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Since 1990, Britain has seen a period of unprecedented public investment in, and political commitment to, sport. In this book, Iain Lindsey and Barrie Houlihan examine and analyze sport policy since the appointment of John Major as leader of the Conservative Party in 1990. John Major's period as Prime Minister was a watershed in British sport policy marking the beginning of a prolonged period of public and lottery investment and relatively high political salience. The text also locates Labour sport policy not only in relation to the previous government of John Major, but also in relation to the Labor government's broader concerns and ambitions related to modernization of British institutions, its ambition to tackle the 'wicked issues' epitomized by its focus on achieving greater social inclusion, and its interest in facilitating greater stakeholder involvement in the policy process. Lindsey and Houlihan provide the first analysis that examines sport policy as a field of government and that discusses how the various sectors (e.g. youth/school sport, mass sport, etc.) have been affected by government policy and the competition for public resources.

This book combines historical and ethnographic components in examining the ideas about human variation subscribed to by coaches, commentators and sportspeople themselves. The book begins by interrogating the idea of the 'impulsive' black sportsman (and the 'impulsive' black male more generally), documenting how it came into being and gathered momentum throughout the course of British history. Drawing on the work of Paul Gilroy and Ian Hacking, the author then investigates whether such raciological ideas figure within the everyday behaviours of a group of young footballers. Presenting an original ethnographic study undertaken at Oldfield United, a semi-professional football club situated in London, he explores how raciological ideas (and other notions of human variation) shape the self-understandings of the club's players and thereby influence the possibilities for action available to them. In conceptualising the sense of \"feeling alien\" experienced by club personnel - in relation to mainstream discourses of nationhood, to politics, to the basic functioning of the nation-state and, at bottom, to the qualifications and requirements of British citizenship - 'Sport, Difference and Belonging' challenges the ability of the cosmopolitan tradition to make sense of contemporary urban phenomena and seeks to develop the sociological concept of denizenship. This book will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of sociology and social policy, 'race' and ethnic studies, urban studies, the ethnographic method, and the sociology of sport. It may also appeal to politicians, policy makers and those working in the field of 'race relations.'

Austerity is perhaps the major challenge of our times, given the speed at which it arrived and the consequences of its impact upon society. The global financial crash and economic downturn was the catalyst for change and, against a backdrop of advice from experts adverse to Keynesian economics, the ideology of austerity grew and became the dominant thinking to steer economies out of recession. This comprehensive volume draws upon both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to provide a varied and contextually rich insight into sport, policy, and politics in an era of austerity.

Praise for the first edition:'An excellent book that tries to come to grips with the ever-increasing role of sport in the media as a particular phenomenon of 20th-century popular culture.'European Journal of Communication (2000)'Excellent, well written and informative… of interest and use to a wider constituency.'Times Higher Education Supplement (May 2000)The fully revised and updated version of this classic text examines the link between three key obsessions of the 21st century: the media, sport and popular culture.Gathering new material from around the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the Beijing Olympics and the rise of new sports stars such as boxing's Amir Khan and cycling's Victoria Pendleton, the authors explore a wide range of sports, as well as issues including nationalism, gender, race, political economy and the changing patterns of media sport consumption.For those interested in media and sport the second edition combines new and original material with an overview of the developing field of media sport, and examines the way in which the media has increasingly come to dominate how sport is played, organized and thought about in society. It traces the historical evolution of the relationship between sport and the media and examines the complex business relationships that have grown up around television, sponsors and sport.Covers the following topics: the history of media in sport; television, sport and sponsorship; why sport matters to television; sports stars; sports journalism; fans and the audience; sport in the digital media economy.

In the decade or more since publication of the first edition of Understanding Sport , both sport and wider global society have undergone profound change. In this fully updated, revised and expanded edition of their classic textbook, John Horne, Alan Tomlinson, Garry Whannel and Kath Woodward offer a critical and reflective introduction to the relationship between sport and contemporary society and explain how sport remains an important agent and symptom of socio-cultural change. Fully integrating historical, sociological, political and cultural analysis, the book covers every key topic in the study of sport and society, including: debate, interpretation and theory sport and the media sport and the body sport and politics commercialization globalization. Retaining the accessibility and scholarly rigour for which Understanding Sport has always been renowned, this new edition includes entirely new chapters on global transformations, sports mega-events and sites, sporting bodies and governance, as well as a succinct guide to researching sport. With review and seminar questions included in every chapter, plus concise, helpful guides to further reading, Understanding Sport remains an essential textbook for all courses on sport and society, the sociology of sport, sport and social theory, or social issues in sport. Introduction Chapter 1. Industrial Society, Social Change and Sports Culture Chapter 2. Case Studies in the Growth of Modern Sports Chapter 3. Debates, Interpretations, Theories Chapter 4. Social Stratification and Social Division in Sport Chapter 5. The Social Construction of Identity and Cultural Reproduction Chapter 6. Sport and Representation Chapter 7. Sporting Bodies: Disciplining and Defining Normality Chapter 8. Sport, The State, and the Politics Chapter 9. Governance and Sport Chapter 10. The Labour Market Chapter 11. Sport, Commercialisation and Commodification Chapter 12. Global Transformations Chapter 13. Sport Spaces, Sites and Events Afterword – Methods for Understanding Sport Culture John Horne is Professor of Sport and Sociology in the School of Sport, Tourism and the Outdoors at the University of Central Lancashire, where he is Director of the International Research Institute for Sport Studies (IRiSS). Alan Tomlinson is Professor of Leisure Studies and Director of Research and Development (Social Sciences) at the University of Brighton, and has authored and edited numerous volumes and more than 100 chapters/articles on sport, leisure and popular culture. Garry Whannel is Head of the Centre for International Media Analysis, Research and Consultancy (CIMARC) at the University of Bedfordshire, is one of the world’s leading experts on the cultural analysis of media sport, and has written extensively on media and culture for over thirty years. Kath Woodward is Professor of Sociology and Head of Department at the Open University and works in the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) on feminist materialist critiques, most recently in the field of sport, especially boxing. She has published extensively on identities and diversity and on issues in social science.

Martin Polley provides a survey of sport in Britain since 1945 and examines sport's place in British culture. He discusses issues of class, gender, race, commerce and politics, as well as analysing contemporary sport.