Tag: Rory Magrath

Roberts, Whigham, Culvin & Parnell’s edited collection Critical Issues in Football: A Sociological Analysis of the Beautiful Game (Routledge) sheds critical new light on key issues in contemporary football, with each chapter using a different theoretical lens. This leads our reviewer Arve Hjelseth to commending the inclusion of major sociological thinkers, but also to the conclusion that the book, which he considers a useful addition to the critical study of football, is not ‘a sociological analysis’ but rather many analyses. And that’s football for you.

IRSS is a peer reviewed academic journal. Its main purpose is to disseminate research and scholarship on sport throughout the international academic community. The journal publishes research articles of varying lengths, as well as book and media reviews. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: Enclaved non-heteronormativity and pragmatic acceptance. The experiences of Polish female football players by Natalia Organista and Radosław Kossakowski.

Managing Sport and Leisure is a refereed journal that publishes high quality research articles to inform and stimulate discussions relevant to sport and leisure management globally. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: Outcomes of NFL Europa on community sport clubs byJulian Alonso Restrepo & Christine Wegner.

The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Society, edited by Lawrence A, Wenner (Oxford UP), features leading international scholars’ assessments of scholarly inquiry about sport and society. Divided into six sections, chapters consider dominant issues within key areas, approaches featured in inquiry, and debates needing resolution. Our reviewer is Richards Giulianotti, who edited the Sage four volume set The Sociology of Sport in 2012, and he finds that this new collection, some unnecessary omissions notwithstanding, is a welcome addition to the existing list of handbooks in the field.

Athlete Activism: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Rory Magrath (Routledge) examines the phenomenon of athlete activism across all levels of sport, from elite and international sport, to collegiate and semi-pro, and asks what this tells us about the relationship between sport and wider society. Our reviewer Steph Doehler finds that the collection, albeit less international than proclaimed, still expands knowledge in the field – besides being both insightful and thoroughly entertaining.

Jimmy Sanderson’s Sport, Social Media, and Digital Technology: Sociological Approaches (Emerald Publications) brings together a collection of essays from leading global scholars to illustrate how sociological approaches are imperative to enhancing our understanding of sport and social media and digital technology. A collective of sport sociologists at Nord University, Norway has read the book as a book group, bringing many various experiences and perspectives into a rich review highlighting the book’s strong points as well as its weaknesses.

JSSAE provides a forum for discussion and analysis on the unique characteristics of sports and athletics participation in education. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: Comparison of active and passive recovery using local heat in lactate removal in cyclists by Iván L. Duque-Vera, Isabella Ma. Urrutia-Illera & Blanca I. Ramírez-Forero.

Written by a range of scholarly contributors from multiple disciplines, The Circus Is in Town: Sport, Celebrity, and Spectacle (University Press of Mississippi) contains careful analyses of such megastars as LeBron James, Tonya Harding, David Beckham, Shaquille O’Neal, Maria Sharapova, and Colin Kaepernick. Steph Doehler’s review reveals an entertaining book of great academic value for those interested in sport sociology, and sport communication and journalism.

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: Where do they all come from? Youth, fitness gyms, sport clubs and social inequality by Mads Skauge & Ørnulf Seippel.

This Advanced Introduction to the Sociology of Sport, claims the publisher (Edward Elgar Publishing), highlights the relationship between sport and violence, brain injury, social class, sexual minorities, gender, and race. That's fine with our reviewer, Alan Bairner, but Eric Anderson’s and Rory Magrath’s effort does not, according to Professor Bairner, qualify as an introduction, advanced or otherwise, to the sociology of sport.