and social scholarly environment. You could become our new colleague in one of our departments at the Faculty of Humanities, Culture, and Educational Sciences. The Ph.d. positions are available from spring 2026, with a start date no later than August 2026.

Institutionen för idrottsvetenskap vid Malmö universitet söker doktorander i idrottsvetenskap med inriktning samhällsvetenskap och humaniora. Vi önskar få in ansökningar inom något av följande två områden: Idrottspsykologi med inriktning mot mindfulness, samt Idrottspedagogik med inriktning idrottsdidaktik och praktiknära forskning avseende undervisning och lärande i förskola, skola eller lärarutbildning.

Fantasy and reality come together in sports, and in his latest book, Hockey on the Moon: Imagination and Canada’s Game (Athabasca University Press), Jamie Dopp argues that nowhere is this blurring of the borders of reality more evident than in Canadian hockey. We asked leading ice hockey historian and enthusiast Dr. Tobias Stark for a review. Spoiler alert: He proclaims his appreciation for Dopp’s book with his usual eloquence. Read and be dazzled.

idrottsforum.org’s weekly newsletter gives you the past week’s on-site activities in your mailbox every Monday morning, in the form of a letter with a link to a web page presentation of new publications. Click below to access that page, which also offers you a chance to subscribe to the Monday morning mail in case you’re not already a subscriber. And do friends and colleagues a great favor by telling them about this invaluable and totally free service.

Mens vi venter på vinterlekene i Cortina 2026, går vi tilbake i historien til OL i Cortina i 1956 og tar en tur innom det i Oslo noen år før, i 1952. Vi får høre Andrea Goldstein – økonom og sakprosaforfatter og står bak den ferske utgivelsen Cortina 1956 – Et OL mellom den kalde krigen og La Dolce Vita (2025), og Tor Bomann-Larsen, tegner og forfatter av bl.a Den evige sne – en skihistorie om Norge.

JSM encourages the submission of manuscripts in a number of areas as they relate to the management, governance, and consumption of sport. Studies using quantitative and/or qualitative approaches are welcomed. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: Do Minority Lead Executives Experience Inferior Labor Market Outcomes? Evidence From National Collegiate Athletics Association Men’s Basketball by Steven Salaga & Matthew Juravich.

The School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University invites all those interested in socio-cultural studies of sport and exercise to join our day conference, held in memory of our colleague Dr. Donald Macintosh (1931–1994). The conference will be held in person with COVID precautions in place. The programme will consist of several sessions of graduate student presentations, a catered lunch, and the annual Donald Macintosh Memorial Lecture, given by Dr. Danielle Peers.

Academics in various disciplines are writing about sport. Sport in Society is a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary forum for academics to discuss the growing relationship of sport to significant areas of modern life. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: The concept of political neutrality – where we are at? by Marko Begović (open access).

From the outset, the interrelationship between sport and communication has proved to be intense and heterogeneous. Communication is present through technique and the very socialisation of sporting activity. All these components are addressed in Communication and Sport by Francisco García Marcos & Pablo García Mateo (Peter Lang Publishing) to cover the relationship between communication and sport in its entirety. Our reviewer Mateusz Sobiech has a couple of reservations but on the whole finds that this book enriches academic discourse on communication.

The International Journal of the History of Sport is the world’s leading sport history academic periodical with fully-refereed global coverage of the subject. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: Asia Pride Games (The Straits Games): Past, Present, and Future by Max D. López Toledano.

The Sport and Human Rights book series aims to encourage and promote high-quality research on one of the most important issues in contemporary sport: sport’s impact on human rights. Featuring the work of established and emerging scholars and practitioners from around the world, from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and employing a spectrum of methodological approaches, the series examines the positive and negative human rights impacts that sport can have, from mega-events to grassroots, but also explores sport’s potential to be a force for good and to have a positive impact on human rights and society.

Soccer, a.k.a (association) football is the most popular mass spectator sport in the world. Soccer & Society is the first international journal devoted to the game of soccer, and aims to focus on the game in the context of a more global world. Special Issue: British Ambassadors in Soccer Kit or Transnational Actors? Football League Clubs on Close Season Foreign Tours, 1900-1939.

Edited by Michael Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David P. Cline, Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (SDSU Press) takes the widespread participation of skateboarders and surfers in the Black Lives Matter movement as a catalyst to reconsider the significance of the cultural politics of surfing and skateboarding. We asked historian Matthew L. McDowell for a review. He found an “intriguing collection” combatting an ingrained cultural stereotype of skateboarders and surfers as uncaring and apolitical, a book likely to serve as a reference point in the field for years to come.

This Competition Funded PhD Project will implement a longitudinal mixed-methods approach (literature reviews, netnographies, content analysis, interviews, focus groups, surveys) to investigate EURO 2028's impact on the North East of England. The project offers an exceptional opportunity to develop research skills through a high-impact study with potential for multiple publications and international collaboration, leveraging established partnerships with institutions in Spain as that nation prepares to co-host the 2030 FIFA World Cup.

EPER is a journal that stimulates and presents scholarly enquiry in the broad field of physical education, including sport and leisure issues and research. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: Meaningful physical education: Towards an embodied pedagogy by Esben Stilund Volshøj, Kenneth Aggerholm, Stephanie Beni and Kasper Lasthein Madsen.

idrottsforum’s weekly newsletter gives you the past week’s on-site activities in your mailbox every Monday morning, in the form of a letter with a link to a web page presentation of new publications. Click below to access that page, which also offers you a chance to subscribe to the Monday morning mail in case you’re not already a subscriber. And do friends and colleagues a great favor by telling them about this invaluable and totally free service.

Idrottsforskaren och urbansociologen Mats Franzén har plötsligt lämnat oss, 77 år gammal. Hans gode vän och mångårige forskarpartner Tomas Peterson beskriver översiktligt Mats forskargärning. Hans intresse och akademiska nyfikenhet spände över många samhällsområden, vilket inte minst märks i den ämnesmässigt varierade floran av bokrecensioner han skrivit för idrottsforum.org genom åren. Idrottsforskarsamhället har förlorat en värderad kollega, och Tomas Peterson en livslång vän. Mats Franzén fattas oss.

Psychoanalysis, with its attention to unconscious desire, psychic conflict, and the role of fantasy, provides a unique lens through which to interrogate the presence and function of aggression in sporting life. This special issue will advance psychoanalytic investigations of aggression in sport by bringing together interdisciplinary scholarship across clinical theory, cultural analysis, and critical sport studies. In doing so, it seeks to explore the psychic, social, and symbolic dimensions of aggression as they relate to athletes, spectators, institutions, and the media.

Sweden’s voluntary sport clubs would not function without the hundreds of thousands of people who volunteer as coaches, officials etc. How is the voluntary commitment doing today? How has it developed over time? What opportunities does the sports movement have to maintain voluntary and unpaid work in the future? These questions are addressed in this anthology in Swedish, where researchers and experts contribute knowledge and perspectives. Anders Östnäs offers a comprehensive presentation of the report.

The International Journal of the History of Sport is the world’s leading sport history academic periodical with fully-refereed global coverage of the subject. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: From Rikidôzan to the Roku Player: The Evolution of Japanese Television and Puroresu by Jonathan Foye & Lukasz Swiatek (open access).