Adam Love

Equity or Essentialism? U.S. Courts and the Legitimation of Girls’ Teams in High School Sport

Feminist scholars have critically analyzed the effects of sex segregation in numerous social institutions, yet sex-segregated sport often remains unchallenged. Even critics of sex-segregated sport have tended to accept the merits of women-only teams at face value. In this article, we revisit this issue by examining the underlying assumptions supporting women’s and girls’ teams and explore how they perpetuate gender inequality. Specifically, we analyze the 14 U.S. court cases wherein adolescent boys have sought to play on girls’ teams in their respective high schools. The courts’ decisions reveal taken-for-granted, essentialist assumptions about girls’ innate fragility and athletic inferiority. While the courts, policy makers, and many feminist scholars see maintaining teams for girls and women as a solution to the problem of boys’ and men’s dominance in sport, the logic supporting this form of segregation further entrenches notions of women’s inferiority.

Minseok Ahn and Public Sociology of Sport.

This article presents a biographical overview of Minseok Ahn’s career, specifically highlighting his role as a public sport sociologist. Notably, Ahn has spent time as a student activist, worked as a physical education teacher, served as a scholar with a university appointment, and held office in the South Korean National Assembly. Throughout his career, he has sought engagement with multiple publics in multiple ways to pursue reform in sport and physical education. An examination of Ahn’s career can offer insights regarding the processes and challenges involved in pursuing public sociology and provide a cross-national perspective that helps us consider the possibilities that exist for scholars to seek progressive change in sport through public engagement.

Tong-Gu Chung and the development of elite sport in South Korea: A biographical study

Abstract This study examines the career of Tong-Gu Chung, a South Korean athlete, coach, and sport administrator. As a wrestler, Chung was a national champion. As a coach, he guided the South Korean wrestling team at the 1976 Olympic Games. As an administrator, he served as president of the Korea National Sport University. In these roles, which coincided with a time of military rule in South Korea, Chung was known as a harsh, authoritarian leader. However, since the end of military rule, Chung has held a much different set of leadership roles, working with organizations that support the educational and professional development of retired athletes. The current study explored these apparent contradictions in Chung’s career through a biographical approach, using pragmatism as an analytical lens.

How Do Adults With Down Syndrome Perceive Physical Activity

Adults with Down syndrome (DS) tend to have low physical activity levels, which may relate to how they perceive participation in physical activities. The current study entailed interviews with 30 adults with DS (age 18-71 yr, 18 women) to examine how they perceived physical activity, exercise, and sport. Through qualitative analysis informed by grounded theory, the investigators found that adults with DS have positive perceptions of physical activity that center on enjoyment. Three facets of enjoyment were identified: interaction, achievement, and process. Interaction reflected enjoyment of social contact with others including relatives, peers, caregivers, and animals. Achievement involved enjoyment of achieving particular ends including accomplishment of tasks, material rewards, formation of athletic identities, and improvement of health. Process represented enjoyment from performing a particular activity itself. This multifaceted enjoyment expressed by adults with DS may facilitate physical activity and should be considered when developing programs to improve their well-being.

Media Representations of Multiracial Athletes

There is a substantial body of research examining racialized narratives about Black and White athletes. However, there is an absence of literature that has specifically explored multiracial identities in the sport context. The purpose of the current study was to examine narratives constructed in the media when discussing the race(s) of multiracial athletes. Investigators conducted a qualitative media analysis using 68 online and print news articles that clearly identified athletes as multiracial. Findings indicated that sports journalists are susceptible to perpetuating certain racialized sport stereotypes when covering multiracial athletes. Media members should make an effort to be aware of an athlete’s racial identity and be mindful of not relying on racial stereotypes when writing about multiracial athletes.

Constraint factors affecting non-attendance in collegiate volleyball

The focus of this study was to analyse constraint factors affecting non-attendance in sports. Few research studies have investigated the topic of non-attendance, and even fewer have sample representation of respondents who did not attend games. A survey was used to measure the impact of 12 constraint factors (41 total items) on non-attendance at womens college volleyball. The results of a logistical regression indicated that non-attendance of those who had never attended a match was predicted by the factors of financial cost, lack of knowledge, and no interest from others, while non-attendance of those who had previously attended was predicted by other sport entertainment and lack of success. These findings should be used to help marketers of typically lower-attended sports realise in development of strategies to increase attendance, more of a focus should be put towards their core product and enhancement of the event atmosphere, rather than on constraints.

Everyone Bleeds Maroon: Colorblindness and the Desegregation of Mississippi State Football

This study investigated the desegregation of Mississippi State University varsity football, focusing on newspaper coverage of the first Black players at the university, Robert Bell and Frank Dowsing. Two hundred and three articles about Bell and Dowsing from three newspapers (Starkville Daily News, Mississippi State Reflector, and Jackson Clarion-Ledger) were examined using a three-tiered qualitative analysis. Data analysis resulted in 426 frame instances and 686 theme instances, or a total of 1,112 codes. The resulting data were interpreted using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as an analytical lens to generate understanding of the desegregation of the football program. The CRT-guided interpretation challenges popular narratives about the amicable nature of desegregation at the university, indicating that the football team and the careers of Bell and Dowsing were covered in a way that promoted colorblindness and supported the Whitecentric interests of the university’s and community’s dominant power structure.

Event Prestige as a Mediator between Sport Involvement and Intent to Continue Participation

The current study examined perceived event prestige as a mediator between sport involvement and sport participation behavioral intent. A total of 455 participants (M age = 28.6 yr., SD = 9.1) were recruited at the 2013 Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon. The findings indicated that a model in which perceived event prestige partially mediated the relationship between sport involvement and intent to return to the event was most representative of the data. While individuals with higher sport involvement were more likely to indicate an interest in continued participation, this relationship was strongest among those who perceived the event to be particularly prestigious. Thus, those who market mass participation sporting events should use strategies designed to emphasize the prestigious stature of the event and should employ measures to increase sport involvement among participants.