Sociology of Sport: United States of America

Abstract

This chapter provides readers with a summary of sport sociology in the United States. It begins with a brief overview of sport in the United States before describing the development of the sociology of sport in the United States and some of the major contemporary patterns in sport research. They key movement in US sport sociology was the critical-cultural turn that took place during the 1980s and 1990s when critical theory and feminism became dominant approaches to research. Scholarship in the 21st century has largely developed upon that turn and is generally qualitative and cultural. Contemporary US sport sociology is a critical endeavor heavily influenced by cultural studies, post-structuralism, feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, post-colonial theory, and theories of globalization. Despite a fairly consistent approach to sport research in the United States, sport sociology remains contentious and in disunity. This chapter argues that the contention and disunity results from broader structural patterns that guide sport sociologists’ social actions.

Citation

Montez de Oca, J. (2016), "Sociology of Sport: United States of America", Sociology of Sport: A Global Subdiscipline in Review (Research in the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 361-375. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1476-285420160000009025