phd in sport sociology

This is a listing of universities offering graduate programs in the sociology and cultural studies of sport, physical activity, leisure and recreation. All information was provided by individuals from these institutions, so the NASSS Graduate Representatives cannot guarantee the accuracy of all information on this page. Please contact individual departments for the most up-to-date information about a program.

Should your institution be on this list? Is there missing or inaccurate information? Please let the NASSS Graduate Representatives know by emailing us at [email protected] .

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Susan Birrell Tom Oates Tina Parratt Travis Vogel

College of Education and Human Development

School of Kinesiology

Emphasis: Sport sociology

The sport sociology emphasis area focuses on the scientific study of social behavior interpersonally, in groups, and in organizations. This emphasis area focuses on the meanings, behaviors, norms, rules, patterns, ideologies, and social processes that occur in and through the sporting domain. Sport sociology explores the hierarchical organizational and management systems and power structures within sport. Much of the research associated with the emphasis area is done in the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport .

Current research projects include:

• Media representations of women athletes
• Reducing barriers to physical activity for girls and women
• Occupational barriers for women in sport leadership

Associated labs

• Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport , directed by Nicole LaVoi , PhD

About our students

Quote from courtney boucher.

The Tucker Center prides itself in doing research that counts. We don’t do research for the sake of doing research—we always have the end in mind. Our goal is always to better the lives of girls and women through sport and physical activity. We often get to see and hear about the real-life impact we are making, and this continually motivates me and the rest of the team in our research endeavors. Courtney Boucher Kinesiology PhD Boucher is studying kinesiology with an emphasis in sport sociology

How to apply

Before you apply.

Before you apply review the MS/MA vs MEd information . All master's programs are designed to educate students in their chosen degree path and prepare them for professional or academic work. Read through the MS/MA versus MEd comparison page to decide which program is the best fit for you.

It is highly recommended that applicants contact the professor they are interested in working with before applying online. It helps facilitate the application process and familiarizes the professor with applicants and their interests.

All required materials need to be submitted by the application deadline, December 1 .

Applications received by December 1 will be given priority consideration for admission and financial support. The majority of applications are reviewed in January for admission for the following fall semester. A few applicants with exceptional credentials or exceptional situations may be considered for admission outside this review period or for semesters other than fall, but these are rare and are subject to faculty advisor availability.  

Graduate school application requirements

You will apply online through the University of Minnesota Graduate School .

• Graduate application instructions
• Admission requirements  

School of Kinesiology application requirements

Applications must be completed online and the fee ($75 for permanent U.S. residents, $95 for international students) paid by credit card. The School of Kinesiology requires applicants to:

• Complete an online application
• Upload a personal statement
• Upload a diversity statement
• Upload a research description
• Upload copies of unofficial transcripts
• Upload one (1) scholarly writing sample
• Upload three (3) letters of recommendation
• Graduate assistantship application (if interested): Assistantships in the department are competitive and the number of assistantships given each year is limited. Chances for getting an assistantship vary from year to year depending on availability and funding. Applicants must not assume that they will be awarded an assistantship automatically if they are accepted into the program. Admitted students should contact their future faculty advisor directly for more information.

Starting with the 2024-25 admissions cycle, GRE scores will not be considered in the admissions review process for PhD or master's (MS or MA) applications. Additionally, GMAT scores will not be considered in the admissions review process for master's (MA) applications.

All School of Kinesiology application materials are uploaded to the online application system and must be submitted by December 1 for the following fall semester.

Application process and timeline

An admission decision notice will be emailed to you once your application is carefully reviewed by the School’s admission committee and your unofficial transcripts and any credentials (test reports, diploma copies, etc.) are authenticated by University officials.

Applicants who apply by the due date (December 1) should receive an admissions decision in January or February. Assistantship applicants will find out if they received an assistantship no later than mid-April.

Review process

Faculty with expertise in the emphasis areas identified by the applicants will review the MS/MA and PhD applications. Based on the comments and recommendations of the faculty, the director of graduate studies makes the final recommendations to the Graduate School, which informs students of the School's decision.

Meeting minimum admission requirements does not guarantee admission. In making admission decisions, faculty reviewers and the director of graduate studies consider level of achievement in previous college work, performance on standardized graduate exams, experience, congruence of the program with an applicant's stated goals, advising and teaching load of faculty in the identified emphasis area, and academic records of other applicants for the same emphasis.

Potential MS/MA or PhD students who have not received a response by late March, should contact the Graduate Program Coordinator.

Readmission requirements for MS, MA, and PhD students

• Contact the faculty advisor prior to the readmission application submission, and
• Contact the graduate program coordinator to request the paperwork for readmission.

Tuition and funding

• Graduate and professional program tuition and fees
• Kinesiology student funding

We’re here to help. Get in touch with our Graduate Studies Office.

Daheia Barr-Anderson Daheia Barr-Anderson

• Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor, Physical Activity and Health Promotion
• 612-301-1309
• [email protected]

Graduate education faculty Director, Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL) Professional memberships Council on Black Health (CBH) American College of Sports Medicine Special Interest Group: Minority Health & Research American Public Health…

Sara Cannon Sara Cannon

• Graduate Program Coordinator
• [email protected]

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Sociology of Sport

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Department of Kinesiology

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Ph.D. Concentration in Psychosocial Aspects of Sport and Physical Activity

The primary purpose of the doctoral concentration in psychosocial aspects of sport and physical activity is to develop scholars who are competent in teaching, conducting research, and serving in leadership roles in physical education, sport, fitness, and educational organizations. Students at the doctoral level typically specialize in sport psychology or sport sociology.

• Sport psychology examines the influence of psychological variables on motor performance and the influence of sport and physical activity participation on psychological phenomena.
• Sport sociology examines social structures on sport and physical activity, as well as the social significance of sport and physical activity from different theoretical perspectives.

Degree Requirements

Students must complete all  MSU and KIN requirements for the PhD degree,  including area of concentration, breadth requirement, supporting area cognate, research cognate, research practicum, comprehensive exams, and dissertation. The exact program of study is specified in an individual  program plan  approved by the student’s guidance committee. Typical courses in the psychosocial aspects of sport and physical activity concentration include:

• KIN 840 – Psychosocial Aspects of Physical Activity (3 credits)
• KIN 841 – Stress Management Techniques in Athletics (3 credits)
• KIN 845 – Sociocultural Practices in Sport (3 credits)
• KIN 858 – Student Athlete Development (3 credits)
• KIN 940 – Issues in Psychosocial Aspects of Physical Activity (1-9 credits)
• KIN 990 – Independent Study in Kinesiology (1-6 credits)

Students in this concentration often complete external cognates in areas of study such as psychology, counseling, women’s studies, sociology, communications, and measurement and quantitative methods. Consult  Academic Programs  and  Description of Courses  for a full listing of academic programs and courses

Expectations

The majority of KIN doctoral students prepare for careers in higher education; therefore, it is important that they acquire sufficient expertise and experience in research, teaching, and service to prepare for successful careers in the academy. Departmental expectations related to that goal are described in  Expectations of Ph.D. Students , and related learning experiences are described in  Professional Development Opportunities . These expectations are individualized for students during advising and guidance committee meetings

Contact Information

Contact the following faculty member about the concentration in psychosocial aspects of sport and physical activity.

Dr. Karl Erickson

308 W. Circle Drive, Room 204 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1049 Phone: (517) 353-9163 Fax: (517) 353-5363 E-mail:  [email protected]

Dr. Dan Gould

Deparment of Kinesiology

308 W. Circle Drive, Room 210 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-0175 Fax: (517) 353-5363 E-mail:  [email protected]

Dr. Leps Malete Department of Kinesiology 308 W. Circle Drive, Room 203 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-5385 Fax: (517) 353-5363 E-mail:  [email protected]

Dr. Nicholas Myers Department of Kinesiology 308 W. Circle Drive, Room 201 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-5380 Fax: (517) 353-5363 E-mail:  [email protected]

Dr. Alan Smith Department of Kinesiology 308 W. Circle Drive, Room 130 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1049 Phone: (517) 355-4731 Fax: (517) 353-2944 E-mail:  [email protected]

SOCIOL 1111: Sociology of Sport

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Why do people invest so much time, money, effort, and emotion into sports? How can sports both reproduce social beliefs and inequalities and, at the same time, transform them? This course examines sport as a social institution with the power to move economies, impact politics, shape group identity, socialize children, and open a space for discovery and self-expression. We will discuss topics like gender, race, nationalism, and disability in sports, as well as play, performance, aesthetics, embodiment, and cultural globalization.

The cultural sociology of sport: a study of sports for sociology?

• Published: 17 October 2022
• Volume 10 , pages 535–542, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

• Trygve B. Broch 1  

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Despite its universality, the world of sport is magnificently, yet often subtly, playful, and diverse. At the same time, sports’ ubiquitous presence in many of our lives is thoroughly mundane and a spectacle of ritual-like proportions. Kids, youth, and adults play sports and exercise routinely, for fun, with passion, and as a healthy but tiresome obligation. And every four Olympic years, on any given Sunday—or under the glow of the Friday Night Lights for that matter—millions of people assemble to watch sports at the arena or in front of a screen. Again and again, sports, with their familiar seasonal patterns, are created and recreated as cultural systems gravitationally bound by our play to familiar symbols, myth, codes, and narratives.

For anyone concerned with the symbolic dimension of social life, sports offer a laboratory par excellence. Under scattered sociological labels, sport is found to be a great topic with which to theorize. Surely, most cultural sociologists are aware of play, games, and later, sports, as not simply elementary forms of symbolic action (Durkheim 1995 [1912]; Caillois 1979 [1958]), but also as the ludic modalities that beat the pulse of our civilizations (Elias and Dunning 1986 ) and personal existence (Mead 2015 [1934]). As aesthetic renditions of social life (Geertz 1973a ), sports twist and turn our myths and realities, at times predictable and sometimes surprisingly artistic, to hold our attention in their own reality (Barthes 2009 [1957]; Gumbrecht, 2006 ). Doing sports, actors, in split-second dramatics, practice their impression management and dramaturgic loyalties (Goffman 1959 ); form communities (Fine 1987 , 2015 ) generate emotional energy (Collins 2004 ); and make leaps of faith that not only change sporting identities, but our social being (Corte 2022 ). There is something about sport as a symbolic universe, a microcosmos, cut off from but nested within the broader social universe that, to culturally oriented sociologists, makes it good fodder for thinking. Footnote 1

It takes a special set of lenses, and interests, too, perhaps, to clarify the polyvalent capacities of sports. In the parent discipline of sociology, many have been more concerned with the serious topics of the economy, politics, and inequality, preferably in social realms that are not just “silly” play. For a cultural sociologist inclined to combine these serious topics with the study of symbols and cultural institutions, a quick glance at the rules and regulations of games—the standardization and bureaucracy that make up their global language—makes sports seem predictable rather than creative, reproductive rather than transformative, simplistic rather than artistic. The subdiscipline of sport sociology—balancing its integrity amid applied, ameliorative research, and its predominant use of the critical cultural studies tradition (Coakley and Dunning 2002 )—has bred a field content with viewing social inequalities through the lens of sport, to evaluate sport actors and organizations. Accordingly, some sport sociologists want to stick to this script and warn that a pluralistic use of theories can “unwittingly” sustain its own “marginalization and putting its future at risk” (Pike et al. 2015 , p. 361). Others are careful critics who note that in following this unidirectional path sport sociology has lost out on vital dialogs (Bairner 2015 ; Bruce 2015 ) and has offered little to sociological theory (Carrington 2010 ). However, calling attention to cultural sociological analysis—from Durkheim, Geertz, and Goffman to today’s cutting-edge work in cultural sociology—can help revitalize a truly meaning-centered study of sports, and, perhaps, bring sports back into our work of sociologically theorizing symbolic forms.

Sociological checks and balances are important and should not be forgotten, but to make progress, sociology needs to move beyond its prejudicial view of sports as silly, unserious, boring, or simply polluted by ideology and social power. Sports are not mere bread and circuses, but is also transformative. At the sports theater we interpret and stage social life in ways that can help set the public agenda and that can change the life course of communities and individuals. Those of us who profess an interest in culture should therefore embrace and leverage the many examples that can highlight diversity and creativity, and thus challenge simplistic reductions of sport to a stylistic activity pitting winners against losers. Various sports in different cultures shape delicate and radically diverse life worlds. In culturally and aesthetically contingent ways, the many options for figure-skaters’ and pugilists’ artistry, and for soccer and basketball trash-talk, can tell us much about how we symbolically maneuver social and institutional power structures. More attention should be given to the “hows” and “whys” of people who make competition bearable, enjoyable, and to those who challenge unfair sports. In a fragmented and complex modernity (Alexander 2017 ), we need to foreground agency within the plausible limits of fair play and unjust sports.

With ideals of thick description (Geertz 1973b ), I argue that we should flesh out the cultural structures of sports—their codes, myths, and narratives, as well as their modalities of play, games, fun, and sports themselves—with empirical data. The hallmark of cultural sociology, cultural autonomy (Alexander and Smith 2003 ; Spillman 2020 ) will then allow us to show how empirically verifiable symbolic processes within and about sports shape social life. Embracing ambivalence and contradiction as key structural features of culture and of sports is vital, and not just for empirical enrichment through surprising analyses, nor simply to make theoretical advances through cases that allows us to adjust taken-for-granted truths. It is vital because the masking of diversity and the concealment of existential ambiguities are political and ethical mistakes.

Sports are multifaceted, existential spheres. Here, various cultural modalities allow us to imbue games with characters and identities as we aesthetically reshape inequalities, stage altruism, and play out the serious politics that shape today and tomorrow (Broch 2022 ). We immerse ourselves in sports due to the many structural forms that allow us, even serve us, to fuse the personal with shared meaning. This is why we play, for better or for worse. Sports are experiential realms where we stage and process personal and public concerns—a hermeneutic work carried out by contestants and audiences alike. The microcosmos of sport is never far from, and always in, dialog with its orbiting cultural systems of codes, narratives, and myths. To get at these meaning-making processes, to expose how sports shape our lives, it is time to pick up a set of new lenses that can bend the light towards our eyes in ways that reveal more aesthetically attuned and tenacious ways to relativize, historize, and culturalize sports. Footnote 2

At hand is therefore a special issue about sports for sociology. The grand ambition is a cultural sociology of sport that goes beyond sub disciplinarity and prosaic endeavors that are mostly interesting to a very small niche of social scientists. Footnote 3 Yet, all the same, this ambition capitalizes on the unused theory-potentials of the subdiscipline of sport sociology that generously encompass anthropology, history, human geography, social psychology, political science, and even philosophy. As a collaborative effort, this special issue aims to bring sports into the center of sociology by asking how its varied affordances and problematics can help us understand, advance, and adjust sociological ideas about the symbolic dimensions of social life.

If we take Spillman’s ( 2002 ) characterization of cultural sociology to heart, we will look at sports both as one of our specialized institutions that organize social life and see sport cultures as a part of a “whole way of life,” and thus work to join insights from the disciplines of sociology and anthropology, respectively. The reward is a study of sport that not only allows us to explore how sport is different and similar to our many other institutions, but that always situates sports among the many other institutions that make up social life generally.

For this purpose, a generous definition of sports is beneficial. Room should be made for a variety of sport disciplines and cultures: for organized sports and unorganized leisure and play; for cultures concerned with sports and cultures within sports; for symbols used by athletes; and sport symbols, metaphors, and icons used outside sports. This entails a relentless chase to discover how the experiential realms of sports are diverse and how we can use these insights to subsequently diversify cultural and social analyses.

Taking a lead, first out in this special issue are Hartmann, Manning, and Green who explore the well-trodden terrain of race, sport, and politics. Diving into the hyper-commercialized sports media that many a sport sociologist has exposed as cultivating capitalist egotism and limiting the transformative potentials of critically conscious athletes, Hartmann et al. flip the script. Leveraging the moment when the Black Lives Matter movement entered sports, they rethink this familiar topic through observations of athletes’ race-based activism. Combining a collection of luminous examples of protest and activism with the concept of social performance, the critically conscious athlete is given agency, and sports are revealed as stages where we dramatize the dynamics of social struggle. While the sport stage is already there—endzones painted and baskets mounted—we clearly see that athletes still have to make sports into avenues for resistance and political expression. They must perform criticism. “Common sense,” you might say, but Hartmann, Manning, and Green use cultural sociology to ask us to rethink the significance and social political functioning of sports. They urge us to use sports to study how various “deep play” platforms allow “public displays of struggles over race and racisms.” In this way, they challenge our ideas about agency in highly stylized institutions and go far in indicating that the relative autonomy of culture and sports is not only a prerequisite for athlete activism, but that sports are emblematic of the Turnerian (1982) scenes we use to dramatize social struggles.

Commissioners and presidents who say that sports and politics do not mix really get sociologists going. Repeatedly, critical sport sociology has proven that apolitical sports are a myth. Yet, few have theorized the symbolic grammar of this myth, shown how it is recreated and exposed how sports’ apolitical politics are challenged and changed. Our second paper does just this. With the pandemic forcing people to isolate and seek new forms of sociality, Klima takes as his point of departure the thriving world of eSports and the Blitzchung controversy wherein the professional player Ng Wai Chung was banned due to his calling to “Liberate Hong Kong” from China. Klima shows how eSports is not only a gaming community, but also a symbolically structured gaming sphere with a code generating the myth of apolitical sport. To our surprise, Klima does not need critical theory to expound the myth (in the pejorative sense of the term); skillful and politically conscious actors are doing this work for him. In this, he uses civil sphere theory (Alexander 2006 ) to highlight how gamers bring the civil sphere to bear on eSports. Indeed, when politics enter sports, they are often thought to intrude on the apolitical gaming sphere. For politics to influence sports, then, we need code switching that makes general politics into an apolitical, harmless part of the game. Political activism needs to be translated as apolitical, or considered to be politically correct, or “pro-democracy protests,” and therefore perceived as a good cause that sports should adopt. Klima thus opens up a dynamic analytic space no longer satisfied with exposing sports as political. Rather, this is a study exploring when and how sports are part of the social dramatics where contests over good and bad politics, and the very limits of freedom of speech, are fought.

Among the most well-established truths in sports sociology is that sports contests, militarization discourses, and the patriarchy intersect to produce the glorified, machinelike warrior athlete (Trujillo 1995 ; Messner 1994 ). In a relentless fashion, the third paper relativizes and culturalizes to show how a growing public concern about sports as racist, sexist, colonialist, and ableist should make us revisit the sport-as-war thesis. West leverages a case study of the Australian media reporting on the 2018 Invictus Games in Sydney. In this sport event for military veterans wounded, injured or infirmed during their service, the one-sided romanticization of war has been replaced by a shifting, fragmented, critical, and multidimensional view on the military–civilian relation. West uses studies on cosmopolitan sentiments, increased sensitivity towards violence, deliberation on the inadequacies of military welfare models, and a more general disenchantment of war. Together, these make up a civilian-military meaning system about the “unnecessary suffering” caused by war that changes how we think about sports. The Invictus Games allows audiences to support the physical and social rehabilitation of the vulnerable soldier-athlete, as well as the cultural rehabilitation of those who have served their country. As a cultural critic, West argues that this narrative places health responsibilities with the individual, and silences critical voices concerned with the inadequacies in welfare, health systems, and military organization. Notably, imbued with identity politics, the sport-war narrative masks the social structures that put us at advantaged and/or disadvantaged positions.

While the first three papers of this issue elucidate how sport cultures are transformed by emergent social contexts and civil spheric forces, the fourth paper turns the study of sports on its head. Exploring the reality program MasterChef USA , Grindstaff and Grosglik expose how sport itself becomes the background representation , a cultural code, driving interpretations and actions in game shows. Even though sport sociology abounds with studies explaining how social gender relations shape sports, few have explained how sport as a metaphor and symbolic force shapes non-sporting organizations and communities. Grindstaff and Grosglik combine the Eliasian (Elias and Dunning 1986 ) concept of sportification—a process distinctive to the modern development and consumption of competitive play—with critical cultural studies. This allows them to argue that sport competitions are gendered masculine and thusly, when cooking is sportified, MasterChef USA reproduces hegemonic masculinity. Trophies are phallus-like; becoming ‘the best’ separates the masculine restaurant-worthy chef from the feminine amateur cook; the heroism of competition reshapes the everyday chore of cooking into a masculine endeavor. An illuminating piece on how sportification shapes a vast proliferation of reality programming, these authors also make us think about how sport vocabularies shape our social landscape where influence is rated by how we excel in competition that tends to sensationalize mundanity. Perhaps, sports as a metaphor, myth, and code, when used to understand and narratively shape entertainment and social life, is less progressive than actual sports?

In their chase for records, statistical measurements, and “fair” crowning of a one true champion, sports can come off as the epitome of rational and bureaucratic modernity (Guttman 2004 ). Figure skating would seem a relevant example, with the International Judging System (IJS) for the International Skating Union standing as an emblematic form of modern, standardized sports. Surely, being a calculated, cold fish who strategizes to maximize scores seems to be the best option. Yet, instead of taking this familiar route, Ji explores how figure skaters train to be able to present an artistic persona that puts on a social and embodied performance of publicly recognizable emotions. The goosebumps we get from an epic routine, in other words, have been incited by figure skaters who assess how to use the possibilities and limitations of their bodies—being muscular or slender—in cultivating mind-blowing performance of the athletic or the artistic figure skater. These personas are deeply personal, yet culturally recognizable ideal types enchanted with myth-like rationality in technical finesse and the mesmerizing routines that “defy” technical regimes through performances of the “authentic artist.” The performance of a supreme athlete is at times achieved at the expense of the honorable artist and vice versa. Importantly, Ji shows that figure skaters are interpreters that carefully shape their bodies through meaningful training regimes. Here, drills are used as opportunities to imbue routines with the aesthetics of effortless artistry, and of an archetype that resounds the myth of natural talent.

What is the worst thing that can happen if sport sociology connects more with the parent discipline and, say, symbolic interactionism and cultural sociology? Ending this special issue on a high note, DeLand’s ethnography draws us deep into the world of pickup basketball. We can almost hear the ball bounce across the court and swish the net as DeLand illustrates how sport history, public culture, and game rules are spun in evaluations of a player’s character. Joining theories of charisma with the concept of key symbols, micro-sociological and performative moments in pickup basketball are revealed as modalities that serve players to make charismatic statements. At the center of the analysis stands a simple yet powerful declaration. “And one!” As a technical term, this statement refers to the chance for an additional point when having been fouled in the attempt of shooting. Yet, it only refers to the chance, since this additional point is not counted in pickup basketball. Nonetheless, the statement remains powerful as it signifies widely felt cultural and emotional “truths” about the game. As such, a multidimensional study emerges to show how “And one!” moments condense and elaborate the character contests in basketball, and a vast symbolic landscape of urban and Black experience outside the court. In pickup, “the characterological forms of meaning take center stage” DeLand argues as he shows us some of the cultural forces and magnetism that are at play when we, as social beings, maneuver the space between micro and macro symbolic structures.

So, what sociological questions can we ask about social life and culture through the lens of sports? What is it that the experiential realm of sports can tell us about the symbolic processes, characterology, and resonance that are at play when we sustain, break, and enjoy interaction? What does sport tell us about how the iron cage (DiMaggio and Powell 1983 ) is constraining, but also penetrable, legitimated, and made bearable through performance? What can we learn from an intensified study of sportification if we are interested in how a seemingly definite cultural phenomenon spreads to shape social life? And conversely, what are the meaning-making processes that intervene when institutions and their specific interests surrender to civil demands? Indeed, what can sports tell us about the symbolic systems that attract our attention and that generate hope in spite of physical impairment and violence in symbolic and real combat and wars? How should we conceptualize and weigh agency and structure as we study how athletes protest our societies’ overwhelming racial inequalities? All of these big questions are dealt with in this little special issue on the cultural sociology of sports.

In various ways, sports fuse athletic and social performances (Broch 2020 ). Athletes execute left and right turns, jumps, pushes, and pulls, as well as throws, catches and pirouettes. At the same time, or better yet, prior to the moment of action, and in its aftermath, the experiential realm of athletic conquests is interpreted and imbued with codes, myths, and narratives. In this process, sport cultures themselves transform into symbols, metaphors, and background representations that we use to direct social life elsewhere. A cultural sociology of sports, a study of sports for sociology, shows how sports are part of social life in this manner, as a specialized institution and as part of a whole way of life. Comparison and pluralistic theorizing about meaning-making processes become key. Our aim is to reawaken the idea that sports are fruitful to consider as we try to unlock new understandings about the symbolic dimensions of social life.

Inspired by conversations with Michael DeLand.

Cultural sociology relativizes, historicizes, and culturalizes to provide case centered insights useful in the production of sociological knowledge (Reed 2012 ).

My formulation of a cultural sociology of sports is inspired by Besnier, Brownell, and Carter ( 2018 ) who ambitiously aim to direct an anthropology of sports in similar ways.

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Acknowledgements

I am very grateful that Jeff Alexander, Phil Smith, and Ron Jacobs made the gutsy decision to go for an AJCS special issue on sports, for providing much inspiration throughout the process, and for valuable comments to the special issue introduction. An extra thanks to Ron for guiding the process of this issue, and to Lisa McCormick for sharing her experiences as an editor in general. Thanks also to AJCS Managing Editors Anne Marie Champagne, Willa Sachs, and Cass Sever whose hard work and expertise have been invaluable. A warm thanks to all reviewers who held true to the standards of the journal and who allowed us to keep up the pace. Finally, to the contributing authors who joined the project of a cultural sociology of sports: let’s keep up this exciting work!

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Broch, T.B. The cultural sociology of sport: a study of sports for sociology?. Am J Cult Sociol 10 , 535–542 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-022-00177-y

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Earning A Ph.D. In Sociology: Everything You Need To Know

Updated: May 30, 2023, 2:17am

Earning a Ph.D. in sociology helps you build a high-level career in a competitive field. As the discipline’s terminal degree, a doctorate in sociology qualifies graduates for roles in academia, business, government and nonprofits.

Ph.D. in sociology programs provide a strong grounding in sociological theory and practice and the opportunity to conduct original research.

If you want to explore a Ph.D. in sociology, this article is for you. We’ll explain what to expect from a doctoral program in sociology, including admission criteria, common requirements and sociology careers for graduates.

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What Does a Ph.D. in Sociology Entail?

What is sociology ? This field studies societies and the human relationships within them, often with the goal of addressing inequities and divisions.

A sociology Ph.D. prepares you to conduct independent research or teach at the college level. Here’s what you should expect if you plan to earn a Ph.D. in sociology.

Ph.D. in Sociology Admission Requirements

Admission to Ph.D. in sociology programs is highly competitive, with acceptance rates at some schools as low as 4%.

Admissions committees look at several factors when considering grad school applicants . Ph.D. in sociology programs typically require a minimum GPA of 3.0 to 3.5, plus a statement of purpose, scholarly writing samples, a résumé, recommendation letters and GRE scores.

Competitive applicants hold strong social science backgrounds with completed coursework in sociological theory, statistics and research methods. Most doctoral programs in sociology accept candidates with a bachelor’s or master’s in sociology or a related field. Those with bachelor’s degrees in sociology typically earn a master’s midway through the doctoral program.

Applicants without a sociology background can use their personal statement to explain how their experience and interests align with a sociology program.

Ph.D in Sociology Program Formats

Most doctoral sociology programs are traditional on-campus programs. Fully online Ph.D. programs in sociology are rare, though students may take individual courses online.

Ph.D. candidates spend less time on campus once they begin their dissertations. However, it’s wise to select your school and living situation with regular campus visits in mind.

Learners set on an online program are more likely to find an online Ph.D. program in a related major, such as a doctorate in social work .

Common Ph.D. in Sociology Degree Requirements

Sociological theory.

Many Ph.D. in sociology programs include one or more required theory courses. Understanding sociological theory helps future sociologists engage with the discipline’s history and its contemporary debates as researchers, thinkers and teachers.

Theory courses cover seminal theorists like Karl Marx, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim and explore how contemporary writers and researchers apply, challenge and adapt classical sociological thought to current issues and perspectives.

Social Data Analysis and Research

Courses in social data analysis and research bring theory into practice. A Ph.D. is a research-oriented degree that prepares graduates to produce independent research projects like dissertations.

Students learn to conduct sociological studies, draw conclusions and present findings. Data analysis and collection methods include interviews, field notes and statistical analysis.

In some programs, candidates build hands-on skills in a research practicum. Learners can also gain research experience (and help pay for their degrees ) through faculty research assistantships.

Complete Residency Credits

“Residency credits” refer to how many courses you take at your degree-granting institution. Most Ph.D. candidates fulfill residency requirements simply by completing their program’s coursework. Sometimes, a doctoral student can earn residency credits by completing a master’s degree in sociology from the same school as their doctorate.

However, transfer students and those intending to study abroad should consult an advisor or registrar to ensure they meet residency credit requirements.

Careers for Ph.D. in Sociology Graduates

What can you do with a sociology degree ? The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports only 3,000 sociologists working in the United States as of 2021, though many individuals with doctorates in sociology hold other job titles. Doctoral degrees demonstrate research skills and specialized training to set candidates apart in a tight job market.

For many roles, particularly in academia, a Ph.D. is mandatory. Below, we highlight some common career paths for Ph.D. in sociology graduates. All salary data mentioned below is sourced from the BLS.

Sociology Professor

Median Annual Salary: $79,640 Projected Job Growth (2021-2031): +12% Job Description: Sociology professors train the next generation of sociologists. Depending on their institution and experience, sociology professors teach undergraduates from other majors as well. Along with classroom responsibilities, sociology professors may conduct research, publish articles and books, attend academic conferences and serve on administrative committees.

Human Resources Manager

Median Annual Salary: $126,230 Projected Job Growth (2021-2031): +7% Job Description: Sociologists use data to understand human behavior and can apply this knowledge to many business subfields, especially in people-focused fields like human resources . Human resource managers have many personnel-centered responsibilities, including hiring and training, mediating disputes and helping shape an organization’s workplace culture.

Sociologist

Median Annual Salary: $92,910 Projected Job Growth (2021-2031): +5% Job Description: Sociologists in and out of academia can pursue research roles. According to the BLS , more sociologists hold research and development roles in social sciences and humanities than in any other industry. Sociologists study social behavior, design and conduct research studies, and present their findings through reports, articles and presentations.

Social and Community Service Managers

Median Annual Salary: $74,000 Projected Job Growth (2021-2031): +12% Job Description: A social and community services career suits Ph.D. in sociology graduates seeking applied—rather than research-based—careers. Managers in this sector plan, shape and oversee programs and services that support public well-being.

Social and community service managers work for nonprofit and for-profit social services organizations and government agencies and target needs such as elder services, child and family services, food security or mental health.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About a Ph.D. in Sociology

What can i do with a sociology ph.d..

Many Ph.D. in sociology graduates go into academia and research-focused careers. However, sociology graduates can also find work in human resources, marketing and social services.

How much do you make with a Ph.D. in sociology?

A Ph.D. in sociology qualifies graduates for various high-paying jobs. One of the highest-paying jobs is human resources manager, with an annual median salary of $126,230 as of 2021, according to the BLS . Sociology professors and research sociologists earn median annual salaries of $79,640 and $92,910 as of 2021, respectively.

How many years does it take to get a Ph.D. in sociology?

A typical Ph.D. in sociology program lasts five to six years. Students with work or family obligations may take longer to complete their degrees. Conversely, candidates with a master’s in sociology may finish faster. Some programs allow candidates to take up to nine years in certain circumstances.

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Ph.d. in sport and exercise science: social psychology of sport and physical activity.

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The social psychology of sport and physical activity has broad implications that affect a diverse range of public policies. As a researcher in the social psychology of sport, you may investigate questions related to obesity, K-12 education, healthy aging, athletics, health care, community recreation and other important issues. With strong research skills, outstanding teaching credentials and an interdisciplinary approach, you’ll be well qualified for university faculty positions.

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New horizons in the sociology of sport

Richard giulianotti.

1 Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom

2 University of South-Eastern Norway(USN), Bø, Telemark, Norway

Ansgar Thiel

3 Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

The relevance of a sociological view on the problems of society has never been as important as it is today. To quote the editors of the journal Nature in their editorial, Time for the Social Sciences, from 2015: if you want science to deliver for society, you need to support a capacity to understand that society. In other words, the technological and scientific disciplines cannot simply transfer their findings into everyday life without knowing how society works. But this realisation does not seem to have caught on everywhere. The sociology of sport is entering a critical period that will shape its development and potential transformation over the next decade. In this paper, we review key features and trends within the sociology of sport in recent times, and set out potential future challenges and ways forward for the subdiscipline. Accordingly, our discussion spans a wide range of issues concerning the sociology of sport, including theories and approaches, methods, and substantive research topics. We also discuss the potential contributions of the sociology of sport to addressing key societal challenges. To examine these issues, the paper is organized into three main parts. First, we identify three main concentric challenges, or types of peripheral status, that sociologists of sport must confront: as social scientists, as sociologists, and as sociologists of sport, respectively. Second, we consider various strengths within the positions of sociology and the sociology of sport. Third, in some detail, we set out several ways forward for the sociology of sport with respect to positioning within academe, scaling up research, embracing the glocal and cosmopolitan aspects of sociology, enhancing plurality in theory, improving transnational coordination, promoting horizontal collaborations, and building greater public engagement. The paper is underpinned by over 60 years (combined) of work within the sociology of sport, including extensive international research and teaching.

Introduction

The sociology of sport is a relatively young sub-discipline. In the 19th and early 20th century, prominent sociologists and social psychologists, such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Thorstein Veblen, and Norman Triplett, already discussed sport as a social phenomenon, for example with regard to the dynamics of social competition [for a detailed discussion of the history of the sociology of sport, see for example ( 1 )]. 1 However, sport, but also the body as the instrument of competition, remained only a marginal note in sociological reflections on the changes that swept societies throughout the 20th century. One of the first large-scale works explicitly devoted to the sociology of sport was published in Germany in 1921 by the sociologist Heinz Risse. Even though the 1920s were characterized by a rapid growth of interest in sports as a topic of mass entertainment, Risse's work essentially remained an outsider's venture. The continued lack of acceptance of Risse's work in scientific circles is basically symbolic of the stereotypical devaluation of any kind of deeper scientific examination of the phenomenon of sport as a rather non-intellectual pursuit.

This marginalization of sport as an “unworthy” object of social-scientific research can ultimately be understood as the consequence of a Cartesian dualism that long anchored academic thinking. In 1641, Renè Descartes published his Meditationes de Prima Philosophia (English translation: Meditations on First Philosophy , 2008) ( 3 ) which contained the principles of Cartesian Dualism. Descartes argued that, on the one hand, physical substances (res extensae) were distinguished from mental substances (res cogitans), and, on the other hand, the body was considered only as an extended “thing” steered by volitional physical processes which are controlled by the mind. The assumption of an independence of the mind, even more, of the “I”, the subject, from a rather “machine-like” functioning body, characterized Western philosophical thinking for a long time, even among those who criticized Descartes' work. The realization that the “I” only exists as something physiological, and is therefore part of the body, was rather ignored, even though this approach was becoming increasingly prevalent in research in social-psychology and neurophysiology ( 3 ).

In the 1960s and 1970s, both the increasing sportification of society and the emerging scientification of sport, led to a growing international interest in research on sport as an important part of modern society. Numerous sociological studies, for example from Elias and Dunning ( 5 ), Edwards ( 6 , 7 ), Heinilä ( 8 ), Kenyon & Loy ( 9 ), Klein & Christiansen ( 10 ), Lüschen ( 11 , 12 ), McIntosh ( 13 ), and Rigauer ( 14 ), just to name a few, marked the beginning of the “take-off” of sport sociology at universities, particularly in Europe and North America, where higher education, especially in the social sciences, was experiencing significant expansion. It was no coincidence to observe during this period an accumulation of international publications on the sociology of sport from a variety of academics. Thus, in the 1960s, the discussion about the significance of sport as a sociological object of research intensified, as did the question of suitable theories and research methods for studying sport. This discussion ultimately preceded the founding of the International Committee for the Sociology of Sport (ICSS) in 1965. Clearly then, and most appropriately, the modern genesis of the sociology of sport was very much an international process, involving many academics, and carrying a strong social and collaborative impulse to advance the development of the fledgling subdiscipline.

However, even though the following two decades could be considered as a phase of establishment and consolidation of sport sociology at universities in Europe and North America, it has been a long road to gain full acceptance for sport as a subject fit for scientific study. In 1972, Eric Dunning wrote that “it is clear that the sociology of sport is not yet widely regarded by sociologists as an area posing problems of sociological importance” [( 15 ): 101]. More than 25 years later, Dunning still saw the need to speak to this status concern, giving his sociological study of sport, violence, and civilization the umbrella title Sport Matters ( 16 ).

The sociology of sport shares this need to highlight and justify the importance of its subject matter with other sport science sub-disciplines in higher education, but also with physical education (PE) in school systems. Indeed, the reputation of the PE teaching profession is comparably low, sports lessons are sometimes taught by unqualified substitute teachers, while PE classes often undergo cuts in school curricula to accommodate other subjects (notwithstanding global medical concerns over the lack of physical activity among young people).

The international sociology of sport faces the further challenge that, as its subject is not only scientifically marginalized, so its scholars from different countries sometimes have differing conceptual understandings of “sport” per se . What is meant by “sport” is by no means unambiguous ( 17 ). In the German-speaking world, for example, even the everyday use of the term “sport” is very heterogeneous. Sport can be going to the gym, a morning jog, a yoga class, or even exercise therapy in the context of rehabilitation from coronary diseases. In contrast to the broad German meaning, “sport” is defined more clearly in the English language. Hence, for example, a more consistent distinction is made between “sport” and “physical activity” or “exercise”. The latter terms refer, often interchangeably, in common parlance to a broad spectrum of activities, such as walking and cycling through to systematic training regimes. In contrast, “sport”, on the other hand, usually refers to a form of physical activity that is characterized by an unproductive and rule-governed form of competition (cf. Caspersen, Powell & Christenson, 1985) ( 18 ). In this regard, the competitive aspect seems to be almost more significant for the understanding of the term “sport” than the physical activity, as sports such as darts, snooker and, more recently, e-sports make clear.

In line with the conceptual difference between a rather broad and a rather narrow understanding of the term, the institutional problems that the sociology of sport has to deal with are also not consistent in every respect in an international comparison. For example, networking between sociologists of sport and medical doctors, who study the benefits of physical training for heart health, may be easier in German-speaking and Scandinavian countries than in English-speaking countries, since health-oriented physical training is not necessarily an obvious subject for the sociology of sport in the Anglophone world. At the same time, we recognize too that academics may purposively seek to surmount these linguistic and disciplinary hurdles through pursuing collaborative research.

In the following, we will take a closer look at the current state of the sociology of sport, without wanting to go into too much detail about international differences. In doing so, we review key features and trends within the sociology of sport in recent times, and set out potential future challenges and ways forward for the subdiscipline.

The challenged status of social science, sociology, and the sociology of sport: periphery 1,2,3

It is not only the subdiscipline of the sociology of sport, but also the parent discipline of sociology, that continues to face a variety of major challenges with respect to its status and recognition. General concerns about the decline or demise of sociology are not particularly new: perhaps most famously, more than 50 years ago, Alvin Gouldner ( 18 ) anticipated a crisis in “Western sociology”. Yet it is our contention that these crises of sociology and sport sociology have reached particularly acute points in recent times.

It was not always so. Indeed, in the early 19th century, and prior to the founding of sociology per se as an academic discipline, the social philosopher Auguste Comte had envisioned that a preeminent “queen science” would be concerned with the study of human society ( 20 ). Yet, since the discipline was established, most sociologists have found themselves working in decidedly republican rather than regal times, where the prospect of ascent to an academic throne has long since been guillotined.

Here, we examine the marginal status of sociology and the sociology of sport with respect to three levels of peripherality: periphery 1 (as a social science), periphery 2 (as sociology, the discipline), and periphery 3 (as sociology of sport, the subdiscipline). We explore each of these levels primarily with respect to the academy, while also referring to other domains, such as policy and politics, and society and the wider public sphere.

Periphery 1 : the Status of the social sciences

To begin with, in the first level of peripherality ( periphery 1 ), most social sciences have a weak status both within their universities, and in the national and international academic sectors, compared to the natural sciences. That peripherality is further weakening in several ways. On the one hand, social sciences have to compete with natural sciences for research funding. Over the last few years, there has been a tendency for social science to increasingly fall behind scientific-technological and medical projects in this area. In this context, particularly the research of newer technologies, such as AI, IoT, and quantum computing, competes with the social sciences for the distribution of funding. On the other hand, the peripherality of social sciences is manifested in its increasing replacement by the discipline of ethics when it comes to researching consequential problems of scientific-technological or medical innovations. This holds true for large-scale scientific-technological and medical research in general. Social scientific expertise is obviously not esteemed enough to become an indispensable part of corresponding projects. In contrast, there is hardly any medical research on a larger scale on societally relevant issues without the involvement of representatives from the ethics of science. The apparent omnipotence of ethical reflections is also evident in the power attributed to ethics committees with respect to the conception of research designs and thus the perspective on the phenomenon under investigation. Critics claim that the interventions of ethics committees can lead to considerable losses in quality with regard to the analytical acuity of the investigation itself [cf ( 21 ).]. Israel and Hayes even note that “social scientists are angry and frustrated. They believe their work is being constrained and distorted by regulators of ethical practice who do not necessarily understand social science research. In the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia, researchers have argued that regulators are acting on the basis of biomedically driven arrangements that make little or no sense to social scientists” [( 22 ), p. 1].

For medical research, the ethics of science has become a multi-purpose weapon for analyzing non-medical issues, both as part of the research group itself and also as an institution of meta-reflection on research. Thereby, it obviously does not matter that the competence of ethics of science rather lies in initiating (quite necessary) debates about relevant moral questions and providing guidance for concrete action (applied ethics) than in the systematic reflection of consequential societal problems of medical research. There is a fundamental difference between ethics and social science with regard to how scientific problems are approached. Zussman ( 23 ) argues, for example, that sociologists cannot answer normative questions that constitute the core of medical ethics, but they can provide a “realist” critique of medical ethics in practice, for example, by analyzing the reasons why physicians persistently deflect challenges to their authority or under what circumstances patients are able to autonomously decide on therapeutic options. In this sense, we do not argue for the abolition of ethical reflections on scientific, technological and medical research, but note that ethics is far from being able to cover all the questions that arise in connection with such research.

Some prominent natural scientists have obviously already recognized this when doubting that the technological and scientific disciplines can transfer their findings into everyday life without knowing how society works. A Nature ( 24 ) editorial titled “Time for the social sciences” emphasized the relevance of social scientific expertise for natural scientific and technological research. The editors stated that “governments that want the natural sciences to deliver more for society need to show greater commitment towards the social sciences and humanities” [( 24 ), 7,532]. Summarizing the key message of the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser's annual report for 2014 (Walport & Beddington, 2014) ( 25 ) they added that “if you want science to deliver for society, you need to support a capacity to understand that society” [( 24 ), 7,532].

From this, we might ask: How can social science manage to make itself heard? And what type of social scientific research is best positioned to be heard? The societal environment of social sciences certainly seems to have specific expectations of their services. Both medicine and scientific-technological researchers, but also the media, which report on scientific results and their practical applicability, obviously tend to prefer relatively quantitative, causal, and predictive research findings, that are rooted in large-scale datasets, and which can, for example, provide politicians and other key decision-makers with “hard data” about prospective returns on their investments. Conversely, much of social scientific research generates qualitative, interpretive, and highly contextual findings that are usually rooted in relatively small-scale empirical studies, and which are less focused on generating predictions or policy recommendations. The challenge for social scientists, then, is to find ways of responding to these circumstances, to find explanatory techniques for engaging these audiences, or to endure continuing, perhaps even intensified, peripherality vis-à-vis the natural sciences, with all the attendant institutional consequences.

Periphery 2 : the Status of sociology

A second level of peripherality—the periphery-squared or periphery 2 —involves the relatively weak standing of the discipline of sociology within the social sciences on the one hand and politics and policy on the other hand. In a similar way as compared to the social/natural science power imbalance, the lower status of sociology compared to a host of other social sciences such as economics, political science, and social psychology, is reflected in interrelated areas such as research funding and impact, student recruitment, the professional or career pathways that are afforded to sociology graduates, and the lack of influence of sociological research in the private and public sectors. A relative exception lies with demographers and other quantitative sociologists, whose “scientism”, in Gouldner's phrase, in regard to methods, findings, and recommendations, mirrors those within the natural sciences in ways that tend to be favoured by external research partners. Arguably in the UK and other nations, sociology has also been one of the disciplines most adversely affected by financial squeezes on social science, and on higher education more generally, which have occurred since the 1990s.

Sociology has been adversely affected by the long-standing hegemony of neoliberal social and economic policies, which emphasize individualism and self-responsibility, in marked contrast to the themes of society and social interdependencies that underpin much sociological scholarship. Additionally, there are few if any sociologists who can justifiably be described as public intellectuals in terms of social profile and influence. Arguably the situation has worsened since the 1980s and 1990s when Ulrick Beck, Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, and Jurgen Habermas exercised significant presence in political and wider public debates. The lack of awareness of sociologists and sociological research by policymakers may also stem from sociology's failure to generate public interest. The observation that “Sociology is only marginally recognized by its own subject: society” describes this problem very accurately. Sociology generates a lot less social and political resonance than it actually should. This became abundantly clear during the Covid-19 pandemic, when its causes and consequences were almost entirely considered from a medical-scientific perspective, more precisely by virologists and epidemiologists. In contrast, the social consequences of the pandemic were as much neglected as its social dynamics. Certainly, questions with social scientific relevance were raised by both health policymakers and journalists. For example, there were strong discussions on how to allocate intensive care beds in the event of insufficient capacity, taking into account socio-economic and educational inequalities. Another topic concerned socially just vaccination priorities, considering the assurance of medical care, the issue of maintaining the economy and work vis-à-vis pandemic lockdowns, and the provision of cultural and leisure activities. Not least, critical journalists asked how medicine can meet the needs of socio-economically disadvantaged groups in the pandemic, or to what extent high-income countries should support low-and middle-income countries in coping with Covid-19 and its consequences. All these questions have direct thematic relevance to the core area of sociology. However, despite some exceptions, sociology has obviously not succeeded in convincing politicians or medical, epidemiological, and virological scientists of its particularly well-developed theoretical and methodological competence for analyzing the most complex, interconnected, and societal problems.

Two further points might be made here on the factors that lurk behind sociology's limited purchase in policy and public domains. First, the self-referentiality of sociology may be one hurdle. The prominent sociologist Peter Berger once said that “it is fair to say that the first stage of wisdom in sociology is that things are not what they seem” (2011: 41) ( 26 ). Sociological theorizing does not have a practical value per se . To critically reflect on everyday theories and to “de-construct” popular interpretations of patterns within social phenomena is a merit in itself. However, critical reflections produce little effect if they do not reach the public. In sociology itself, however, the question of how to generate political and/or public interest, seems to be discussed rather little. Rather, discussions on science-policy are largely limited to (often self-defeating) arguments about methodological paradigms (e.g., qualitative vs. quantitative research), the appropriate degree of advocacy (e.g., critical vs. descriptive-explanatory research), or basic epistemological questions (e.g., anti-positivism vs. positivism). The continuous questioning of competing theoretical models for the description and explanation of social phenomena and empirical methods for their recording is certainly necessary to keep pushing the discipline forward. From a social scientific perspective, this makes sense because critical thinking is an essential prerequisite of systematically “scrutinizing” theoretical assumptions, and replacing them with theories that carry a higher explanatory power. Positively speaking, sociologists cultivate “a kind of “art of distrust” (not only) towards the self-evident facts of everyday life” (Eickelpasch, 1999: 10) ( 27 ), but also towards the fruits of their own creations. More problematically, for non-sociologists, these important practices may resemble a form of obscure sociological navel-gazing that has no obvious beneficial outcome.

Second, and in part following from this, sociologists may also appear to be unduly preoccupied in some contexts—especially in German-speaking countries—with often fractious and inconclusive debates on the status or meaning of “critical thinking” within their discipline. The discussion on the extent to which sociology may engage in “advocacy” goes back to Max Weber and received special attention through the controversy between the sociologists Jürgen Habermas and Niklas Luhmann. This dispute was basically about whether it is sufficient for sociology to limit itself to describing how society changes, but not how it should change. (Note: here, in line with the philosophical tradition of “critical theory”, the term “critical” refers at least in part to the advocacy of social change and to envisioning alternative ways in which society should be organized.) The criticism of an “apolitical” sociology was that an exclusively “uncritical” sociology could not initiate any necessary social changes but would ultimately have a rule-legitimizing function. Luhmann's counterargument was that (normative) criticism of existing conditions leads to hasty judgments. Thus, the attempt to prove the possibility of a “better” society fails because of the complexity of the world; accordingly, criticism falls into inconsequential humanity. We return to this question of critical thinking later on, but here, the key point is that, to outside observers, sociologists fail to communicate the significance of such debates, and thus appear overly distracted with such concerns. In this sense, sociology is confronted with the dilemma of the simultaneous need for analytical value freedom and inspiration for social change. On the one hand, there are political, policy, public, and, in some areas, philosophical expectations that the “critical” standpoints of sociologists should include normative sketches of alternative social arrangements. On the other hand, however, there is the counter-expectation that such normative statements automatically fail to encapsulate or to account for the complexity of society. This latter position further contends that, to the extent that sociology claims the competence to make normative statements, it inevitably disavows its scientific analyses. From these types of debates, we would highlight the broader point, that the “critical” is understood in diverse ways within sociology, and that such diversity is indicative of the vitality of the discipline, and also its positive capacity to investigate and to engage with social phenomena in a variety of ways.

Periphery 3 : the Status of the sociology of sport

All of these challenges are magnified when we move from the positions of social science, and of sociology, to examine the specific standing of the sociology of sport, which occupies a third level of peripherality—the periphery cubed or periphery 3 —within academe, as well as in other, non-academic domains.

In academe, there are dual challenges for the sociology of sport, in its overlapping positioning within the fields of sociology and sport studies. On one hand, within the general sociological community, the subdiscipline's struggle for recognition and credibility is evidenced by the rarity with which it variously is taught or researched within mainstream sociology departments; contributes papers to leading sociology journals, particularly in the United States; and secures significant levels of competitive research funding from major foundations. At the same time, the topic of “sport” in general sociology tends to be a pastime for scholars who otherwise deal with topics such as social inequality, the evolution of the financial system, the family, or conflict, and so on. To adapt Rowe's ( 25 ) observation of sports journalism within the news media, sociologists have long tended to view sport as the “toy department” of their discipline, in marked contrast to deeply established subject areas, some of which, such as religion, have been in long-term decline in many late modern societies. This corresponds with the fact that chairs designated for sport sociology are at many universities either nonexistent or still located in institutes of sports science. Hence, one could say that the institutional problems with which the sociology of sport must deal have changed less than we representatives of the subdiscipline might wish.

On the other hand, in sport studies, the sociology of sport faces a further set of challenges at two main levels. First, at the level of periphery 1 , sociology and the other social sciences tend to have relatively marginal statuses in sport studies overall. For example, the natural rather social sciences tend to hold greater influence and presence in many departments or schools that focus on sport, physical activity, and/or exercise (or “kinesiology”, in North America). They are also viewed—by schools, faculties, and universities—as much better placed than the social sciences for attracting students, research, and enterprise income, and for influencing policy and practice within the sport sphere. Second, at the level of periphery 2 , within the social sciences of sport, sociology also faces significant challenges. Other social sciences in sport—such as sport management and those in the business spheres—are seen as having greater practical and vocational relevance, and are able to attract more students, particularly international postgraduates, by offering more direct entry to preferred employment and careers. These developments reflect a wider criticism that the sociology of sport has been slow to respond to the large and rapid expansion of the global “sport industry” since the 1980s.

These challenges have long-term consequences for the sociology of sport within academe. They threaten the volume and quality of funded research, and subsequent publications, within the subdiscipline. Many students (as future academics)—whether on sociology, social science, or sport studies undergraduate or postgraduate degree programmes—have relatively fewer opportunities to study the sociology of sport in some depth and detail. Hence, we find that many of those whom we do attract into the sociology of sport—such as PhD students, association members, and prospective contributors to subdiscipline journals—have not had the benefit of an initial, substantial grounding in the subdiscipline or in the parent discipline of sociology.

In turn, the sociology of sport finds itself in a recruitment dilemma. On the one hand, young sport sociologists need to complete their qualified training in sociology, to know and be able to apply the most important theories and methodological approaches on sport specific phenomena. On the other hand, sport is a highly complex subject that cannot be adequately understood by only observing sporting events, as some sociologists and economists still claim today. To analyze sports in a competent scientific manner, sports sociologists also need at least a basic understanding of wider sport-related issues and processes, such as how movement and training processes work, how tactical systems evolve, or what the motives of different population groups are for doing sports. Hence, an education in sports science makes perfect sense. Yet, alone, it is not sufficient for research in the sociology of sport. If young researchers in sports sociology are recruited from sports science, kinesiology, or physical education, then they must therefore acquire sociological knowledge during their doctoral studies, just as sociologists without sports science training would benefit from familiarizing themselves with other disciplines within the sport and physical activity fields, such as exercise physiology, biomechanics, sport psychology, and sport pedagogy.

Overall then, the sociology of sport finds itself in a position where three layers of peripherality (as social science, discipline, and subdiscipline) are in play. In passing, we might note too that these insights provide an uncomfortable contextualization to any references to “stars” within the subdiscipline. As sociologists, we consider it important to set out the context in which the subdiscipline is located before turning to discuss the strengths and potential ways forward for sociologists of sport.

Strengths in the position of sociology and the sociology of sport

We may highlight some of the potential strengths and positive aspects of sociology and the subdiscipline of the sociology of sport vis-a-vis academe and in wider non-academic contexts.

First, the fundamental premise of sociology should be viewed as a core strength in securing and enhancing the discipline's academic and wider standing. In 1987, the UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, opined that, “there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.” 2 In contradistinction to this New Right, neoliberal credo, sociology is the academic discipline that, more than any other, reminds us that there is such a thing as human society. There are very strong audiences for that social philosophy in most if not all societies. Moreover, it is also a central tenet of most social sciences.

Second, as we have indicated earlier, the diversity of critical dimensions of sociology, and the sociology of sport, represent a further positive. The task of sociology is not to substantiate what seems to be self-evident, but to reveal the contradictions inherent in it. In this sense, the rejection of critical analysis of social reality, with reference to Weber's postulate of value freedom ( 26 ), is based on a misunderstanding. Critical thinking also has a function from a Weberian perspective, for example, to the evaluation of a means to fulfill a purpose, i.e., whether the use of a means is appropriate to that purpose. To think “critically”, however, from this perspective, should not mean to base sociological analysis on premises foreign to science, for example, on politically motivated a priori distinctions of “good” and “bad”. In this sense, by critical, we we are referring to what sociologists sociologists, in the course of their analysis of academic literature and while undertaking social research, should focus on: de-constructing any errors, misunderstandings, inconsistencies, and contradictions that may be identified in the scientific, politic, medial, and public descriptions of social issues; examining the key features and patterns of social relations; comparing and contrasting, and identifying strengths and limitations, in theories, policies, and patterns of social relations; highlighting and investigating social relations of power, as characterized for example by social inequalities and divisions; and, identifying alternative possibilities for how societies may be organized, including within particular areas of social life, such as in sport. This type of critical ethos within the discipline has strong resonance across diverse social groups, who are both curious and furious about how sport and wider aspects of society are organized, and how power is unequally distributed in ways that lead to marginalizing and depriving outcomes for many.

Third, we appreciate also that sociology has consistently been an avant-garde discipline, in terms of identifying and highlighting progressive public issues that go on to gain some traction with wider publics, policy-makers, and corporations. Areas such as EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) and ESG (environment, social and governance)—that are rooted in themes relating to social division and social justice, which have long been a major concern for sociologists—are illustrative of this avant-garde impulse. Sociologists had been highlighting forms of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of social abuse, discrimination, and intolerance within sport long before these were addressed as serious social issues by most sport authorities. There is then the need for sociologists to continue exploring progressive new domains of research and social commentary, where they may have future influence. One approach here would be for (sport) sociologists to consider alternative possibilities for the social organization of sport for two decades' time, and to think about what social roadmap would be required to get there.

Fourth, the plural, diverse, and in many ways diffuse disciplinary nature of sociology is a strength. Unlike some other subjects such as economics or law, which rather restrict entry into their respective academic fields, sociology has been and continues to be open to diverse disciplinary contributions and influences. This is very much a two-way street: sociology has always bled into, and been significantly shaped by, other disciplines, particularly related ones such as anthropology, education, history, human geography, political science, social policy, and social psychology. Sociology is also a core constituent of many of the transdisciplinary “studies” domains, such as the vast field of cultural studies, which to a large extent encompasses other, more specific fields such as gender studies, race and ethnicity studies, and LGBTQ+ studies; as well as in the similarly vast, if rather different domain of “business studies” or “management studies”. Particularly in management studies, there is reason enough to apply sociological knowledge when analyzing the organization of sport. Many sports organizations, for example, are not commercial enterprises but voluntary organizations. However, blindly applying economic concepts to volunteer organizations negates the fact that the two types of organizations follow completely different operational logics ( 27 ). On the other hand, intellectual exchanges and collaborations with these other disciplines and transdisciplines help to invigorate and to revitalize sociology, through the infusion of fresh research theories, methods, and paradigms. They also highlight how sociology's influence in academe may be relatively broad and diffuse, reaching well beyond the formal (and, usually, shrinking) realms of academic departments of sociology.

Fifth, following from this, we may identify a diffuse influence of sociology within wider non-academic spheres—in politics, social administration, media, business, civil society, and so on. The point here might be more clearly made if we differentiate between “capital S” Sociology, representing the institutionalized master discipline as practiced by recognized, professional sociologists, often operating within named Sociology departments; and “small s” sociology, as practiced by anyone who draws upon sociological ideas, keywords, principles or themes, even without recognizing their formal association with the discipline of sociology per se . This connects to the earlier points on the avant-garde aspects of sociology, in fields such as social inclusion. It is here, in “small s” sociology, that the discipline might exercise its best influence, such as through feeding sociological themes and approaches into diverse degree programmes, research projects, policy analysis and guidance, and public debates.

Sixth, the sociology of sport has a particular need to be open to transdisciplinary views on the phenomena it is dealing with. Due to the complexity of the subject of sport and due to the necessity of frequently also having to consider economic, psychological or even physiological aspects when analyzing the sport of society, sociologists of sport have to be generalists in a certain sense. The advantages of the generalist perspective are at least two-fold. On the one hand, it ensures that the problems of sport, which are usually very complex and demand multidisciplinary study, can be understood as a whole. On the other hand, researchers in the sociology of sport are also predestined to look beyond the confines of their own subdiscipline, which in turn makes it easier to collaborate with colleagues from other scientific disciplines.

Seventh, sociologists of sport have to find ways to secure positions within academe. These prospects continue to be squeezed by the contraction and in some cases closure of sociology departments, research units, and degree programmes for a variety of stated reasons. In response, many sociology units have innovated by connecting or combining with other disciplines—such as criminology or social policy—which appear to attract more students and/or research funding. 3 In sport studies, the most obvious partner discipline is sport management, which tends to attract larger cohorts of students, particularly at postgraduate level, while affording opportunities for collaborative research and teaching, notably in areas such as social inclusion and sport for development. Indeed, it may be that such a necessary, pragmatic approach will involve “small s” rather than “capital S” sociology continuing to operate in sport studies degree programmes or departments. For example, while named “Sociology of Sport” degree programmes may be closed due to low student recruitment, it may remain feasible to feed sociological content into courses at more everyday levels through lectures and seminars. Such innovative responses will vary by context—particularly along national or regional lines, where the discipline and subdiscipline will encounter different pressures and potential opportunities—but are likely to continue to be required at least in the medium term.

Ways forward for the sociology of sport

We have discussed in detail the problematic status and other challenges that face sociology and the sociology of sport, as well as various strengths in their positions particularly within academe. It is appropriate now for us to turn here to consider some of the ways forward for the discipline and subdiscipline in this regard. There are several ways in which sport sociologists may respond here, and we begin by assessing their positionings within academe.

Positioning within academe

First, the theme of interdisciplinarity in academic work has been advocated, celebrated, and even fetishized for several decades; it has also been heavily commodified through the allocation of funding—from small travel grants through to multi-million Euro research programmes—to those who commit to undertake such work. Moreover, universities are increasingly set up to facilitate such work, notably through interdisciplinary research centres and Institutes for Advanced Studies. Here, we echo these calls for interdisciplinary activity, but would add that such work involving sociologists needs to be adventurous and open-ended wherever possible, involving for example looking beyond close, cognate disciplines (such as anthropology, history, political science) to explore collaborations with a wider array of disciplines, including in the natural sciences. The structure of sport studies departments—in which the social and natural sciences coexist—provides comparatively favourable ground for exploring such collaborations. One potential consequence is to enable sociologists to be more actively engaged in high prestige, large scale, and heavily-funded research programmes that tend otherwise to be fully dominated by the natural sciences.

Second, to build on our points earlier, we note the need for the sociology of sport to engage with other academic disciplines and subdisciplines in open, collegiate, mutually beneficial ways. On one hand, there is the concern to enhance the full participation of sociologists of sport within interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research projects and other academic initiatives. Such collaborations across disciplines have come to dominate the research funding landscape, hence the subdiscipline needs to follow this path for strategic as well as for intellectual and wider academic reasons. On the other hand, sociologists of sport would do well to engage more with, and to gain enhanced inspiration from, the broader, parental discipline of sociology. This would enable the subdiscipline to draw more fully on emergent and diverse sociological theories and methods; to highlight the work of prominent “mainstream” sociologists (such as Wacquant) who engage with sport; and, to draw more of these scholars into projects and papers on the sociology of sport. These wider engagements would serve to underline the legitimacy, significance, and vibrancy of the subdiscipline, and to start to tackle its peripherality, vis-a-vis wider communities of scholars in sociology and social science.

Third, sociologists, whether in sport or in other fields, would do well to maximize their social, cultural, and political capital within academe. University leadership roles—such as Rectors (the head of universities), Deans (of Faculties), and Heads of School—provide important positions that, ceteris paribus , may serve to safeguard the interests of sociology and other social sciences, when alternative leaders, drawn from other disciplines, may be decidedly more skeptical or even hostile. Further beneficial leadership roles in this regard include those within national and international academic associations and networks, particularly those that encompass a wide spectrum of social sciences or both social and natural sciences; and those that offer formal connections between the academy and important external organizations, such as with global sport governing bodies or UN agencies.

Fourth, in part to enhance its positioning within academe, the sociology of sport needs to be agile, inventive, and relevant in both the research that it undertakes, and in its external activities. Sociologists benefit from commitments to investigating fresh substantive areas, particularly given that sport is constantly being shaped and reshaped in economic, social, cultural, political, environmental, and technological terms. Such a research approach is more likely to enable sociologists of sport to collaborate with other disciplines that are concerned (and, often, funded) to investigate cutting-edge issues. The development of original research is also significantly enhanced if sociologists of sport engage with and potentially draw upon innovative aspects, in theory and in substantive research, within the parent discipline of sociology as well as in other disciplines or fields, such as anthropology, cultural studies, development studies, geography, international relations, and political science. Further benefits can only accrue from continuous self-critical inquiry, asking for example, what fresh theories, methods, concepts, keywords, research topics, and pedagogical techniques might be explored by us. The alternative approach—involving an instinctive, even institutionalized reluctance to explore fresh thinking—not only makes for a stultifying and boring subdiscipline. It also makes the subdiscipline appear somewhat ossified to our colleagues in mainstream sociology and other disciplines—and thus, far less likely to be considered as a worthwhile research collaborator.

Fifth, all research fields, as international communities of practice, prosper when diverse scholars engage in collegiate collaborations, and in open and temperate debates. The sociology of sport has many such examples involving teams of scholars who operate within and/or across different institutions, for example in teaching units and research projects, or in collaborative publications and gatherings at conferences. As new generations of scholars emerge, often without lifelong commitments to “defending” fixed theories and paradigms, there also appear to be fewer vituperative exchanges or interrelations than in the past few decades. Moreover, in the post-Covid academic environment, we detect strong atmospheres of friendly sociality and restored community within at least some sociology of sport gatherings. It is vital that the sociology of sport builds on such collaborative and collegiate activity to safeguard the subdiscipline.

Scale up: towards large-scale research collaborations

The sociology of sport, and indeed the wider social scientific study of sport, continues to do research that is mostly qualitative and relatively small-scale, and which commonly features individual studies of specific groups, communities, or organizations with reference to involvements in sport or physical activity. Much of this work also reflects a “methodological nationalism”, in terms of empirical focus, research team collaboration, and/or academic reference points. Even comparative studies continue to be small scale, usually focusing on a handful of research groups or locations, while engaging relatively small research teams. This stands in marked contrast to much quantitative research, especially in the natural sciences, which has the capacity to generate much wider-reaching data, and benefits increasingly from technological advances that allow for rapid large-scale data production and processing, and for the meshing of multiple datasets. Such research is also more likely to be undertaken or written up by relatively large teams of researchers, who may each contribute their own data sets, or diverse types of expertise for producing and analysing data—hence, the large numbers of co-authors that we find on many quantitative papers. Furthermore, this large-scale approach carries appeal for many grant-making foundations and external stakeholders—whether in policy, commercial, or civil spheres—in terms of promising findings with relatively greater reach, reliability, and validity, which may in turn guide investments and other strategic actions by key decision-makers.

Here, we call for academics and students in the sociology of sport, particularly those working with qualitative methods, to consider how they may “scale up” their research activities and aspirations. By “scaling up”, we are referring to various potential actions, most obviously the extensive enlargement of research teams, and/or a substantial increase in the number or variety of social groups or locations that are the focus for research. There is, then, every reason for scaled-up research in the sociology of sport to engage research teams of 20+ scholars working in a similar number of locations. Such scaling up of research teams and research designs would enable sociologists of sport to undertake challenging programmes of research that would aim to generate findings that are richer in content and depth, more rigorous in how they have been produced, more comprehensive in their reach and scope, and more influential for future researchers and external stakeholders. This would, for example, enable sociologists of sport to respond more effectively to calls by officials within government and civil society for research findings that are sufficiently specific, detailed, and wide-reaching, and which provide the basis for guiding key decision-makers on how to construct policy and on how to invest money and other resources in different areas of sport.

We may observe too that scaling up would enable sociologists of sport to contribute more fully to enlarged, interdisciplinary research programmes. A problem that has received little attention to date, but is all the more relevant and can only be adequately addressed by larger interdisciplinary teams, concerns the mechanisms of interaction between the social and the biological. In terms of research methodology, there are as yet only few multidisciplinary explanatory models of how the diverse, elusive, and chaotic, and thus ultimately unpredictable, environmental influences interact with biological adaptations at the epigenetic level ( 31 ). However, there is certainly reason to believe that social structures and social regulations are directly and causally linked to genome structures and gene regulation ( 32 ). For example, studies indicate that nutrition in early childhood, on the one hand, conditions metabolic structures at the molecular level, which in turn have an effect on nutritional physiology in adulthood ( 33 ). On the other hand, nutrition in early childhood is in turn, simply put, dependent on the parents' attitudes toward nutrition, the extent to which they have the educational prerequisites to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy food, what food is available in the first place, and what food the parents can afford in light of their economic situation. It can also be assumed with regard to individual sports activities that being socialized into sedentary living conditions leaves traces not only on the attitudinal level of people, but also in their biological makeup. Within scaled-up and interdisciplinary research programmes, the sociology of sport, together with sports medicine and epigenetics, could well contribute to finding explanations of how the “sportive body” develops in its unique, ever-changing relationships with the world, and how biological systems react to environmental influences and in this sense “learn” in a rudimentary way ( 31 , 34 ).

The sociology of sport has the professional, social, and technological infrastructure to scale up its research. Many of the research fields within the sociology of sport have a substantial critical mass of scholars located across the world. Each of these scholars will have their own networks of research groups that they study, and fellow academics with whom they tend to collaborate. A scaled-up set of research collaborations would be facilitated by a “network of networks”, drawing together these different groupings. We also have the online technologies and experience for making research collaborations viable online. The routine use of online communication platforms (Zoom, MS Teams, Google Meet et al.) during the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated how social science research and teaching, engaging large numbers of participants, could be successfully undertaken through virtual technologies. The return to normal academic life—albeit, still, an uneven and incomplete process—has been a positive, social experience for many, marked for example by strong senses of community such as at international conferences and other gatherings. 4 Arguably, then, the post-Covid camaraderie within the academic community, which we noted earlier, provides relatively auspicious ground for the scaling up of research. Finally, a host of core themes in contemporary social science—relating, for example, to globalization, development, postcolonialism, decolonization, and EDI (equality, diversity, and inclusion)—has pressed the transnational academic community, still dominated by global North, to explore ways in which academics, students, and institutions in the global South may become full leaders and participants within world academe. The process of scaling up will require sociologists of sport to ensure that the global South is much better engaged in shaping research issues and designs, and in contributing to and leading research teams.

We may pick one research field, by way of illustration. Sport for development and peace (SDP) has mushroomed into one of the largest, genuinely global research fields in the sociology of sport and related subdisciplines over the past two decades. 5 Yet, most academic work in SDP continues to involve qualitative research that is relatively small-scale, both in empirical focus and reach, and in the composition of research teams. To scale up, the field of SDP research may establish a large transnational team of academics—why not 20–30 scholars?—drawn from the global South and North, pulling together their diverse research networks, to undertake a systematic programme of research across the world, focused on a common set of research issues and questions. This scaled-up research would be best placed to drive a step-change in SDP studies, providing research findings with new levels of reach and significance than hitherto, and offering a potential model for research programmes in other fields of the sociology of sport.

With regard to collaborations with researchers from other disciplines, one has to keep in mind that it is not a matter of course that the participants of an interdisciplinary research group are able to understand the language, methodology, and operational logic of representatives of other disciplines. Disciplines are per se autonomous and operationally closed systems that cannot simply exchange knowledge without translation work [cf ( 36 ).]. Cross-disciplinary collaboration requires an understanding of the theories, methods, and practices of dealing with knowledge gained in each other's disciplines, but also an acceptance of the scientific value of the knowledge produced in the “foreign” discipline. Hence, researchers from different disciplines involved in an interdisciplinary knowledge production process do not necessarily recognize or understand the object under analysis in the same fundamental ways. Thus, in any inter- and transdisciplinary work, attention also needs to be given to the “translation” that occurs between disciplines. If this translation work is not part of the process of knowledge production, then any forms of “interdisciplinary cooperation” will, in reality, be restricted to adding single disciplinary findings to an additive “multidisciplinary” bundle.

Embrace the glocal and cosmopolitan aspects of sociology

We appreciate that the sociology of sport, like the overarching discipline of sociology, has a largely glocalized academic status. In other words, while sociology and the sociology of sport constitute a global discipline and subdiscipline respectively, their shapes and statuses can vary significantly by national or regional context. 6 In much of Europe and North America, as we have outlined, the sociology of sport has been heavily marginalized by neoliberal policies, the marketization of higher education, and late modern ideologies and cultures of acquisitive individualism. The stronger presence of the public sector in higher education in some contexts, notably in France or Germany, can work to protect sociology's role to some degree. Significant cultural differences also arise. In the United States, quantitative sociology has greatest traction. In France, sociologists contribute prominently to social and political debates in the public sphere. In Latin America, social sciences, including in the sociology of sport, have tended to convey relatively direct and extensive forms of oppositional political critique—reflecting decades of structural crises, and academic activism against authoritarianism and social injustices—alongside adventurous and expansive forms of social and historical analysis. In other regions—such as in East Asia—the sociology of sport tends to be relatively well represented within sport-focused departments and universities, in part reflecting institutional commitments to housing a comprehensive array of disciplines.

The glocal aspects of sociology and the sociology of sport—particularly in how the discipline and subdiscipline are understood and performed with respect to theory and method—should be strongly embraced and nurtured. Such glocal processes reflect how sociologists, with diverse cultural and other backgrounds, seek to apply and develop the discipline and subdiscipline, in ways that are most meaningful and applicable within their different locations and traditions of scholarship. They protect and sustain the cosmopolitanism of sociology, and of the sociology of sport, by recognizing and valuing cultural “difference”, in this case with regard to the plurality of sociological perspectives per se . Further, these glocal and cosmopolitan aspects are in line with calls for global sociology to advance the voices of relatively marginalized approaches and perspectives, such as those from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and from non-Anglophone cultures (see our further comments, below). Ideally, they should also enhance greatly the vitality of the discipline and subdiscipline, by enabling diverse approaches and perspectives to commingle—such as through research projects, publications, and conference debates—in ways that inspire further, original work, in theory, method, and empirical inquiry.

Theory: plurality, and fresh approaches

Following from this, we contend that it is important for any discipline or subdiscipline in the social sciences to have as wide a range of theoretical and methodological techniques at its disposal as possible, so that in social research the most appropriate theories and methods may be used, to the greatest effect, in order to study, analyse, and explain social phenomena or processes that are under investigation. In addition, theoretical and methodological diversity and innovation represent important indices of the health and vitality of any social science. Fresh theoretical developments point to a vibrant academic community, whereas little conceptual innovation suggests a discipline that is staid if not entropic.

The sociology of sport has an uneven position in regard to theory. On one side, the subdiscipline has a long history of diverse theoretical approaches that have been utilized, often with significant variations by nation or region. Further theoretical range is afforded by referring back to the master discipline of sociology, and by engaging with cognate disciplines that often have significant sociological dimensions, such as anthropology, education, geography, and political science.

On the other side, the subdiscipline has arguably become too reliant on a small number of theories, some of which have been reproduced over three to four generations of scholars with few really significant redevelopments or reconfigurations of the main precepts or arguments. Among the most influential theorists here have been Bourdieu and Foucault, known worldwide in the social sciences; Elias, mainly known and used in the UK and some parts of the European continent; and, Luhmann, best known and understood in Germany and Scandinavia. Notably, with the exception of the even older Elias (1897–1993), these modern theorists were of a largely similar historical period, being born in the interwar period (1920s–1930), and developing their oeuvres and magni opi in the 1960s through to the 1980s. In other words, their main work was developed some 40–60 years ago, with the apogee in their usage within sociology and the sociology of sport perhaps having been in the late 1980s or early 1990s, some 30 years ago.

We have no doubt that sociologists of sport will continue to draw significantly on these theorists. Indeed, as the space and time allocated to sociology within sport-related degree programmes come under pressure, it becomes more likely that they will be among the few if only social theorists that students encounter to any significant extent. However, we contend that the sociology of sport needs to pursue and to sustain a wider range of theoretical approaches, for the reasons mapped out above, including with respect to the benefits of maintaining a cosmopolitan and glocal array of standpoints, and to enhance the subdiscipline's vitality and capacity to respond to fresh research challenges. Thus, looking forward a further 20–30 years, to the 2040s–2050s, sociologists of sport should aspire to engage with a wider array of theorists and theoretical frameworks, keeping in mind that the primary works of the quartet above would by that point be some 60–90 years old, and in the case of Elias (1939) ( 38 ), even over a century in vintage. As noted earlier, lack of theoretical variation and renewal would leave the sociology of sport more open to appearing staid and entropic to those in sociology or wider social science. In turn, it would weaken our appeal in terms of securing research funding, or being invited into multi-disciplinary research collaborations.

Transnational coordination

Given its challenging circumstances, sociologists of sport across the world need to do all they can to transform and enhance the transnational constitution and coordination of their global field. Three key points follow here.

First, the transnational sociology of sport continues to be dominated by the Anglophone global North, most obviously involving North America, the UK, Australasia, and Anglophone scholarship in Europe, East Asia, and elsewhere. This transnational field has far more to do in order to engage fully with actual, emergent, and potential scholarship across the vast diversity of low- and middle-income countries. Such an engagement is vital if the sociology of sport is to be a genuinely “global” field. It is also vital if the subdiscipline is to observe, through a kind of collective self-practice, its own incessant and ubiquitous demands for all institutions in sport to tackle fundamental issues of marginalization, colonization, and decolonization. This would enable the subdiscipline to rethink its ontological, epistemological, methodological, and substantive dimensions in ways that fully engage LMIC and non-Anglophone perspectives. Moreover, it is essential that we recognize the vast social divisions and inequalities across the global South; hence, for example, we must do all we can to ensure that the social scientific “voices” of the “global South” are not purely or primarily those of national or regional elites.

A particular problem of international collaboration, however, lies in what we might term the language and the ontology of publication. For many years, the Anglophone research community took little notice of research in other countries. This is, of course, because representatives from Anglophone countries have had no need to adopt another language for international discourse. However, in so many other countries—for example France, Spain, Germany, and Poland in Europe; Brazil, Argentina, and Chile in South America; China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in East Asia—research projects were and continue to be conducted, books written, and articles published, but in the local languages. The increase in the importance of world rankings for the self-image of universities and the increasingly demanded internationalization of research cooperation has led to a rethinking of academic work (including in the social sciences) in these countries. Now, English is increasingly the lingua franca of scientific communication for these countries as well. And yet, there is a large number of highly interesting research results that have not been published in English and will never find their way into the international sport sociology community if they are not translated. At the same time, academics in many of these countries argue that the Anglophone ontologies of writing or publishing in the social sciences—particularly for journal articles, but also for larger works such as PhD theses—are very different to the approaches found in their home nations. Again, there is a concern that global sociology may become too homogenized, and undermine its glocal diversity, if scholars in Anglophone countries fail to recognize significant cultural differences in how sociology and other social sciences are “done” in non-Anglophone and/or global South contexts.

Second, the principles behind the points above—centred on tackling tendencies towards homogenization and marginalization within the subdiscipline—apply across the world, including of course in the global North. Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) concerns must be directed onto the subdiscipline in full, and that means by looking beyond “acknowledgements of privilege”, to continue to press higher education institutions to redistribute resources such as studentships, posts, research grants, leadership roles, and academic status. Thus, the sociology of sport is ripe for transformation with regard to repairing the consequences of social divisions along the lines of class, gender, ethnicity, race, disability, and, as flagged above, North/South and Anglophone/Non-Anglophone divisions.

Third, transnational networks and associations need to identify ways in which the subdiscipline can become far more coherent and coordinated, to tackle tendencies towards fragmentation. The most obvious area lies in respect of the international associations for sociologists of sport, such as EASS, ISSA, NASSS, 3SLF, and also the various national or regional associations and networks within the subdiscipline, such as in different parts of Europe, East Asia, and Oceania. 7 Currently, each association tends to engage particular clusters of academics, with some overlaps. However, we find that North American academics tend not to attend conferences in Europe hosted by EASS/ISSA in the summer, while NASSS conferences (staged in November) tend to attract a relatively limited cohort of European academics, especially non-Anglophone ones. It is vital that these associations, particularly through their leadership groups, explore ways to facilitate more effective communication and coordination. The benefits here would include greater volume of interaction and exchanges between individuals and research groups across these diverse associations and networks; and, a stronger cross-fertilization of research ideas, networks, and projects. This would also enable associations potentially to co-stage events—as we saw with the EASS and ISSA joint conference in Tübingen in 2022—and it would also avoid the particularly counter-productive occasions, which have happened twice in recent years, when two international associations have staged their own conferences at the same time as each other. Further, a focus on international associations and conferences would draw sociologists of sport to reflect on how they may engage with other associations, whether these are more all-encompassing ones (such as the European College of Sport Sciences, which includes a significant social science dimension), or more disciplinary specific ones (such as those in sport management, physical education, sport history, sport philosophy, sport economics, and so on).

More horizontal and less vertical collaborations

There needs to be a better balance between vertical and horizontal types of networking and collaboration in the sociology of sport. By “vertical”, we mean hierarchical collaborations, mainly between academics at senior (e.g., professor), mid-career (e.g., associate professor), early career (e.g., assistant professors, postdoctoral research associates), and doctoral researcher levels. Conversely, “horizontal” refers to collaborations among academics at the same level, such as between early career researchers or between PhD students.

We recognize that the volume and variety of vertical collaborations have grown substantially over the last two or three decades. Doctoral researchers and their supervisors now co-author many more papers than in the past, in ways that are coming to mimic the formats found with colleagues in the natural sciences. We find that funded research projects often feature teams of researchers, usually led by an established academic, with early career and doctoral researchers also on board with the role of collecting and analysing data. We appreciate there are further structural and cultural reasons for these hierarchies. In some countries, university employment and departmental structures are set up with Chairs (professors) at the centre, supported by collaborating clusters of more junior colleagues. Younger academics may also seek to work with specific senior colleagues, developing their research skills, publication profiles, and, crucially in many contexts, professional networks in ways that enhance future employment and career-building opportunities. On occasion, however, these vertical relations can inhibit the academic development and personal freedoms of younger colleagues, such as when senior staff act almost as conservators with their early career and doctoral researchers, controlling which other academics they can talk to, or restricting their freedom of association at conferences.

In our view, this verticality in academe needs to be balanced by a much greater focus on horizontal collaborations, particularly with doctoral and early career researchers. More horizontal collaborations of this kind would help to enhance the vitality of the sociology of sport; the exploration of new theories, methodologies, and substantive areas of research; and, the array of interdisciplinary and international partnerships across the subdiscipline. These horizontal forms of networking enable young academics to gain valuable experience in genuinely collaborative, creative research projects and publishing; to build new networks and communities of colleagues internationally; and, to share their accounts, experiences, and perspectives with peers at similar stages of career development.

It is worth recalling that, from the late 1960s onwards, it was groups of young academics at similar career stages who undertook much of the foundational work within the sociology of sport, and also who led much of the adventurous development of new research paradigms across the subdiscipline. Such horizontal collaborations among young scholars would help to revitalize the sociology of sport in this way. Of course, to facilitate this process, more powerful, senior staff would at least be required to take a step back, or, better still, to positively encourage and enable such peer-based collaborations.

Public engagement

Famously, CW Mills (1959) ( 39 ) argued that a defining feature of the sociological imagination was the capacity to view “personal troubles” as “public issues”, that impact on many people, and which are shaped by diverse structural factors and cultural processes. From this, we may consider how this sociological imagination may be fostered and harnessed by sociology, and the sociology of sport, in ways that enhance their social relevance and public engagement. Crucially, if sociology is to enhance its public engagement, it has no choice but to break away from a pure observer role and to develop greater competence in the translation of its results. In this context, contact with both politics and sports practice plays an important role.

Public engagement takes many forms, including advising leading decision-makers and other officials within key organizations; working with organizations to enhance their policy and practice; and, contributing to debates in the public sphere (e.g., through mass and social media). The easiest way of doing this latter form of public engagement is through short articles in media open to sociological contributions; the online outlet, The Conversation , provides an obvious example. These outputs may accumulate many “reads” or “clicks”, and may enable PhD students and early career researchers to put down markers for their research and academic presence, but the extent to which they have direct non-academic influence or impact is very much open to debate. On the other side, perhaps the most fully impactful approach is to ensure that sociologists are able to take positions on scientific advisory bodies and other such panels, which feed directly into policymaking at national and international levels. Further impactful and direct modes of external engagement include organizational collaborations, which may involve the “co-creation” of research projects, and the translation of findings into fresh strategies, policies, and practices for the outside partner.

There is a long-term trend for national and international research foundations to direct social scientists towards these types of external collaboration or impact in order to secure research funding. Hence, sociologists would do well to build these links in the pursuit of funding. We should recall also that these external partners take many forms. Certainly, sport clubs and governing bodies, governmental bodies (local, national, and international), and corporations are included here, but so too are NGOs, campaign groups, social movements, and other agencies that are perhaps more likely to engage directly with, and to champion the causes of, marginalized social groups, and which perhaps also offer relatively close fits with the theories and perspectives that are held by some sociologists. In many universities—especially for sociologists and other academics holding privileged positions within “research-intensive”, low-teaching institutions—the pursuit of this research funding is a strategic necessity. Failure to do so serves mainly to marginalize further the discipline in terms of securing its requisite share of research funding, its relevance or influence with external organizations and publics, and its future within higher education; otherwise, university leaders will inevitably be required to ask: why invest in this discipline, and not in others that are willing to pursue funded research and external impact?

Our aim here has been to examine critically the academic and wider societal position of the sociology of sport, and to advance specific ways forward (or “new horizons”) for the subdiscipline. We have argued that social science, sociology, and the sociology of sport hold comparatively peripheral positions—which we have termed periphery 1,2,3 respectively—within academe and more broadly; indeed, much of the subdiscipline's marginality derives from its location within these wider academic milieux. In contrast, we also highlighted a range of strengths and advantages that sociology and the sociology of sport possess within academic and wider, non-academic fields. These two sections provided the critical context for our discussion of routes ahead for the sociology of sport, specifically in improving its positioning within academe, scaling up to produce large-scale research collaborations, embracing and building upon its glocal and cosmopolitan aspects, enhancing transnational coordination, advancing horizontal collaborations, and strengthening public engagement.

To conclude, we put forward three main points. First, our intention has been to advance an analysis that is critically realistic and plausibly aspirational with regard to the contemporary position and future possibilities of the sociology of sport, particularly within the academic context. In doing so, we have sought to exercise the type of critical reflexivity that is broadly advocated in much of sociology and the sociology of sport, and to refer this back onto the discipline and subdiscipline themselves. In our view, this type of concerted critical reflection is essential for the future development of any subdiscipline within sport studies, whether these might be located within the social or natural sciences. Hence, we would encourage scholars in diverse fields such as sport biomechanics, geography, history, management, medicine, nutrition, physiology, political science, and psychology also to reflect critically on their respective conditions, positions, and future possibilities, within academe and beyond. Many of the key themes that we highlight here—such as the relative positioning of the subdiscipline within academe, its transnational coordination, and public engagement—may be relevant and applicable to such critical assessments.

Second, our analysis is ultimately directed towards enhancing the sociology of sport, particularly within the academic realm. Sociology has a critical role to play in the full gamut of interdisciplinary research fields within and beyond sport. As we have argued, we do not work in the most auspicious circumstances: disciplines such as psychology and biology tend to have greater prominence, and at times to display a degree of triumphalism, within many research fields. Yet, as the Covid-19 pandemic alone has demonstrated, there is an essential need to look beyond the biological and the psychological, and to examine the sociological dimensions of any research issue. 8 At the same time, a critical task for sociologists within sport and other fields is to adapt and to reposition the discipline, in the ways that we have outlined, to secure its necessary centrality within the academy and beyond.

Third, in this context, we would also like to emphasize once again that even the most advanced empirical methodology for capturing psychological, biological, and social patterns of human coexistence is no substitute for theory-led, critical sociological reflection. Big data research provides a current example for the irreplaceability of critical sociological reflections where they are increasingly being considered as unnecessary. The number of researchers who are convinced that collecting tons of behavioural or communicational data from millions of people automatically leads to “the truth” is continuously rising. Using big data research techniques to analyse patterns of social interactions, collective behavioural patterns, or consumer trends, certainly means progress for certain types of studies in social science studies, considering the chaos of societal communication. However, this does not mean that critical thinking, and particularly a critical theory-driven sociological analysis, has become useless. On the one hand, pure big data approaches have the disadvantage that “no matter their “depth” and the sophistication of data-driven methods (…) in the end they merely fit curves to existing data” ( 41 ). To give one example ( 42 ): even if it is possible to collect billions of data about sentiments of football fans' tweets, the findings regarding collective emotionality in football still remain superficial if the tweets cannot be contextualized against the background of discursive strategies on Twitter, emotional contagion in larger groups, the typical “language” of fans in this sport (or in other words, theoretical sociological reflections on the dynamics of collective emotions in sports), as well as the large-scale, social structural processes (such as globalization, commodification, securitization, mediatization, and postmodernization) that have reshaped elite-level global football over the past few decades ( 43 ). On the other hand, to avoid an uncritical approach to the results of big data surveys, it is necessary to figure out “the sociotechnical processes involved along the “data building chain”” ( 44 ). Data does not just appear out of thin air. They build on previous research, but they are also influenced by existing actor constellations in the relevant research field, by power relations in scientific circles, and, last but not least, by scientific trends. Research, including big data research, is therefore always characterized by a pre-selection of questions, variables and study populations, which in turn depend on the social context in which they are “created”.

Sociological thinking, it can be said, is therefore not replaceable, either in science in general or in sports science in particular. On the contrary: in a world in which it is possible to manipulate publics via social networks, in which political pressure can influence the selection of research questions that are publicly considered relevant, and in which complexity is a central characteristic of every world problem, critical sociological thinking is even more important than ever.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editor and the two reviewers for their very constructive and insightful comments on the initial version of this paper.

1 Triplett ( 2 ) – likely less familiar to sociologists – wrote what is widely considered to be the first study in sport psychology.

2 Interview for Women’s Own magazine, published 1 October 1987.

3 In the UK, many sociology departments have established criminology programmes. One of us recommended and planned out a full criminology undergraduate programme in the mid-2000s for a sociology section at a university in Scotland, but this failed to gain the support of the section head. 15 years later, a criminology undergraduate programme was established by that same sociology section.

4 We have in mind here the communal atmosphere at the joint European Association for Sociology of Sport (EASS) and International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA) conference at the University of Tübingen in June 2022.

5 See for example Collison et al. ( 35 ).

6 On glocalization as a theory and social process, see Robertson ( 37 ).

7 These refer to European Association for Sociology of Sport (EASS), International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA), North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS), and Société de Sociologie du Sport de Langue Française (3SLF).

8 See for example the arguments of Connell ( 40 ) on the role of sociology with respect to Covid-19.

Author contributions

The two authors made relatively equal contributions to the paper. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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• Ph.D. in Physical Education, Sports, and Exercise Science w/ Sport Administration

Doctoral Program, Ph.D. in Physical Education, Sports, and Exercise Science with a concentration in Sport Administration

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The Ph.D. program provides students with the choice of a research focus in one of five areas:

• Sport Marketing 
• Sport Leadership

The Program also requires a minor/supporting area where students, in concert with their advisor, may tailor their program of study to meet specific educational and employment objectives.

Students entering the program with a previous degree from a variety of disciplines other than sport administration such as physical education, business administration, journalism, marketing, economics or other relevant majors will be considered.

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Entrance information concerning admission and program requirements is provided in the University of New Mexico Graduate bulletin. In addition, the Department of Health, Exercise and Sports Sciences has developed a guide to be used by all department graduate students to ensure that all graduate requirements are satisfied at the appropriate times. The criteria for admission to the graduate programs in Sport Administration include the following:

• Master's degree for Ph.D. program.
• GPA in most recent degree of 3.0 or better.
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• Three letters of recommendation.
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Submitting Your Application and Documents

Graduate applications are now submitted online at unm.edu/apply . All required documents and transcripts are submitted through the online application.

Concentration in Sport Administration

• Minimum of 72 credit hours plus 18 dissertation hours.
• Appropriate Master's degree credits may be transferred in and applied toward the total minimum hours with approval from the committee of studies.
• After completion of coursework, a written and oral comprehensive exam is required.
• 24 credit hour minimum of classroom work beyond the master's to be taken in Sport Administration at UNM.
• Note:  Due to the program's reputation and the fact that very few institutions offer a doctoral degree in Sport Administration/Sport Management, we receive numerous applications each year. Consequently, the number of openings in our doctoral program is limited and admission is extremely competitive. Although the number of admissions varies, a relatively small number of applicants are accepted.

Required Foundational Courses: (21 credit hours)

• PEP 540 Sport Sociology
• PEP 541 Ethics in Sport and Fitness
• PEP 545 Sport Leadership
• PEP 547 Sport Marketing and Promotion
• PEP 548 Financing Sport
• PEP 561 Risk Management in Sport
• PEP 565 Legal Aspects of Sport

Required Core Courses (9 credit hours)

• PEP 612 Organizational Theory in Sport
• PEP 614 Consumer Behavior in Sport
• PEP 618 Seminar in Sport Research

Note: The student's committee of studies may require additional courses depending on the student's academic preparation and specialization. Additionally, an internship in teaching, research, or administration may be recommended. 

Inquiry Skills (at least 18 credit hours)

• LLSS 502 Naturalistic Inquiry
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Minor or Supporting Area (24 credit hours)

Content is determined by the student and her/his advisor.

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Additional courses offered for completion of the degree requirements:

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• Administration of Sport Personnel
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• Principles of Coaching
• Women in Sport
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PhD Course 2022: Culture, Sport and Society

The aim of the course is to advance student interest in, and understanding of, the social and cultural aspects of sport, with particular reference to broader issues of culture, cultural production and cultural politics.

Dates: 12 – 16 September, 2022 Location: Umeå University, Sweden

Course Schedule

Participation and Application

Instructions

Welcome to the 3rd edition of the PhD course Culture, Sport and Society, this time held in Umeå, Sweden . We are proud to present a very strong team of speakers and hope that we will get to know many PhD-students from across Europe and beyond. If you want to know more about Umeå, please visit Umeå Tourist Office , or join a drone flight for an overlook . For some quick facts about Umeå University, take a look at this . You can also take a quick stroll through our campus here .

Course Aims

The aim of the course is to advance student interest in, and understanding of, the social and cultural aspects of sport, with particular reference to broader issues of culture, cultural production and cultural politics. The course will feature a mix of lectures, seminars and workshops on these themes. Lectures and seminars will be given by leading academics from European universities.  Workshops will enable students to discuss their projects with lecturers and fellow students. Students will also receive practical advice and guidance on writing up their projects, and on how to write for publication in academic books, journals, and other media. The course seeks to provide the basis for the development of long-term international research networks involving PhD students and more established scholars and researchers.

Sine Agergaard, Aalborg University

Adam Evans, University of Copenhagen

Bieke Gils, University of South-Eastern Norway

Richard Giulianotti, Loughborough University/University of South-Eastern Norway

Tommy Langseth, University of South-Eastern Norway

Dino Numerato, Charles University in Prague

Aage Radmann, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences

Natalie Barker Ruchti, Örebro University

Astrid Schubring, University of Gothenburg

Lone Friis Thing, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences

Anne Tjönndal, Nord University

The course will cover a wide range of substantive topics and theoretical issues that will be of direct relevance to student research interests.  Topics and issues to be covered will include:

• Sport, cultural politics, cultural policies, and cultural identities
• Sport for development
• Sport, physical culture, gender and the body
• Learning cultures and cultural learning in high-performance sport
• Sport and body cultures
• Sociology of sport, technology and the environment
• Fan cultures in sport
• Sport, innovation and inclusion/exclusion
• Sport, culture and migration
• Theories and concepts of sport
• Research methods for studying sport

Further aspects of the course are student presentations and group discussions of research projects; and guidance on the development of student writing skills and publication plans. The social programme will include evening activities such as dinners and sport and outdoor life activities. 

This year’s course venue is Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden. It is anticipated that in future years the course venue will change, so that the course will be hosted by other partner institutions. If you might be interested in hosting the course in future years, please contact Richard Giulianotti ( [email protected] ). 

Organization

The 2022 PhD course will be organized by University of South-Eastern Norway and Umeå University, Sweden. Key contacts for the organization of the academic side of the course are Richard Giulianotti ( [email protected] ) and Josef Fahlén ( [email protected] ). Key contact for practical matters, such as queries on accommodation, is Josef Fahlén ( [email protected] ).

Teaching Structure and Credits

The credit value of the course is 5 ECTS. The course will run for five working days and consist of lectures and student presentation. At the end of the course, students can (if they need the credits) submit a scientific essay. When assessed and graded as a ‘pass’, a diploma will be issued by University of South-Eastern Norway in cooperation with the participating universities. It should be noted that it is possible to participate without submitting an essay. If the credits are not needed for the fulfilment of a PhD, it is possible to take part in the course as a scientific workshop. 

Course Costs

Participating students will be expected to cover the costs of their participation, in terms of travel, accommodation and some evening meal costs. Lunches, coffee, “Fika” (snacks) and some dinners will be provided by the organizers.

Regarding accommodation, we suggest consulting the options provided here. Most options are located within the city centre with very short walking distances between them. In order to keep the group together, we suggest trying to make reservations at one of the following options:

Budget prizes

• 57:an rumsuthyrning, http://www.57an.se/ ,  € 26 per night
• Norrland YMCA Hostel, https://www.ny-hostel.com/ ,  € 60 per night
• Gamla Fängelset, https://www.hotellgf.se/en/ , € 75 per night

Regular prizes

• Elite Hotel Umeå, https://www.elite.se/en/hotels/umea/elite-hotel-mimer/ , € 90 per night
• U&Me Hotel, https://umehotel.se/en/ , € 100 per night
• Comfort Hotel Winn, https://www.nordicchoicehotels.com/hotels/sweden/umea/comfort-hotel-winn/ , € 100 per night

Josef Fahlén

[email protected] Professor at Department of Education Umeå University Sweden

Richard Giulianotti

[email protected] Professor of Sociology Loughborough University/University of South-Eastern Norway

We have 5 Sport & Exercise Science (sociology) PhD Projects, Programmes & Scholarships

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International migration in sports coaching, phd research project.

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

Self-Funded PhD Students Only

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

Empowering people in prison through sport SSEHS/CM

Funded phd project (uk students only).

This research project has funding attached. It is only available to UK citizens or those who have been resident in the UK for a period of 3 years or more. Some projects, which are funded by charities or by the universities themselves may have more stringent restrictions.

Safeguarding Practices in Sport

Documentary practice and knowledge co-production, men’s lives: the consequences of living with high levels of drive for muscularity.

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My PhD in sports sociology/masculinity studies

• University of Brighton

Research output : Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Access to Document

• http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/94302473/my-phd-sports-sociology-masculinity-studies Licence: Unspecified

Fingerprint

• Sociology of Sport Keyphrases 100%
• Shoes Keyphrases 100%
• Sportsmen Keyphrases 100%
• Masculinity Studies Keyphrases 100%
• Podiatry Medicine and Dentistry 100%
• Attitude Medicine and Dentistry 100%
• Masculinity Medicine and Dentistry 100%
• Doctor of Philosophy Medicine and Dentistry 100%

T1 - My PhD in sports sociology/masculinity studies

AU - Morriss-Roberts, Christopher

PY - 2013/9/2

Y1 - 2013/9/2

N2 - This was an article that was submitted to 'PodiatryNow', the everyday magazine for podiatry. The author talks about the concept of podolinguistics, a foot language or an ability to communicate feelings or attitudes via the foot and shoe. He references the text "The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe" by W. A. Rossi. He offers a brief overview of his thesis, focusing on sportsmen and the connection that they have with their bodies and footwear. He cites examples from his research, highlighting the existence of the lived reality of sportsmen and their podolinguistics relationships to others.

AB - This was an article that was submitted to 'PodiatryNow', the everyday magazine for podiatry. The author talks about the concept of podolinguistics, a foot language or an ability to communicate feelings or attitudes via the foot and shoe. He references the text "The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe" by W. A. Rossi. He offers a brief overview of his thesis, focusing on sportsmen and the connection that they have with their bodies and footwear. He cites examples from his research, highlighting the existence of the lived reality of sportsmen and their podolinguistics relationships to others.

M3 - Article

SN - 1460-731X

JO - Podiatry Now

JF - Podiatry Now

Sociology of sports and the space of sports practices: Social genesis and sociological theories

• December 2020
• RUDN Journal of Sociology 20(1):137-144
• 20(1):137-144

• Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
• This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.

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11 fully funded phd programs at university of lausanne, switzerland.

Are you holding Master’s degree and looking for fully funded PhD positions? University of Lausanne, Switzerland invites online application for multiple funded PhD Programs / fully funded PhD positions in various research areas.

Candidates interested in fully funded PhD positions can check the details and may apply as soon as possible. Interested and eligible applicants may submit their online application for PhD programs via the University’s Online Application Portal. 

1. Fully Funded PhD Position in sociology of sport 

Summary of phd program:.

The Sports Science Institute of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Lausanne is looking for a doctoral student in sociology of sport on the theme of trust in anti-doping. The research topic of this doctorate is understanding the elements on which trust is built and to increase trust in antidoping in improving antidoping organisations’ (ADOS) governance and policies. The thesis will be carried out in collaboration with WADA’s education department.

Application Deadline: 19.09.2023

2. fully funded phd position in sociology of sport on the prevention of sexual harassment .

The Sports Science Institute of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Lausanne is looking for a doctoral student in sociology of sport on preventing sexual harassment and abuse in sport. This doctoral research centers around the prevention of sexual harassment and abuse within the realm of sports. The goal is to identify best practices in safeguarding policies and propose innovative recommendations towards sports organisations to better prevent sexual harassment and abuse from occurring in sport. The thesis will be carried out in collaboration with the IOC.

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3. Fully Funded PhD Position in Marketing

To complete the team, the Department of Marketing at the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Lausanne (HEC Lausanne) invites applications for the position of Graduate Assistant in Marketing.

Application Deadline: September 3rd, 2023

4. fully funded phd position in plant molecular biology.

The project aims to advance our understanding of the growth coordination within plant cells and tissues that result in diverse plant morphologies observed in various environments. You will contribute to unraveling the genetic factors governing the properties of the cell wall, particularly its ability to withstand turgor pressure and facilitate growth, leading to a range of plant shapes. You will be engaged in genetic modifications at the cellular and tissue level, altering cell shape and cell wall characteristics to further elucidate the processes underlying coordinated cellular growth across disparate tissues. The project will also involve the time-lapse confocal microscopy, image processing, and mechanical measurements.

Application Deadline: 31.08.2023

5. fully funded phd position in political theory.

To complete the team, the Centre of Public Law of the Law School of the Faculty of Law, Criminal Justice and Public Administration is looking for a Doctoral Assistant in Political Theory for Professor Sandrine Baume.

Application Deadline: 24th September 2023

6. fully funded phd position in genetics.

The Center for Integrative Genomics of the University of Lausanne invites applications for a PhD student position in the group of Aleksandar Vještica to work in the area of sexual lifecycle in fungi, with a focus on mechanism of gamete-to-zygote transition in fission yeast. Fertilization between two haploid gametes triggers fission yeast to rapidly switch fate and acquire zygotic identity. Failure in this early developmental step, or its mere delay, leads to refertilization and consequently, formation of progeny with aberrant ploidy. Since ploidy alterations increase fitness under certain conditions in both non-pathogenic and pathogenic fungi, understanding fungal blocks to re-fertilization, holds relevance not only for developmental but also evolutionary and medical biology. The Vjestica lab is funded by the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant), Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF Eccellenza Grant) and University of Lausanne.

Application Deadline: 15.09.2023

7. fully funded phd position in biology & nutrition.

The Habib lab utilises tissue engineering to investigate aspects of embryogenesis and adult tissue formation. They use this knowledge to develop technologies that will promote tissue repair upon injury. For example, recently, using this approach they developed novel bandages that can promote bone repair in vivo. These technologies resulted in a patent, 107 news articles and a televised coverage in CBS-news.

Application Deadline: 22.09.2023

10 best ai cover letter builders, 8. fully funded phd position in geography .

The candidate will undertake personal research for a PhD in the field of geography. The topic of the research will be the question of functional spaces (water use basins) applied to integrated water resources management (IWRM). The research will be conducted within the framework of the project “Multipurpose Alpine hydroelectric infrastructures”, as well as the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mountain Research (CIRM) of UNIL. A description of the context of the research on the multipurpose use of Alpine dams is available from Prof. Emmanuel Reynard ([email protected]).

Application Deadline: 8th of September 2023

9. fully funded phd position in llms and generative ai for recommender systems and business applications.

The lab of Big Data and Machine Learning is opening a full-time Graduate Assistant position in the areas of large language models and generative AI for recommender systems and business applications. The successful candidate is expected to conduct research and publish articles in the leading international conferences and journals.

Application Deadline: Open until filled

10. fully funded phd position in information systems.

In this position, you will conduct research in the field of data & analytics management and support multinational companies in their data-driven transformation. You will be employed at HEC Lausanne and work in the Competence Center Corporate Data Quality (CC CDQ), an industry-funded research consortium and expert community. As member of the CC CDQ research team, you will closely collaborate with Fortune 500 companies and drive the CC CDQ co-innovation activities in one of the following topics:

• Data management for sustainability and ESG
• Data & analytics governance and architecture (data mesh)
• Data sharing and platforms in business ecosystems
• Data quality using AI and automation

11. Fully Funded PhD Position in Surface layer dynamics in lakes

The PhD student will be hosted at the Institute of Earth surface dynamics, within the faculty of geoscience and environment at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), a vibrant, well-funded institute with a multidisciplinary focus on environmental surface processes in mountain landscapes, covering meteorology and climatology, glaciology, remote-sensing, river geomorphology, pedology and limnology. The FGSE specifically promotes interdisciplinary research and teaching, within and between the social and natural sciences. It is embedded in the broader Lausanne research environment that includes two universities (UNIL, EPFL), and cross-disciplinary, collaborative cutting-edge research programs for lakes (LeXPLORE) and climate actions (CLIMACT).

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Sociology and Criminology Professor Examines Relationship Between Religion and Race in New Book

Villanova, Pa — Racism is commonly addressed in two distinct ways: the material, encompassing economic disparities, and the ideological, referring to prejudice. However, there is a third, spiritual dimension that is less familiar to many Americans. In his new book, The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith , Villanova University Sociology and Criminology Assistant Professor Glenn Bracey, PhD, and his co-author Michael Emerson, PhD, Chavanne Fellow in Religion and Public Policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, aim to help readers understand the complicated relationship between Christianity and race.

The Religion of Whiteness builds on Dr. Emerson’s work, Divided by Faith (2000), which examines how evangelical views on race divide white and Black Christians. In the nearly 25 years since its publication, the racial landscape within American Christianity has evolved, but significant divides persist. Drs. Bracey and Emerson seek to update and expand on the initial research, incorporating perspectives from Black, Latino and Asian Christian communities.

Drs. Bracey and Emerson conducted extensive research, including a survey of over 3,000 Christians from diverse backgrounds, interviews with over 100 Christian leaders and 25 focus groups, as well as ethnographies in churches across the United States. Their findings reveal a devotion to whiteness among many white Christians, which influences their religious practices and attitudes toward race.

“What we saw is there is tremendous hurt and pain among Christian leaders of color after experiencing what we call ‘betrayal trauma,’” says Dr. Bracey. “They took a chance on building a multicultural community of faith with white Christians but have been abandoned and even opposed on explicit racial grounds. As we kept digging, the data revealed that the divide between white Christians—especially white evangelicals—and people of color was happening in the same way it occurred over 20 years ago. In other words, everyday white non-Christians and Black non-Christians are closer together in their attitudes than white Christians and Black Christians. There is an aspect of being Christian that is dividing individuals on racial grounds.”

The Religion of Whiteness aims to reach academic scholars, spiritual audiences and the general public. For the academic community, the book offers a new framework for the sociology of religion and race. It also provides readers with a critical lens to disentangle racial dominance from Christian practice.

Dr. Bracey earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Florida, and his master’s and doctorate in Sociology from Texas A&M University. He is an expert on race and social movements, contributing to numerous scholarly publications and news media. Within Villanova’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dr. Bracey teaches Introduction to Sociology, Critical Race Theory and Social Movements.

About Villanova University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: Since its founding in 1842, Villanova University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has been the heart of the Villanova learning experience, offering foundational courses for undergraduate students in every college of the University. Serving more than 4,500 undergraduate and graduate students, the College is committed to fortifying them with intellectual rigor, multidisciplinary knowledge, moral courage and a global perspective. The College has more than 40 academic departments and programs across the humanities, social sciences, and natural and physical sciences.

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Department of Sociology

Applications now open for PhD in Safe AI

The University’s UKRI-funded AI centre for doctoral training in Lifelong Safety Assurance of AI-enabled Autonomous Systems (SAINTS CDT) has opened applications for its first cohort of PhD students.

The SAINTS CDT is the UK’s first and only multidisciplinary PhD programme focused solely on the safety of artificial intelligence. It brings together people from diverse disciplines from across the University to create a community of experts that will pioneer a new generation of evidence-based policy and practices for safe AI.

“Successful applicants will be among the first scholars in the world to take the next step into an AI-powered future,” said Professor Ibrahim Habli, Director of SAINTS CDT.  “They are the future generation of AI professionals and will shape and contribute to the innovation of safe AI and autonomous systems.”

Students will be based in the University’s Institute for Safe Autonomy, benefitting from world-class laboratories, collaboration spaces and colleagues working at the leading edge of their fields.

“Our CDT takes a unique approach,” added Professor Habli. “Postgraduate researchers with different backgrounds and experiences will train together, undertaking relevant and societally important research.”

With a network of partners already committed to supporting the CDT, students will also benefit from strong links with industry, the public sector and other research institutions. This fresh approach will ensure students are equipped with the ideal mix of research expertise and practical skills to guide organisations in safe AI design and deployment.

“Our partners are a key part of what makes the CDT special,” says Dr Ana MacIntosh, Partnerships lead of SAINTS CDT. “To make safe AI a reality, research institutes, industry and policymakers must collaborate and we’re excited to be making that happen. 

“York is a world leader in the safety of complex systems and together with our partners we’ll ensure the skills and experience that our students gain are relevant to the sectors that are developing and deploying AI and autonomous systems.”

Applications are open until midday GMT on Wednesday 17 January 2024. Find out more and apply