The active aging agenda, old folk devils and a new moral panic

The proposal that older people should engage in “active aging” has come to dominate local, national, and international policy agendas. This encompasses a variety of ways that older persons might maintain active citizenship, but invariably promotes physical activity and exercise as having health and social benefits, despite a lack of conclusive evidence to support such claims. In this paper, I further examine the meaning of these claims through an analysis of policy documents, reports, and media articles which promote the perceived benefits of physical activity in later life. I revisit Cohen’s (2002) concepts of folk devils and moral panics to understand how these messages simultaneously problematize older people while creating a market for emergent moral entrepreneurs who claim to have the solution to the problem they have in part created. I conclude with recommendations for improved understanding of the benefits and appropriate provision for active aging.</jats:p

The social responsibility of the Olympic Games: Olympic women.

This paper will review the history of women’s involvement in the Olympic Games, how gender is socially (re)constructed through these events, current issues facing women who compete at the Olympic/Paralympic level, and what social responsibility the Olympic movement might assume to improve the experiences of Olympic women in the futurePeer reviewe

“What on earth are they doing in a racing car?”: Towards an Understanding of Women in Motorsport.

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupMotorsport is an under-researched area of socio-historical study. There is particularly limited academic understanding of female involvement in the social world of motorsports. Therefore, this paper focuses on the role of the media in presenting and establishing motorsport for women. In particular, a documentary analysis of articles published by a UK national newspaper group from 1890, and a case study of an all-female UK-based motor-racing championship are used to account for gendered processes that have influenced attitudes and behaviours towards women motor racers. The motor car emerged through technological progress in an overtly masculine-dominated industrial period. Traditional assumptions and biologically deterministic attitudes towards women were used by men to position motoring and motor-racing as a male preserve. Newspaper reporting throughout the 1930s suggests an era of heightened success for women motor racers as a result of gaining access to a key resource in the form of Brooklands motor-racing circuit. Following the Second World War, there was increasing commercialization and professionalization of male-dominated motorsport, as well as renewed marginalization and trivialization of female participants within the newspapers. These processes continue to influence perceptions of women in contemporary motorsport.Peer reviewe

‘CEO equals man’: Gender and informal organisational practices in English sport governance

© The Author(s) 2019. © YYYY Owner. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Piggott, L. V., & Pike, E. C. (2019). ‘CEO equals man’: Gender and informal organisational practices in English sport governance. International Review for the Sociology of Sport by Sage Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. It is available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690219865980Despite the benefits of diversity amongst sport leaders increasingly being argued by both researchers and practitioners, English sport governance remains gender-imbalanced at all levels of leadership. Within this article, we aim to explore how informal organisational practices within two established English national governing bodies impact upon gender equity and gender balance within their governance. This is important to raise awareness of the power of informal organisational practices to favour one gender over another. We present findings generated through a multi-method qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews and participant observation. Official documents from the two organisations were also drawn upon to add specific detail or fill information gaps during the collection, analysis and write-up of data. Throughout the article, we draw upon Bourdieu’s theory of practice to focus on the ways in which cultural resources, processes and institutions hold sport leaders within gendered hierarchies of dominance. We found that informal organisational practices contribute to the reinforcement of gendered structures of dominance which privilege (dominant) men and masculinity, and normalise and naturalise the positions of men as leaders. Some examples of resistance against inequitable informal practices were also evident. Drawing upon Bourdieu’s theorising, we highlight that alternative practices must be valued more highly by the organisation than current problematic practices in order for them to become legitimised, habitual and sustainable. We suggest that one way of achieving this is by linking gender-equitable governance to organisational values and performance to provide motivation for organisations to make genuine, sustainable change.Peer reviewe

Playing Out: A Movement for Movement?

In 2009, the “Playing Out” project was set up in Bristol in the United Kingdom by a parent-led community group who were seeking to address concerns about the lack of freedom for young people to play outside. Playing Out has, as its primary purpose, supporting children to “play out” where they live through providing the space within which children might engage in informal play and physical activity, while also improving relations between neighbors and developing a sense of community. This paper examines the potential of Playing Out for fostering community cohesion by undertaking interviews with participants, officials and policy-makers, alongside some observation of Playing Out events, between 2013 and 2016. In particular, we evaluate the significance of social capital for the development, and success, of a community-led initiative to influence policy outcomes and increase physical activity levels in the local population, giving consideration to the ways in which social movement concepts build on, and strengthen, social capital. In many societies, such activities take place within a context of neoliberalism, where social order is viewed as being dependent on individual responsibility: governments are deregulated, social programs are cut and/or privatized, and social problems have to be solved by individual, private solutions. Our findings draw on the work of Putnam (1993, 1996, 2000) to demonstrate that social capital is both cause and effect in the success of initiatives such as Playing Out, and that when social capital is combined with elements of a social movement, there can be more fundamental and sustained outcomes.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Assessing the Sociology of Sport: On Age and Ability

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol 50 (4-5), June 2015, published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved.On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, a leading scholar on ageing, sport, and physical activity, ISSA President Elizabeth Pike considers the increasing numbers of "Third Age Societies" and the trajectory, challenges, and future directions of sociological research on sport, age, and ability. Noting longstanding interest in sport and ageing dating back to the late 1800s, the trajectory of research in this area has accelerated with both longer life spans and evidence of a more 'heroic' model of the possibilities of aging. A continuing challenge for sociologists of sport is to critique dominant perceptions of ageing that suggest many activities are inappropriate for the ageing body. Future inquiry in the area of sport, age, and ablility needs to expand in coming years in recognition that people over 60 constitute the fastest growing segment of the population in many societies and many received conceptions about the roles and possibilities for physical activity and sport need more careful interrogation in companion with more nuanced understandings of both the populations and processes.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Finding Fault?: Exploring Legal Duties to Return Incidental Findings in Genomic Research

The use of whole genome sequencing in biomedical research is expected to produce dramatic advances in human health. The increasing use of this powerful, data-rich new technology in research, however, will inevitably give rise to incidental findings (IFs), findings with individual health or reproductive significance that are beyond the aims of the particular research, and the related questions of whether and to what extent researchers have an ethical obligation to return IFs. Many have concluded that researchers have an ethical obligation to return some findings in some circumstances, but have provided vague or context-dependent approaches to determining which IFs must be returned and when. As a result, researchers have started returning IFs inconsistently, giving rise to concerns about legal liability in circumstances in which notification could have potentially prevented injury. While it is clear that ethical guidance should not be automatically codified as the law, and that crafting ethical obligations around legal duties can be inappropriate, the ethical debate should not proceed unaware of the potential legal ramifications of advancing and implementing an ethical obligation to return IFs. This article is the first to assess the legal claims that could be brought for a researcher’s failure to return IFs. The potential for researchers to be held liable in tort is still uncertain and turns largely on a number of factors — including customary practice and guidance documents — that are still in flux. Unlike medical care, which has a well-defined duty into which evolving scientific knowledge about genetics and genomics can readily be incorporated, a researcher’s duty to return IFs is less well defined, making it difficult to determine at the outset whether and when legal liability will attach. This article advocates for a clearer, ethically sound standard of requiring that researchers disclose in the informed consent document which approach to offering IFs will be taken. This approach enables participants to know at the outset which findings will be returned, allows researchers to ascertain when their failure to appropriately return incidental findings will give rise to liability, and enables courts to make determinations that will produce consistent legal guidance