Tag: Karen Petry
Social cohesion – contested concept, complex practice. Can sport help?
Social cohesion has been a buzzword among public policymakers for the past 25 years. Sport for Social Cohesion: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives, edited by Karen Petry and Louis Moustakas (Routledge) looks at the role that sport can play in fostering social cohesion. Alan Bairner notes that the book should come as a relief in an increasingly incoherent world, and he finds it thought-provoking. “Like me, many will find some of it frustrating. Others, not yet mired in cynicism, may well find it inspiring.”
Constructive collaboration brings together particularities into a comprehensive body of knowledge
Sport and physical activity are embedded in our education systems and in wider society. Education in Sport and Physical Activity: Future Directions and Global Perspectives, edited by Karen Petry & Johan de Jong (Routledge) takes the broadest possible look at this topic. In his clever review, Joacim Andersson finds that when scholars reach a point where their paths intersect, they sit down and listen to one another, and that stories that don’t really connect just need someone (or occasionally 47 scholars) to open a gallery for them.
Useful for almost anyone interested in sports, but primarily as introductions
Pam Sailors finds a useful metaphor in the Swiss army knife when reviewing Ethics and Governance in Sport: The future of sport imagined, edited by Yves Vanden Auweele, Elaine Cook & Jim Parry (Routledge) – both are brilliantly designed, with many small and useful implements/chapters, but one requires sturdier stuff in order to construct big houses or conceive and conduct in-depth studies of sports.
