In her 2019 Earle F. Zeigler address, Jennifer McGarry drew on the 2017 Academy of Management Report “Measuring and Achieving Scholarly Impact” to examine how the field of sport management and the North American Society for Sport Management operationalize impact. She pointed to a broader, more inclusive, and critical examination of impact. McGarry highlighted impact on practice and impact through being explicit, particularly about the ways gender and race affect what we deem to have impact. Finally, she spoke to impact through individual and collective action, such as educating students, scholarship, and policy and advocacy. She provided examples of where we could disrupt the structures that work to maintain the status quo in terms of impact—the in-groups and the out-groups, the metrics and evaluations. She also gave examples of impact that have happened, that are happening, and that can happen even more.
Browse
Enact, Discard, Transform: An Impact Agenda
Jennifer E. McGarry
You Study Like a Girl: Experiences of Female Sport Management Students
Erin Morris, Ryan Vooris, and Tara Q. Mahoney
Female students are underrepresented within university sport management programs. Because of the concept of the “chilly climate,” the underrepresentation may impact their experiences as students and their opportunities inside and outside of the classroom. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of female students’ experiences within this male-dominated major. Three qualitative focus groups with female sport management students were conducted. The results found the female students had strategies to overcome barriers, a firm understanding of the reality of the gender dynamic within sport management, and an awareness of the importance of networking to succeed in the major. These findings may help sport management programs better support their female students through initiatives like women-in-sport-management clubs.
Development, Gender and Sport: Theorizing a Feminist Practice of the Capabilities Approach in Sport for Development
Sarah Zipp, Tavis Smith, and Simon Darnell
Sport for development (SFD) research and practice has become more critically examined recently, with many scholars calling for better understanding of how and why sport might contribute to the global development movement. Developing and refining theoretical approaches is key to unpacking the complexities of SFD. Yet, theory development in SFD is still relatively young and often relies on oversimplified theory of change models. In this article, the authors propose a new theoretical approach, drawing upon the capabilities approach and critical feminist perspectives. The authors contend that the capabilities approach is effective in challenging neoliberal ideologies and examining a range of factors that influence people’s lived experiences. They have woven a “gender lens” across the capabilities approach framework, as feminist perspectives are often overlooked, subjugated, or misunderstood. The authors also provide an adaptable diagrammatic model to support researchers and practitioners in applying this framework in the SFD context.
Knowledge Translation Practices, Enablers, and Constraints: Bridging the Research–Practice Divide in Sport Management
Hebe Schaillée, Ramón Spaaij, Ruth Jeanes, and Marc Theeboom
Funding bodies seek to promote scientific research that has a social or economic impact beyond academia, including in sport management. Knowledge translation in sport management remains largely implicit and is yet to be fully understood. This study examines how knowledge translation in sport management can be conceptualized and fostered. The authors draw on a comparative analysis of coproduced research projects in Belgium and Australia to identify the strategic, cognitive, and logistic translation practices that researchers adopt, as well as enablers and constraints that affect knowledge translation. The findings show ways in which knowledge translation may be facilitated and supported, such as codesign, boundary spanning, adaptation of research products, and linkage and exchange activities. The findings reveal individual, organizational, and external constraints that need to be recognized and, where possible, managed.
Sport for Social Change: Bridging the Theory–Practice Divide
Jon Welty Peachey, Nico Schulenkorf, and Ramon Spaaij
Sport for Social Change With Aotearoa New Zealand Youth: Navigating the Theory–Practice Nexus Through Indigenous Principles
Jeremy Hapeta, Rochelle Stewart-Withers, and Farah Palmer
Indigenous worldviews and scholarship are underrepresented and underdeveloped in sport for development and wider sport management spaces. Given many sport for social change initiatives target Indigenous populations, this is concerning. By adopting a Kaupapa Māori approach, a strengths-based stance, and working together with two plus-sport and sport-plus cases from provincial and national New Zealand rugby settings: the Taranaki Rugby Football Union’s and Feats’ Pae Tawhiti (seek distant horizons) Māori and Pasifika Rugby Academy and the E Tū Toa (stand strong), hei tū he rangatira (become a leader) Māori Rugby Development camps, the authors provide an illustration of Indigenous theory–practice. They argue sport for social change practices that focus on Indigenous peoples would be greatly improved if underpinned by the principles of perspective, privilege, politics, protection, and people. Thus, any sport for social change praxis seeking to partner with Indigenous communities ought to be informed by Indigenous philosophical viewpoints.
Introduction to the Special Issue on Communication and Soccer
Lauren Burch, Matthew Zimmerman, and Beth Fielding Lloyd
Assessing a Two-Pronged Approach to Active Learning in Sport Sociology Classrooms
Emily Dane-Staples
Active-learning research has explored 2 distinct areas: pedagogy and physical space. As existing research has most often explored only 1 area per study and few have been done in the area of sport sociology, additional research is needed. This research combined both areas of active learning through a quasi-experimental design. Using 2 different classes, Sport and Society and Gender and Sport, students were exposed to an unchanging physical space or manipulated physical space, as well as active-learning tasks of varying complexity. No differences in student perceptions of engagement or learning were found when comparing space variations; however, task complexity did lead to significant differences in student perceptions of engagement and learning.
Disrupting the Disruptor: Perceptions as Institutional Maintenance Work at the 1968 Olympic Games
Kwame J.A. Agyemang, Brennan K. Berg, and Rhema D. Fuller
How people reflect on and discuss protests at sporting events is a relevant question of interest to sport management scholars. This article uses qualitative data to understand how institutional members reflect on and discuss a disruptive act that violates institutional rules and norms. The authors study the historical case of Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ silent protest at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Relying on interview data from Smith and Carlos’ teammates (59) on the 1968 U.S. Olympic Team, the study highlights the connections between institutional maintenance work, institutional logics, and institutions. Specifically, the authors argue that when institutional logics align with actors’ institutional maintenance work, acts seen as disruptive to the institution will not change the institution. Identifying multiple institutional logics within the Olympic Games, the authors also find that institutional logics do not always have to be competing as suggested by much of the literature. Instead, tension may be temporarily allayed when rival logics are threatened by an action (i.e., protests) that would disrupt the institution. The authors refer to this as an institutional cease-fire and discuss their findings in relation to the preservation of institutions.