Sports in Society Podcast

We begin episode 6 with a sociological definition of deviance and several concrete examples. This leads into a discussion of how formal (written) norms and informal (unwritten) norms create distinction between what might encouraged in sports but deviant in other parts of society, and vice-versa. Recognizing that deviance varies across different institutional spaces based on the formal and informal...

The fifth episode of the season focuses on chapter 4 "Organized Youth Sports: Whose Interests Do They Serve?" To explore chapter 4, we frame this episode with a discussion of the intertwined sociological concepts "structure" and "agency". After defining these key terms, we layout a history of organized youth sport. This history shows how institutional changes in US society and youth sports have im...

This episode focuses on socialization in sports. Socialization is a key concept in sociology so we take some time defining it and discussing its importance to the field. We emphasize that socialization is an active, ongoing process of becoming human. This moves us to a discussion of physical literacy or the process by which people learn learn to use their bodies in complex ways. We then discuss ho...

This episode takes a deep dive into Chapter 2 “Producing Knowledge About Sports in Society: How is Knowledge Produced in the Sociology of Sports?” We begin by addressing a term that so many do not like, “theory”. We define theory, discuss why so many people struggle with it, how it is used in social scientific research on sport. We then move onto to the application of theory in sport research. Tha...

This episode covers the first chapter of Sports in Society. Jay Coakley and Jeff Montez de Oca begin by defining the surprisingly complicated concept 'sport'. We move on to discuss our critical sociological approach to studying sport, and why it is by necessity inter-disciplinary and international. This leads to 'the Great Sports Myth' and the relationship of 'myths' to ideology, which is a key co...

Get to know your co-hosts Jay Coakley and Jeff Montez de Oca. We might be world renowned sport sociologist now, but at one time we were kids who grew up athletes. Sports were a major part of our lives and the social worlds we inhabited. We discuss our personal biographies in sports and how our biographies are situated in social and historical contexts. Our passion for sports translates into our pa...