SPORTS IN SOCIETY:
SOCIOLOGICAL ISSUES AND
CONTROVERSIES
CHAPTER 2
PRODUCING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT
SPORTS IN SOCIETY:
What is the Role of Research and Theory?
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The Goals of this Chapter
1. How is knowledge produced in the sociology of
sports?
2. What does it mean when research is based on a
critical approach to social worlds?
3. What research methods are used to produce
knowledge in the sociology of sports?
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Personal Theories
To navigate our social worlds and private lives we
produce knowledge via data collection and thus
develop explanations of everyday experiences and
events.
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Research, Knowledge and Theories in the Sociology
of Sports
• Designed to answer questions that go beyond
experiences of one person or situation.
• Data carefully collected from well chosen sources
that are suitable for providing necessary information.
• Data analysed by developed and refined methods
used wisely by sociologists.
• Researchers connect data analysis to conclusions
and theories of other sociologists.
• Researchers are expected to publish in peer
reviewed journals and books.
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Seven-Step Process of Developing
Knowledge in the Sociology of Sports
1. Observe social world and ask questions.
2. Identify issues, review past research, use theories to design
research.
3. Collect and analyse data.
4. Use research findings to produce knowledge about sports in
society.
5. Publish research and knowledge claims so they can be
evaluated.
6. Research and knowledge claims are rejected or accepted.
7. Use knowledge to inform decisions, actions, policies and
programs.
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Three Major Theories in the
Sociology of Sports
• Cultural Theories
meaning, symbols, language, values, norms, ideas, beliefs
and ideology
• Interactionist Theories
socialisation, role models, significant others, self-concept and
identity
• Structural Theories
status, roles, authority, power, power relations, social control,
social class, social inequality, social institutions
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A Critical Approach to Knowledge
Production
• Why are particular sports and the social worlds
around them organised as they are?
• What can and should be done to make sports more
inclusive, fair, just and supportive of the wellbeing
of competitors and spectators?
Jim McKay used a critical approach and worked
towards the crucial seventh step of knowledge
production: applying the knowledge so as to
maximise the positive aspects of sports
participation.
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Research Methods in the
Sociology of Sports
•
Knowledge production always involves the systematic
collection and analysis of data.
• McKay’s research on gender and sports organisations
used a combination of quantitative research methods and
qualitative research methods.
• Quantitative: collect information, convert into numbers
and analyse statistically.
• Qualitative: collect information via interviews, materials,
observations that describe and represent. Analyse via
recurring themes.
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Quantitative Research Methods:
Using Numbers and Statistics to
Study Sports in Society
• Polls and surveys are the most common methods
used.
1. Create statistical profiles
2. Identify recurring patterns
3. Test hypotheses
• Public records and statistical facts – analysing data that
others have collected, e.g., ABS, SPARC.
• Content of media and documents – such as Murray
Phillips’s content analysis study of gender and media coverage
in Australia.
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Qualitative Methods: Interpreting
Words and Actions to Study
Sports in Society
Based on the assumption that social worlds are
constructed and maintained through meanings
given to actions, relationships, objects and events.
Sources of data:
1. In-depth interviews
2. Field studies
3. Textual analysis
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Using Multiple Theories and
Methods to Produce Knowledge
• Knowledge production requires the consideration of
both multiple methods and multiple theories.
• Applying knowledge to increase fairness and justice
should come from many vantage points.
• Jim McKay used both quantitative and qualitative
methods as well as different theories to determine
effective strategies for applying knowledge about
gendered meanings and practices in sports
organisations.
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Critical Theories
• Society involves cultural production, power relations
and ideological struggles.
• Sports are social constructions that change as power
relations change and as narratives and discourses
change.
• Research focuses the meaning and organisations of
sports, and on sports as sites for cultural
transformation.
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Critical Theories (cont.)
• Those who use them assume that sports are more
than reflections of society, and they study:
– struggles over the organisation and meaning of sports
– the narratives and images people use to construct and give
meaning to sports
– whose voices and perspectives are used in narratives about
sports in society
– how dominant narratives, images, and power relations can
be disrupted to promote progressive changes.
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Using Critical Theories
to Take Social Action
• Use sports to challenge and transform exploitive
and oppressive practices.
• Increase the number and diversity of sports
participation opportunities.
• Challenge the ideological implications of the stories
told about sports in a culture.
• Challenge the voices and perspectives of those
with power in sports and society.
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Sports are More than Reflections
of Society
• Sports consist of sets of relationships that are
produced by people in society.
• Sports are the creations of people interacting with
one another.
• Sports are the ‘social stuff’ out of which society and
culture come to be what they are.
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