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A field study of high school teacher/coaches was undertaken, guided by the following general questions: What is it like being a high school teacher/coach? What are the main occupational contingencies for high school teacher/coaches? How do teacher/coaches think about themselves and their situations? The larger field study that provided the data base for this paper was conducted over a 5-month period in 1985 during which I observed teacher/coaches in six high schools. The data were drawn from naturally occurring observations and conversations with teacher/coaches, noncoaching teachers, and school administrators. Formal interviews were also conducted with 50 teacher/coaches. Data described in this paper are qualitative and focus on teacher/coaches’ feelings and attitudes about their profession and the meanings about the multiple role demands they are confronted with. The observations and interviews demonstrate quite dramatically the complexity and pervasiveness of role overload and interrole conflict in this occupation and the role strain that results. Coping and resolution strategies used by teacher/coaches are discussed.

The professional team sports industry has consistently worked at constructing a symbiotic relationship in the collective American mind linking professional team sports with United States patriotism. Professional team sports organizations use a variety of advertising images, rituals, and ceremonies to reinforce this association. One means by which the organizations perpetuate this association is through league logos, all of which use only the colors red, white, and blue—the precise color combination found on the flag of the United States. League logos are prominently displayed on all their licensed merchandise, merchandise that generates about $10 billion in annual revenue for professional team sports. This paper focuses on the contradiction or paradox that exists between the imagery of All-American patriotism professional team sports construct and the fact that much of their licensed merchandise is manufactured in foreign countries by exploited labor. The analysis centers on meaning-production by deconstructing and critiquing the managed image of professional team sport organizations.

This paper examines the linkages between physical education, sociology, and sociology of sport in North America. Physical education and sociology in North America have had numerous mutual ties since the beginnings of both fields. In the first section of the paper, I describe the rise of sociology and physical education in North America, emphasizing the linkages that initially existed between physical education and sociology, and then the separation that transpired between the disciplines. The second section examines the connections between social theory and physical education before the sociology of sport was formally developed. The final section details the rise of sociology of sport, with the main focus on the role of physical educators (a.k.a. sociocultural kinesiologists, sport studies scholars, human kinetics scholars) in the development of sociology of sport. This section concludes with a discussion of the linkages of social theory, critical pedagogy in physical education, and sport sociology in physical education.

The focus of this study is on the organizational dynamics, collective actions, and outcomes of a transnational advocacy network that was formed to protest the labor practices of Nike’s sport shoe factories in Asia. Transnational advocacy networks arise and are sustained with the intent of changing social conditions. The Nike transnational network sought to improve the lives of workers in Nike factories in Asia so that they have jobs that pay a living wage, have good working conditions, can organize on their own behalf, and are treated with dignity and respect. A broad theoretical perspective that emphasizes the determinant and interactive effects of the emergence, development, and accomplishments of the Nike transnational network is employed.

In the past decade, to help maintain political stability and promote economic growth, South Korea has committed substantial resources to commercialized sports, including golf. A major source of support for building golf courses has come from government leaders and economic and social incentives as well. In the past 4 years the government has given permission to build 135 new golf courses. The official government discourse about the new golf courses is that they are being built in the interest of “sport for all.” But the golf courses overwhelmingly require membership, which is extremely expensive. Despite the enormous power and resources of the dominant groups in Korea, there are elements of opposition. The golf boom has been severely criticized because it removes large amounts of land from agricultural and industrial productivity, contaminates farm land, and pollutes water. It also represents the worst aspects of the social imbalance of wealth.