Tag: Henrik Fürst

In her dissertation, Leah Monsees critically examines the contemporary constructions of talent in sports. Based on qualitative research of talent representations in German and Swedish contexts, Monsees explores talent understandings from a variety of angles. Henrik Fürst has also studied the concept and contexts of talent, and in his review he relates Monsees’ research to his own. While finding room for further methodological and theoretical development of ideas in the dissertation, our reviewer nonetheless considers its contribution to the field considerable.

SSSF, a multidisciplinary social sciences sport studies journal, welcomes articles that deal with sport and social change and social stability in a wide sense, articles about the profound and comprehensive processes affecting sport. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: Does responsibility fall on the players or the sporting context? A study of the use of injury-prevention programmes in Swedish elite floorball clubs by Taru Tervo, Andreas Simensen & Staffan Karp (open access).

In this peer review article Henrik Fürst proposes a reassessment of the concept of talent and offers tools for a conceptual and methodological shift in the study of talent identification in sports. Drawing on American pragmatism, specifically the pragmatic maxim, the article aims to clarify the concept of talent in talent identification that makes an athlete open for selection. The article organizes, presents, and discusses existing research on talent identification and highlights the need for a conceptual reevaluation.