Sports in Society Podcast

We begin by discussing NFL players’ protests during the US national anthem against police violence in Black communities, and many white people’s negative reactions. This leads into a discussion of people’s belief sports and politics should be kept separate. We challenge that idea by discussing obvious ways in which sports are politicized. We then discuss how larger social context can cause people...

This episode focuses on chapter 12, "Sports and the Media: Could They Survive Without Each Other?" We begin the episode by situating sport media within neoliberal capitalism, which leads into a discussion of media deregulation. We further develop a discussion on how digital media technologies impact the experience of consuming sports. We also discuss how digital media allows athletes and fans to b...

This episode begins by contrasting people’s motivations to participate in and watch sports as well as the motivations people who stage local sporting events to the motivations of businesspeople that stage commercial sporting events. This leads into a discussion of neoliberal capitalism and its major characteristics. We follow up that abstract discussion with a list of concrete examples of neoliber...

In this episode, we begin our discussion focusing on ableist ideology and how we can avoid stigmatizing others. We then discuss how sports participation can counter ableist notions of aging as a process of decline, why ability is challenging to define, and we recognize limits of what sport can accomplish. This opens up a discussion about how life developments both facilitate and restrict the choic...

We begin our discussion of social class in sports by addressing class ideology and the American Dream. We then focus on how the unequal distribution of resources in society leas to an unequal playing field in sports. We push that discussion to address inequalities in the built environment, and how that creates different access to health resources and fun. This leads us to address how wealthier peo...

This episode on chapter 8 “Race and Ethnicity: Are They Important in Sports?” begins by recognizing that race is a social construction and how that leads people to see the social truths of race as fixed, immutable biological facts. The search for a jumping gene in Black athletes provides a case in point. We then differentiate ethnicity from race before applying our analysis of racial ideology to J...

This episode focuses on chapter 7 "Sex, Gender, and Sport: Are Inclusion and Equity Possible?" We begin by focusing on how sex and gender are social constructions, and what is meant by social construction. We then turn to how men are paradoxically empowered in a patriarchal society but their gender expressions are also more heavily policed. This leads into a historical approach to research, how do...

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...