Sport as Culture: Social class, styles of cultural consumption, and sports engagement in Canada

The consumption of culture has often been ascribed the power to reflect and reproduce social inequalities. However, most work in this area has focused upon music and the arts. Sport is an important element of culture that can and should be studied in a similar fashion as others (Bourdieu, 1978). This thesis thus seeks to bring the theoretical frameworks and analytical tools of sociologies of culture further into the realm of sport. Substantively, this thesis provides an updated and comprehensive re-examining of the relationship between direct sports participation and social stratification in the relatively unexplored national context of Canada. I also innovatively provide an examination of the relationship between social stratification and professional sports consumption. Finally, this thesis fills a gap in the literature by analysing where the consumption of sport fits within broader cultural lifestyles. For these investigations, I use large-scale survey data and various statistical methods to test the foundational theories of Pierre Bourdieu, the ‘omnivore’ thesis, and individualisation arguments of social action to explain these patterns. The findings show direct sports participation relying primarily on dispositions towards the body which are stratified by education and income, especially for the most elite sports. They also show the two most selective omnivorous profiles for professional sport, rather than the most omnivorous, with the highest levels of education and income. This thesis thus sheds doubt on the omnivore thesis within sport, while also showing elements of individualisation regarding age and sex differentiation in consumption. Sports consumption in Canada thus cuts across all three theories of the relation between socio-economic position and sport. These more delimitated consumption profiles contrast with the general adherence to the omnivore thesis within broader cultural lifestyles. This therefore suggests that sport may be a cultural domain where general omnivores practise more distinctive consumption

Taking Pop-Ups Seriously: The Jurisprudence of the Infield Fly Rule

We propose to go beyond the common law origins of the infield fly rule and do what the author chose not to do: namely, explore the different spaces for an infield fly rule from the point of view of the great jurisprudential movements of the last hundred years. In so doing we conclude (i) that post-modern jurisprudence strongly suggests that the infield fly rule was far more socially constructed and historically contingent than previously acknowledged, and (ii) that it is much more difficult to be clever, funny, and insightful about law and baseball than it appears

A qualitative exploration of the positive and negative experiences of individuals who play fantasy football

Fantasy football (FF) has become an increasingly popular activity and recent quantitative research has explored the potential impact it can have on mental health. The aim of the present study was to take a qualitative approach to obtain a deeper understanding of the experiences of FF players. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 15 experienced FF players led to the identification of 4 meta themes: Potential Positives (of which there were 3 further themes and 15 further sub-themes), Potential Negatives (3 further themes; 12 further sub-themes), Mediating Factors (4 further themes; 4 further sub-themes), and Future Game Play (2 further themes; 6 further sub-themes). Based on these results, we have proposed: i) a model for initial and continued involvement in FF, and ii) a framework of hypothesised factors leading to predominantly positive or negative experiences in FF. We discuss how these findings can be used by players and game creators alike in order to optimise the experience of playing FF

Remapping and visualizing baseball labor: a digital humanities project

Recent baseball scholarship has drawn attention to U.S. professional baseball’s complex twentieth century labor dynamics and expanding global presence. From debates around desegregation to discussions about the sport’s increasingly multicultural identity and global presence, the cultural politics of U.S. professional baseball is connected to the problem of baseball labor. However, most scholars address these topics by focusing on Major League Baseball (MLB), ignoring other teams and leagues—Minor League Baseball (MiLB)—that develop players for Major League teams. Considering Minor League Baseball is critical to understanding the professional game in the United States, since players who populate Major League rosters constitute a fraction of U.S. professional baseball’s entire labor force. As a digital humanities dissertation on baseball labor and globalization, this project uses digital humanities approaches and tools to analyze and visualize a quantitative data set, exploring how Minor League Baseball relates to and complicates MLB-dominated narratives around globalization and diversity in U.S. professional baseball labor. This project addresses how MiLB demographics and global dimensions shifted over time, as well as how the timeline and movement of foreign-born players through the Minor Leagues differs from their U.S.-born counterparts. This project emphasizes the centrality and necessity of including MiLB data in studies of baseball’s labor and ideological significance or cultural meaning, making that argument by drawing on data analysis, visualization, and mapping to address how MiLB labor complicates or supplements existing understandings of the relationship between U.S. professional baseball’s global reach and “national pastime” claims

Full Issue: Fall 2019

This issue of DePaul Magazine announces the establishment of The Grace School of Applied Diplomacy in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. Learn more about transprofessional diplomacy and this exciting new endeavor in the cover story Expanding the Borders of Diplomacy