Tag: Jan Ove Tangen

In the modern era, mere bids to host the Games have sparked fierce opposition from groups motivated by local or global concerns. According to our reviewer Russell Holden, Russell Field’s edited collection Winters of Discontent: The Winter Olympics and a Half Century of Protest and Resistance (Illinois University Press), offers a valuable and long overdue insight into a surprisingly neglected area of sport history, which extends far beyond the niche status that has all too often been accorded to this significant sports gathering.

The ski jumping scandal during the World Championships in Trondheim, which was widely covered in traditional and social media over the past weeks, focused primarily on hunting down scapegoats among athletes, coaches, support staff, and former leaders. This, however, is the wrong focus, according to Norwegian sociologist Jan Ove Tangen. He would like to see media instead scrutinizing the modern sport system, that demands performances and results that go beyond reasonable expectations of human capacity.

I antologin Idrættens og civilsamfundets knaster: Kritiske samfundsvidenskabelige analyser (Syddansk Universitetsforlag) tar de olika författarna en närmare titt på några av de frågor inom idrott och civilsamhälle som ofta diskuteras. Varje avsnitt tar upp aktuella samhällsvetenskapliga frågor från en kritisk vinkel med syftet att skapa nya insikter som kan hjälpa till att övervinna "knastar" och skapa förändringar i civilsamhället och idrotten. Antologin, här recenserad av Mats Franzén, ges ut med anledning av 20-årsjubileet för Center for forskning i Idræt, Sundhed og Civilsamfund.

The Research Handbook on Major Sporting Events, edited by Harry Arne Solberg, Rasmus K. Storm and Kamilla Swart (Edward Elgar) examines the hosting of major sporting events and the impacts they can have on stakeholders. Christian Tolstrup Jensen has read an impressive compilation of scientific studies in the field of major sport event research that gives the initiated reader a useful and nuanced overview of the state-of-the-art in event studies, its understudied areas and a who-is-who in the field.

Sociology for Physical Education and Sports Coaching by Richard L. Light and Steve Georgakis (Routledge) introduces an accessible, jargon-free foundation for understanding the relationships between sport, education, and wider society. Our reviewers Norwegian sport sociologist Jan ove Tangen, is not impressed – not by the idea to boil down complex scholarly matter into a 122 page book, and not by the result. Which is not to say that the book is not important, only that it doesn’t live up to the standards that the authors themselves set up.

In the edited collection Restart: Sport After the Covid-19 Time Out by Jörg Krieger, April Henning & Lindsay Parks Pieper (Common Ground), practitioners and international scholars explore the “restart» of sport and fitness following the initial period of lockdowns during spring 2020. Sport sociologist Jan Ove Tangen is appreciative of the individual chapters, but not at all happy with the way they interact within the collection. A more instructive Introduction would have helped, as would a concluding summing-up chapter.

The International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics aims to publish articles that address all aspects of sport policy irrespective of academic discipline. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: The 2021 European Super League attempt: motivation, outcome, and the future of football by Paul Michael Brannagan, Nicolas Scelles, Maurizio Valenti, Yuhei Inoue, Jonathan Grix & Seth Joseph Perkin.

Edited by Mikkel B. Tin, Frode Telseth, Jan Ove Tangen & Richard Giulianotti, and published by Routledge, The Nordic Model and Physical Culture examines the relationships between the Nordic social democratic welfare system and physical culture, across the domains of sport, education, and public space. Our reviewer is Joe Piggin. He has been physically active in almost all Nordic countries – and he quite likes this book.

Nu finns läroböcker i idrottsvetenskap på alla skandinaviska majoritetsspråk; det senaste tillskottet är norska antologin Idrettsvitenskap: Perspektiver og praksis, sammanställd av Stig Arve Sæther (Universitetsforlaget). I den medverkar några av de främsta norska idrottsforskarna, samt därtill en svensk och en dansk. En annan dansk idrottsforskare tog på sig att recensera boken för idrottsforum.org, Ulrik Wagner, och från honom blev det både ris och ros.

The considerable growth of interest in commerce, media and politics and their relationship to sport in international academia has resulted in academics in various disciplines 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.