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This book highlights the importance of the study of social class to our understanding of social issues, social justice and inequality in the context of sport and physical education.
Compared to other markers of social identity in academic analyses of physical education and community sport (such as gender, 'race' and ethnicity, sexuality, and disability), discussions of social class have often been relegated to a secondary consideration. However, social class has shown to continually intersect with other markers of identity in shaping opportunities, patterns of participation, and social trends in physical education and community sport. In response, the book showcases original research and an array of theoretical perspectives that shine new light on this important discussion. Covering topics such as sport in private schools, sport-based interventions in urban communities, and dance in deprived areas, the book highlights where research and pedagogical practices have the power to challenge class inequalities.
This is essential reading for any advanced student or researcher with an interest in the sociology of sport or education, or the wider issues of social justice and inequalities in society.
List of contents
1.Re-centring class in physical education and community sport - Izram Chaudry, Michael Roy Hobson and Stuart Whigham.
2.Sport (not quite) for all: an ethnographic account of community sport and spaces of exclusion in a multi-ethnic city - Yunis Alam.
3.Structuration theory, community sport and class: applications and critique - Dan Bates and Janine Partington.
4.Understanding stigma in social class through creative fiction: a Goffmanian analysis within physical education and community sport - Lee C. Beaumont and Thomas M. Leeder.
5.Thinking about class and ethnicity with Archer: reflexive deliberation, exploitation and the sport of boxing - Izram Chaudry.
6.Fire in the dance studio: Paulo Freire, critical pedagogy and dance in schools - Sara Daniels and Michael Roy Hobson.
7.Moving class beyond capitalism: a case study of post-capitalist oriented 'Collective Physical Activity' (Co-PA) in the North East of England - Gianmarco Dellacasa.
8.Exploring sport as relations of power and governmental rationality - David Ekholm and Magnus Dahlstedt.
9.HPE, mental health and social class: coloniality and colonised thinking - Katie Fitzpatrick.
10.From working to middle-class practice: the neoliberal development of Bucharest's youth football - Andrei Mihail, Ileana Gabriela Szasz and Andrei R¿zvan Voinea.
11.'Intellectual siblings': the complementary sociologies of Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu: an independent school perspective on social class, physical education and sport - Adam Tobias Morton.
12.Exploring classed patterns in the design and delivery of PE in a white, working-class school: a figurational approach - Andrew Scattergood.
13.Social class and the mobilisation of capital in British university sport: a Bourdieusian analysis - Harry Spinks and Stuart Whigham.
14.Reflecting on social class, physical education and community sport scholarship: a call to action - Michael Hobson, Stuart Whigham, and Izram Chaudry.
About the author
Michael Hobson is a Senior Lecturer in Physical Education, Sport and Youth Development at St Mary's University, Twickenham. Michael's recent outputs include 'A gown called malice: undergraduate PE students' belonging in university, social class and race' (2025) and 'Social class and the cultivation of capital: undergraduate PE students' socialisation in sport and physical activity' (2024).
Stuart Whigham is Senior Lecturer in Sport, Coaching and Physical Education at Oxford Brookes University. His research interests in the sociology and politics of sport focus on national identity and nationalism in sport, the politics of the Commonwealth Games, the sociology and politics of Scottish sport, and social class in sport and PE. He is co-editor of Critical Issues in Football: A Sociological Analysis (2023) and editor of Sport and Nationalism: Theoretical Perspectives (2024).
Izram Chaudry is a Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at the University of Bradford. He has a PhD from the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. Izram is also the author of BrAsian Family Practices and Reflexivity: Beyond the Boxing Ropes (2024).
