1 This is a draft of an article that has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in Oxford Bibliographies in Sociology, edited by Janeen Baxter, and due for publication in 2015. When available (online) it will have more functionality and will be revised from time to time. Suggestions always welcome. SPORTS John Horne University of Central Lancashire Introduction ದ Sports and Sociology General Overviews and Online Resources Textbooks Handbooks and Dictionaries Journals Classic Works Theories Social Divisions and Identities Football (Soccer) Politics and Social Control Globalization Media and Consumption Mega-Events Introduction Although sport has been a subject for undergraduate degree level study in its own right for well over thirty years, some people still express surprise that the subject is considered appropriate for academic analysis. It is seen by some as too trivial, marginal or epiphenomenal to warrant serious attention. Others view sport as a hermetically sealed world of its own, apart from the rest of society. Indeed, for participants and spectators this perceived separateness may be part of its appeal. Yet by any standards sport is a set of cultural practices with significant sociological resonances. An historical sociological understanding of sport and its place in processes of social change and cultural reproduction makes it clear that ಫsportಬ has no fixed meaningಧit has had different meanings in different societies, and refers to different activities at different historical moments. Most people would not now regard cruelty to animals as a sport, but until the early nineteenth century, cruelty to animals was a central aspect of sport. Hunting and shooting are now seen as rather marginal sporting activities, yet in the eighteenth century they would have been at the heart of the meaning of the term, indeed the very notion of the ಫsporting manಬ referred to the hunting man. The meaning of the term sport, therefore, involves a form of social construction, which can be analyzed from a sociological perspective. Today, sport and fitness loom large in the mass media. Sports television programmes, dedicated sport channels, sports pages and sport supplements in newspapers, specialist sport magazines, and sport-related websites have become increasingly prominent. Although only a small minority of the population are active participants, a great many more have some degree of interest in following sport. The images derived from sport play a significant role in constituting our notions of the body and how it should, ideally, look. In both representational forms and in lived practices, sport is one of the cultural spheres that most distinctively mark out gender identities and differences. The activities of top sport stars are highly publicized, and debate rages about the extent to which