Contemporary Social Issues in Sport

Catalog description

This course explores the core concepts in the sociology of sport from a social problem perspective in order to better understand the complex and contradictory relationship between sport and society and addresses the following fundamental questions: Why do people participate in sports? To what extent is sport a microcosm of society?  Why does sport matter?  Does sport lead to social change, if so how, and in what ways? The course examines various topics and issues such as gender, representation, sexuality, homophobia, commercialization and college sport, race, inequality, social activism, the Olympic movement, sport washing through sports events, sport, and nationalism, to name a few. The course is thus interested in the social processes through which social issues addressed in sport lead to social change.