Project description

The cultural study of sport examines the ways in which institutionalized physical activity embodies and reflects social meanings and identities. The social practice of sport provides a space in which dominant discourses of race, gender, and social class are reproduced and resisted. As these physical activities become institutionalized, commercialized, and embedded within educational institutions themselves, individuals must navigate a nuanced and often conflicted terrain in their respective participation and performance. This course, then, examines the role of sport in society broadly and the relationship of sport and education more specifically. The curriculum reviews the writing and research on sport and education from a sociological, psychological, and philosophical perspective, with a particular focus on the constructed divide of mind and body, as manifested in the institutional conflicts between school and sport.

Project aims

Project outcome