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Winner of the Leisure Studies Association's Outstanding Book Prize
This book examines the tensions and ambivalences which men encounter as they negotiate contemporary expectations of fatherhood and fulfill their own expectations of what it means to be a 'good' father. There is little doubt that today's fathers are responding to new expectations about fatherhood and fathering practices. The remote, detached, breadwinning father of the past, once lauded as a masculine ideal, has faded, and men are now expected to be 'involved', 'intimate', 'caring' and 'domesticated' fathers. Using a family practices lens and a case study of sport, Fletcher elucidates the changes and continuities in family and fathering practices in different historical periods and contexts. Negotiating Fatherhood will be of interest to students and scholars with an interest in family and fathering practices, sport, leisure, and gender.
List of contents
1. Locating sport in family practices.- 2. Sport, fathers and fathering practices.- 3. Getting into sport.- 4. The 'good' father.- 5. Fathering practices, sport and children.- 6. The extended extended family.- 7. Family practices and youth sport.- 8. Family sport and the sport widow.- 9. Conclusion.
About the author
Thomas Fletcher is Senior Lecturer, School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality Management, Leeds Beckett University, UK.
Report
"This work offers several fresh lines of enquiry to sport and leisure scholars. ... the book is a must read for those embarking on fatherhood and family research in the domain of sport and leisure." (John Day, Leisure Studies, January 27, 2020)
"Negotiating Fatherhood: Sport and Family Practices by Fletcher (2020) makes a timely contribution to the field of sport, leisure, and family studies. ... Fletcher's (2020) book provides valuable information on the political, familial, and sociocultural influences on fathering in relation to sports, fatherhood, and leisure. ... the author's critical overview of scholarly advancement in the fields of fathering, sport, and leisure, make the book a relevant and timely scholarly work." (Michelle Bauer, Annals of Leisure Research, November 25, 2019)
