When Class, Sports, and Social Development was published in 1983 it stood the world of sport sociology on its collective head. The original edition brought social theory to sport studies and signaled sport sociology’s coming of age. Gruneau brilliantly captured the current conditions within the field and anticipated where it was going.
Unfortunately, this classic has been out of print since 1993. But no longer. The new edition features the original ground-breaking text, a foreword by R.W. Connell of the University of Sydney, and a postscript by the author.
In his postscript Professor Gruneau places the book within a scholarly, historical context 15 years after its first printing. He also explains how he might have written the book differently had he written it today.
When you read this book you’ll understand why Contemporary Sociology called the first edition “The most ambitious, provocative, and penetrating effort yet undertaken by a North American sociologist to locate sport within the framework of the classical tradition of sociological theory....”
If you already own the book, the new edition brings the author’s perspective full circle. And if you don’t have a copy of the original you’ll want to buy the new edition of Class, Sports, and Social Development to round out your collection of essential works in the field.
Foreword to the 1999 Edition
Foreword to the 1983 Edition
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Problems of Agency and Freedom in Play, Games, and Sport
Chapter 2. Problems of Class Inequality and Structural Change in Play, Games, and Sport
Chapter 3. Class, Sports, and Social Development: Outline of the Canadian Case
Chapter 4. The Limits and Possibilities of Modern Sport
A Postscript, 15 Years Later
Supplemental text for graduate courses in sociology of sport, sociocultural issues in sport, or history/sociology of sport. Reference for sport sociologists.
Richard Gruneau, PhD, is Professor of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, where he teaches in the areas of mass media and popular culture, cultural studies, and the political economy of communication. He received a PhD in sociology from the University of Massachusetts.
Professor Gruneau is the coauthor of The Missing News: Filters and Blindspots in Canada's News Media. He is also the coauthor, with David Whitson, of Hockey Night in Canada: Sport, Identities, and Cultural Politics. In addition, he has edited or coedited four other books and is the author of more than forty book chapters, scholarly articles, and research papers.
Professor Gruneau has been principal researcher, coresearcher, or consultant to several nationally funded research projects in Canada. These studies include examining and exposing neglected issues in the Canadian news media, a study of television sports production in Canada, and government sport policy in Canada. He is also the originator and academic editor of a recent book series entitled Culture and Communication in Canada.
The author currently serves on the editorial boards of three scholarly journals: Body and Society, The Canadian Journal of Sociology, and The Canadian Journal of Communication.
“The most ambitious, provocative, and penetrating effort yet undertaken by a North American sociologist to locate sport within the framework of the classical tradition of sociological theory....”
Contemporary Sociology
”A significant and timely addition to the literature....Gruneau performs a great service to sociology in general and the sociology of sport in particular.”
The Sociological Review
”Through this most recent endeavour in a series of books and articles, Gruneau has raised the sociology of sport to a higher level of analysis.”
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
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