Philip White

SPORT, PHYSICAL DANGER, AND INJURY: THE EXPERIENCES OF ELITE WOMEN ATHLETES

Recently, feminist work on sport and gender has begun to understand male tolerance of physical risk and injury as a constituting process that may enhance a particular brand of masculinization. For some men, the cultural meanings of physical danger and living with injury resonate with larger ideological issues of gender legitimacy and power. But how may womens tolerance of the potential for injury in sport be explained using this approach? Based on data from questionnaires and follow-up interviews with elite women athletes in Western Canada, this exploratory study reveals some parallel meanings of violence, pain, and injury for men and women athletes. The findings raise important theoretical questions regarding possible ambiguities in sports-related emancipation for women. On one hand, women are participating in, even colonizing, traditionally male-exclusive spaces in sport. On the other hand, many such spaces are being occupied by women athletes who, rather than participating in a transformation of the meaning of sport, appear to be contributing to a male-defined sports process replete with its violent, macho, and health-compromising aspects. Womens increasing participation in aggressive sport is interpreted as a dialectic, in which resistance to male dominance in sport is tempered by a degree of hegemonic incorporation.

Bodywork as a moral imperative: some critical notes on health and fitness.

Abstract This paper provides a critique of the processes by which health and fitness have moved forward on the cultural agenda. It is argued that the development and promotion of cultural beliefs about health, while often well intended, flow from and help reproduce structures of inequality and relations of dominance. It is also suggested that the health and fitness movement incorporates a moral imperative which has consequences for class and gender relations. Our analysis demystifies some of the taken-for-granted assumptions underlying popular beliefs about the relationship between exercise, fitness, and health. We conclude by challenging some of the orthodoxies surrounding current social pressures to pursue ascetic lifestyles.

DISTINCTIONS IN THE STANDS An Investigation of Bourdieu's `Habitus', Socioeconomic Status and Sport Spectatorship in Canada

In this article a study of sport spectatorship in Canada is presented, along with an argument for reconsidering the employment of quantitative methodology in the critical study of social inequalities in sport. Both Bourdieus theoretical position on class distinction and sport and his methodological approach (the statistical analysis of survey data) are adopted in this study. Our multivariate analysis of the 1992 General Social Survey of Canada (n=9815) afforded controlled tests of hypotheses on the effects of income and education on both amateur and professional sport spectatorship. The findings showed, in general, positive relationships between socioeconomic status and attendance at both professional and amateur events. The effects of income and education work independently, however, and differ according to gender and whether spectatorship was at professional or amateur events. An ancillary set of findings showed that residents of western Canada spectate more at amateur sport than those in eastern Canada. Building on Bourdieus findings that there is a class-based distribution of leisure preference in France, it was concluded that there are clear socioeconomic and regional imbalances in sport spectatorship in Canada, although further research is needed to more fully disentangle the effects of economic and cultural factors.

Multiple identities in a marginalized culture: female youth in an "inner-city" recreation/drop-in center.

This article is a theoretical and empirical examination of female youth culture in recreation/drop-in centers. The authors attempt to integrate theories of female participation in leisure and sport with more mainstream perspectives on female youth subcultures. A gender-sensitive, cultural studies-based perspective emerges, underscored by a (Chicago-style) symbolic interactionist approach to understanding social process. Research findings from an ethnographic study of female youth in one such center in southern Ontario, Canada, are presented, with particular attention to how the various beliefs, behaviors, and customs that characterized female youth culture in the center were created, maintained, and referred to as the basis for interaction. The study findings showed that experiences within the center, although generally positive, were varied and extremely gendered, with female youth marginalized in the informal, male-dominated sport culture. Moreover, the findings revealed that among these youth, there existed simultaneously a resistance to broader, gender-and class-based limitations on sport participation and a reproduction of informal power structures. The relevance of these findings to theoretical understandings of female youth culture and youth-centered organizations and to practical and strategic approaches to programming for “at-risk” female youth are assessed, and suggestions for future research in this sparse area are provided.

The Effect of Mid-Season Coach Turnover on Team Performance: The Case of the National Hockey League (1989–2003):

This study investigated the effects of 15 mid-season coaching turnovers on team performance in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1989 to 2003. Team performance was tracked for one full season before the turnover (T1), the season of transition before and after the turnover (T2 and T3 respectively) and one full season following the year of transition (T4). Overall team performance improved from .35 at T2 to .45 at T3 of available points earned. Furthermore, team performance continued to improve to 51 at T4. When coaching experience was considered, results showed that incoming coaches had less experience as an NHL head coach than their replaced counterparts. The current findings suggest that mid-season coach turnover does lead to improved team performance in the short-term and at least the full season following the turnover. Results also show that team performance improved despite the fact that inexperienced coaches replaced experienced coaches.

Tolerance Rules: Identity, Resistance, and Negotiation in an Inner City Recreation/Drop-In Center An Ethnographic Study

For many youth, the recreation/drop-in center is a nonthreatening, relatively unstructured place to play sports and hang out in an otherwise high-risk urban area. Although numerous studies have shown a positive relationship between these recreation programs and risk reduction for youth, little work has addressed the creative ways that youth negotiate these surroundings. Drawing on cultural studies and interactionist approaches to youth that focus on the many levels of everyday experience and relations, this article reports findings from an ethnographic study of a center in a low-income area in urban southern Ontario. The research shows how youth in this drop-in center context maintained an informal culture of nonviolence by creating a set of “tolerance” rules that allowed diverse groups to coexist in a limited social space. Issues surrounding resistance were also evident in this study. On one hand, youth living in a marginalized area were resistant to the dominant negative influences that exist outside the center. On the other hand, by creating their own informal culture within the center, the youth took power in an organization otherwise dominated (administratively) by adults. These findings inform theory surrounding the lived experiences of youth while addressing issues of resistance that are central to mainstream work on youth culture.

Academic Attainment and Canadian Intercollegiate Athletics: Temporal Shifts

Abstract In this study the academic attainment of male and female intercollegiate athletes at a mid-sized Canadian university was examined for varying time periods in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. The academic performance of the athletes is compared, in each case, to a sample of non-athletes matched on year of first enrollment, academic program at first enrollment, and gender. On various measures the findings indicate that the student athletes performed increasingly well in comparison to their non-athlete counterparts from time period to time period. This pattern was more marked for females than males. In the 2000s, female athletes graduated successfully more often than female non-athletes and were more often enrolled in Honors programs. Female athletes consistently outperformed male athletes in all three time periods. We conclude by discussing the structure and culture of intercollegiate sport in Canada in order to broach the question of why the intercollegiate sport experience at this Canadian university has not hindered academic success. Comparisons with findings from American studies are ventured to offer a preliminary cross-cultural analysis of American/Canadian differences in intercollegiate sport culture.

Winston/NEXTEL Cup: the triumph of the spectacle

This paper develops theoretical arguments accounting for the broad spectator appeal of the Winston NEXTEL Cup automobile racing series and its dramatic growth in popularity and subsequent expansion in North America. We suggest that this spectacular spectatorship phenomenon is a reflection of economic and cultural forces that have shaped it and which are symptomatic of a more generally intensified corporate infiltration into the sporting realm. Our arguments take extant sociological explanations for the generalised popularity of contemporary spectator sport as their point of departure. Demographic shifts in the socio-economic and gender backgrounds of the developing fan base are then juxtaposed with features of stock car racing which make it attractive to both live audiences and those viewing the event on television. NASCAR, the organiser/owner of the Winston/Nextel Cup racing series, it is suggested, is symptomatic of broader trends within the sport-media nexus within which the financial logic of consumer capitalism supersedes the cultural roots of the sport as it was originally constructed. We conclude that the socially constructed structure of the race events themselves cannot be extricated from the economic logic of the media production values which drive the spectacularisation of the sports development as a major sport brand.