Sport, Culture, and Society: A Reader on the Sociology of Sport

Few would deny that sports and games occupy a high place in the values of' many people in most contemporary societies. Given this, to say nothing of the problems posed, for example, by the ideologies which stress the characterbuilding functions of sports, their role as a medium for the peaceful discharge of aggression or as an agency for promoting international peace and understanding, one might have expected that the sociological study of sport would at least be moderately advanced even if it was not regarded as one of the central areas of the subject. Surprisingly, however, sport has not so far been the subject of systematic investigation in sociology or, indeed, in any other academic discipline. It does not even rank as a peripheral area of study. Perhaps this almost total neglect reflects the degree to which sociology, history and related subjects remain biased by a puritanical value system which values work more highly than leisure and which, correspondingly, directs attention to the former rather than the latter as an area of problems which merit serious research? Perhaps it stems from the fact that only recently have social problems such as 'soccer hooliganism' become apparent in this field? But, whatever is the case in this respect, it remains true that the study of sports and games is neglected as a field of academic research. There are one or