Bodies, Sports and Social Problems

Sport is increasingly becoming an area of ethical ambiguity in which wider social problems are played out in a concentrated form. This book provides a theoretical framework for exploring sport and deviance through an examination of the three main areas in which these issues arise. These are: the role of violence and aggression in young people’s experience of sport as spectators and participants the ambiguous nature of the control exercised by government, corporations and the media over sporting events and the ways in which players respond to these controlling factors the increasing drive to improve sporting performance through a variety of techniques ranging from psychological coaching to performance enhancing drugs. Throughout, the emphasis is on the social pressures involved in sport and the ways in which individual athletes and the sporting community negotiate them.