Eivind Åsrum Skille
Biographic Data
| ID | 290950 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eivind Åsrum Skille |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eivind Åsrum |
| FAMILY NAME | Skille |
| SIGNATURE | SKILLE E Å |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Inland Norway |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7469-7395 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 96 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Newcomers in a neo-liberal sports world: The self-presentations of private football academies in Aotearoa New Zealand and Norway
With sport's modernity and commercialization as a backdrop, we investigate private football academies in New Zealand and Norway and discuss their institutional resonance with the volunteer-based mainstream football field. We ask: How do private football academies present themselves online, in terms of their roles and responsibilities? Drawing on institutional theories, we analysed the internet sites of four private academies in each country and i…
The fine line between deliberate play and deliberate practice within talent development in grassroots football: Evidence from a one-year longitudinal case study
Introduction: While former studies into talent development in football have considered elite clubs and retrospective studies, this single-case study provides detailed data on the training activities of a 13-year-old male football player in a grassroots club who later became a professional at the highest level in Norway. Methods: An intrinsic longitudinal single-case study design was adopted to develop an in-depth, contextually grounded understand…
‘I want my child to participate in sport, but I have no information about it’ – a study of Ukrainain refugee's parent's perspectives on their children's sport participation in Norway
Participation in organized sport contributes to children's physiological, psychological and social development. The aim of this study was to examine how Ukrainian refugees reflect upon their children's inclusion into sport activities in Norway. The study used an exploratory sequential mixed methods design with interviews followed by a questionnaire survey, where the findings were discussed using Bourdieu's theory of field and habitus. The qualita…
The land of opportunity? Ukraine refugee parents’ reflections on their children’s sport participation in Norway
Backcountry skiing in Norway: Between global lifestyle sport and national tradition
This article examines the cultural and social dynamics of backcountry skiing in Norway, an activity positioned between global lifestyle sport and national tradition. We investigate the characteristics of lifestyle sports within their specific contexts and highlight the elements of identity politics and social belonging. Utilizing social phenomenology and nature dwelling as theoretical perspectives, we focus on the sensuous experiences of backcoun…
Being second among the second: Experiences of Indigenous sports among assimilated Sámi
This article reports on a study investigating the struggle for influence in an Indigenous community. With an eye on the potential further subordination on certain subgroups, we studied how Sámi sports club officials outside Sámi core areas perceive their relationship with clubs in core Sámi areas and the federative Sámi sports organization. Methodologically, we performed interviews with representatives of Indigenous sports clubs and employed Bour…
Structural and Cultural Othering: An Organizational Culture Perspective on Young People’s Participation in Decision-making in Sport Organizations
The purpose of this article is to examine the role played by organizational culture in young people’s continuing underrepresentation in decision-making bodies, despite structural changes, in the context of Norwegian sport organizations. Data is based on a questionnaire centred on the experiences of young people in sport governance ( n = 32 youth representatives) and semi-structured interviews with young (under 26 years) and older representatives …
The contested terrain of sport, media & indigenous representation: A case study of sámi sport organisation in Norway
This paper examines the representation of Sámi sport in Norwegian media by applying a Nordic-informed 'critical ethnicity theory', and a media framing perspective. The study extends previous analyses that have focused on media stereotyping of Indigenous athletes to explore how the media represent Sámi sport. Drawing from a combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of Norwegian print media from 1994-2017, Sámi sport is represented as both a u…
The art of balance: Indigenous sport governance between traditional government and self-governance
The governance of Indigenous people is in many contexts a combination of political ambitions to promote self-governance, and more traditional policies and governance practices. These combinations often carry unintended contradictions and exclusionary processes. In this article, we investigate the consequences of one such contradiction: the aspiration for self-determination and self-governance on the one hand and the aspiration for broader politic…
Private football academies—friend or foe? An analysis of Norwegian media's framing of arguments about private football academies and the monopoly of organized sport
Private football academies challenge the monopoly of Norwegian voluntary and democratic sport. Using field theory and framing approach as analytical perspectives, this article presents a media analysis that reveals that, first, association football and private academies agree on the fact that Norwegian football is not good enough and must improve. Second, they disagree on whether to improve it within association football exclusively or supplement…
The meaning of democracy in an era of good governance: Views of representation and their implications for board composition
Contemporary sport governance contexts are marked by a trend towards efficiency-based board composition and an increasing use of instruments aimed to (re)shape boards. Yet, democratic governance is integral to many countries' sport systems, and research tells us that representation still matters in sport governance. Considering this, the aim with this paper is to provide researchers and practitioners with a vocabulary to understand and address is…
Leisure-Time Activities in Different Contexts and Depressive Symptoms in Norwegian Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study
The purpose of this study was to examine the association between physical activity organised in sports clubs, non-organised physical activity, other organised leisure-time activities, and depressive symptoms among adolescents. This study was based on cross-sectional data from the Ungdata survey conducted between 2017 and 2019. The sample comprised 7656 adolescents (aged 13-16 years). Binominal logistic regression was used to analyse the associati…
Doing research into Indigenous issues being non-Indigenous
Based on research into Indigenous people and sport, this article discusses the opportunities and challenges for a non-Indigenous researcher to study Indigenous issues. The author shares personal experiences from research into Sámi sport (Sámi are the Indigenous people of the North Calotte) and compares these with the literature relating to post-colonial methodologies. It concludes with some overarching elements to take into consideration when res…
Lack of) government policy for indigenous (Sámi) sport: A chain of legitimating and de-legitimating acts
While colonization as policy is formally a historic phenomenon in Norway and elsewhere, many former structures of state organization - including their relationship to sport - remain under post-colonial conditions. This paper is concerned with how the Norwegian government contributes to creating a situation, which includes the Norwegian sports confederation (NIF) but excludes the indigenous people Sámi's sports organisation. Based on existing data…
The Lay Gaze'-Rural Norwegian men's assessment of others' health based on pictures
In this article, we explore lay men's understanding of the relationship between other's bodily appearance and health-'the Lay Gaze'. We applied the theoretical concepts of biopower, medical gaze, bodyism and healthism-the ideology where one feature is that a slim body is equivalent to a healthy body-and interviewed 18 adult and elderly men in rural Norway, representing a heterogeneous group regarding age, ethnicity and education. To explore the i…
A one-off event and the construction of organisational identity: The case of the 2016 Lillehammer Youth Olympic Games Committee
In this article, we investigate the organisational identity (OI) of the 2016 Lillehammer Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (LYOGOC). Using OI theory, we scrutinised how the youth focus of the winter edition of the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) and the institutional environment of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) shaped LYOGOC's identity. We conducted an interview with five leaders in a focus group after the games, as well as observati…
Sport in Scandinavia and the Nordic Countries
"The Scandinavian and Nordic countries have some of the highest participation rates in sport and physical activity in the world and are therefore important case studies across a range of subjects, from sport policy to physical activity and health. This is the first book to bring together studies of all those countries in one volume, examining sport, physical activity and exercise, and exploring the factors behind such high levels of participation…
Performing Sport Political Legitimacy: A Cultural Sociology Perspective on Sport Politics
This paper concerns the performance of sport politics. We carry out a text analysis of a year-long media debate that raged in Norwegian newspapers throughout 2016. After the Medias had critiqued how the Norwegian Confederation of Sports (NIF) spends state-provided funds, the Minister of Culture questioned the alleged civil contribution from NIF and demanded change. An archival search retrieved 488 articles and 1604 pages on the matter. Performanc…
The Changing Room in Physical Education as Cross Roads Between Fields and Curricula: The Experiences of Norwegian Students
With a survey of physical education (PE) among a national representative sample of fifth to tenth grade students ( N = 3,226) in Norway, we investigated how students experience the changing room situation in relation to PE classes. Most students find the changing room situation unproblematic, while some report problems. A majority (59.6%) of the students disagreed with the statement "I experience that an adult is looking after us when we change/s…
Inside-out and outside-in: Applying the concept of conventions in the analysis of policy implementation through sport clubs
The aim of this article is to enrich theoretically the analysis of processes of policy implementation through sport clubs. Subsequent to reviewing previous theoretical contributions on this topic, we make the case that available conceptualizations are marked by an inside-out perspective and that they conceptually and empirically stop short at the end implementer, i.e. the sport club. Consequently, analyses of policy implementation through sport c…
Adolescent girls’ experiences of urban dance programmes: A qualitative analysis of Flemish initiatives targeting disadvantaged youth
A study on urban dance initiatives for disadvantaged girls in Flanders (Belgium) was set up, as there is little insight into the underlying social mechanisms that allow developmental benefits to occur for this group. A fieldwork approach, including observations at three dance sites and interviews with 25 participants, resulted in four main findings. First, the access to the programmes is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to foster develo…
Stuck in structure: How young leaders experienced the institutional frames at the Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, 2012
The aim of this paper is to explore how young leaders within the Innsbruck Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee experienced the degree of freedom within the institutionalized structure of the International Olympic Committee. Employing a theoretical framework of new institutionalism, a qualitative case study including observations and interviews was conducted. The concept of translation provides a framework for analysing institutional change i…
The sustainability of the Youth Olympic Games: Stakeholder networks and institutional perspectives
This paper explored the Youth Olympic Games' (YOG) potential sustainability (survival and success) through an analysis of how actors exert various forms of pressure on the YOG. Given the impact of the Olympic Games and of youth on society, it becomes important to study the newest member of the Olympic Family. Combining stakeholder, network and institutional literatures, a case study of the first Winter YOG in Innsbruck (Austria) was built by mean…
Sport in the welfare state – Still a male preserve: A theoretical analysis of Norwegian football management
Classical sociology of social differentiation and power, and welfare state ideology of equality and egalitarian authority represent two sides of the same story. Focusing on gender, the former suggests major differences in sport, while the latter hypothesises a world without gender differences. The contemporary situation of Norwegian sport is discussed within the background of gender differences with a focus on authority in the most popular organi…
Telemark Skiing: The Ultimate Norwegian Sport and a Class Phenomenon
In this paper, we scrutinise telemark skiing with regard to gender, social class and other sociological variables. In so doing, our methodological approach involves applying Bourdieu’s framework to analyse the surveys – one representative nationwide and one from a specific telemark race. National statistics are utilised as an additional source. The main findings are that telemark skiing is dominated by boys, and, moreso than other skiing discipli…
The conventions of sport clubs: Enabling and constraining the implementation of social goods through sport
In order to shed light on the possibilities for using sport as a vehicle for the realization of social goods—understood as sport having a wider social role—this paper scrutinizes Norwegian sport clubs. The study is guided by the concept of convention, which refers to individuals’ cognitive structures, and to social structure. Three sport clubs were investigated and three qualitative methods, including document analysis, observation and interviews…
Understanding Sport Clubs as Sport Policy Implementers: A Theoretical Framework for the Analysis of the Implementation of Central Sport Policy through Local and Voluntary Sport Organizations
This article aims at developing a theoretical framework for analysing the implementation of sport policy, as it is conducted by voluntary sport clubs at grassroots level. First, three options are presented and discussed: i) a classical top-down implementation model, ii) the governance theory of policy tools, and iii) the Advocacy Coalition Framework. Second, the theoretical perspectives are discussed, and criticized for failing to take sufficient…
Competitiveness and health: The work of sport clubs as seen by sport clubs representatives - a Norwegian case study
This article is study of sport club representatives' considerations about the work of sport clubs. Sport clubs are first and foremost providers of sport activity. However, when it came to the work of sport clubs, it is discovered that the focus is on competitiveness, but sport clubs were also seen as a vehicle for promotion of 'social goods' such as health. Based on documentary analysis, observations and interviews with board members of sport clu…
Biggest but smallest: Female football and the case of Norway
This essay discusses the contemporary gender situation in Norwegian football (soccer), with reference to three questions: (i) why is there still a significant gender gap; (ii) why has female football grown rapidly over the last decades; and (iii) why is the Norwegian situation relatively egalitarian after all, when compared, for example, to the UK? The former two questions are analysed by the application of the work of Dunning, which shows that, …
Performing Sport Political Legitimacy: A Cultural Sociology Perspective on Sport Politics
This paper concerns the performance of sport politics. We carry out a text analysis of a year-long media debate that raged in Norwegian newspapers throughout 2016. After the Medias had critiqued how the Norwegian Confederation of Sports (NIF) spends state-provided funds, the Minister of Culture questioned the alleged civil contribution from NIF and demanded change. An archival search retrieved 488 articles and 1604 pages on the matter. Performanc…
Alternative sport programmes and social inclusion in Norway
This article examines the ‘alternative’ sport and physical activities provided by the Sports City Programme (SCP) in Norway, which are designed to attract more young people (especially inactive young people) to take part in physical activities. In particular, it examines whether these ‘alternative’ sports have been more successful than conventional sports in breaking down class and gender-based barriers to participation. The data indicate that th…
Individuality or Cultural Reproduction: Adolescents’ Sport Participation in Norway: Alternative versus Conventional Sports
The Norwegian Government initiated the Sports City Program (SCP) in 1992 in an attempt to encourage inactive segments of the urban population to become more active. The program was implemented by the Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sports and is designed to provide sporting activities for those who are not involved in conventional sports. Through a survey in one of the cities where the SCP is most developed, this study examines t…
The meaning of democracy in an era of good governance: Views of representation and their implications for board composition
Contemporary sport governance contexts are marked by a trend towards efficiency-based board composition and an increasing use of instruments aimed to (re)shape boards. Yet, democratic governance is integral to many countries' sport systems, and research tells us that representation still matters in sport governance. Considering this, the aim with this paper is to provide researchers and practitioners with a vocabulary to understand and address is…
Doing research into Indigenous issues being non-Indigenous
Based on research into Indigenous people and sport, this article discusses the opportunities and challenges for a non-Indigenous researcher to study Indigenous issues. The author shares personal experiences from research into Sámi sport (Sámi are the Indigenous people of the North Calotte) and compares these with the literature relating to post-colonial methodologies. It concludes with some overarching elements to take into consideration when res…
Inside-out and outside-in: Applying the concept of conventions in the analysis of policy implementation through sport clubs
The aim of this article is to enrich theoretically the analysis of processes of policy implementation through sport clubs. Subsequent to reviewing previous theoretical contributions on this topic, we make the case that available conceptualizations are marked by an inside-out perspective and that they conceptually and empirically stop short at the end implementer, i.e. the sport club. Consequently, analyses of policy implementation through sport c…
The sustainability of the Youth Olympic Games: Stakeholder networks and institutional perspectives
This paper explored the Youth Olympic Games' (YOG) potential sustainability (survival and success) through an analysis of how actors exert various forms of pressure on the YOG. Given the impact of the Olympic Games and of youth on society, it becomes important to study the newest member of the Olympic Family. Combining stakeholder, network and institutional literatures, a case study of the first Winter YOG in Innsbruck (Austria) was built by mean…
The Norwegian sporting field reconsidered – the application of Bourdieu’s field theory on a pluralistic and blurred world
This article takes as a point of departure the history and present situation of the Norwegian sector of sport and physical activity (SPA), and sketches three ideal types of sport/activity: conventional (organized and competitive) sport, self-organized activities and commercial activities. After presenting Bourdieu's theory of fields, the author tries to identify – or derive from the SPA sector – the sporting field, based on the criteria that the …
Lack of) government policy for indigenous (Sámi) sport: A chain of legitimating and de-legitimating acts
While colonization as policy is formally a historic phenomenon in Norway and elsewhere, many former structures of state organization - including their relationship to sport - remain under post-colonial conditions. This paper is concerned with how the Norwegian government contributes to creating a situation, which includes the Norwegian sports confederation (NIF) but excludes the indigenous people Sámi's sports organisation. Based on existing data…
The Lay Gaze'-Rural Norwegian men's assessment of others' health based on pictures
In this article, we explore lay men's understanding of the relationship between other's bodily appearance and health-'the Lay Gaze'. We applied the theoretical concepts of biopower, medical gaze, bodyism and healthism-the ideology where one feature is that a slim body is equivalent to a healthy body-and interviewed 18 adult and elderly men in rural Norway, representing a heterogeneous group regarding age, ethnicity and education. To explore the i…
Adolescent girls’ experiences of urban dance programmes: A qualitative analysis of Flemish initiatives targeting disadvantaged youth
A study on urban dance initiatives for disadvantaged girls in Flanders (Belgium) was set up, as there is little insight into the underlying social mechanisms that allow developmental benefits to occur for this group. A fieldwork approach, including observations at three dance sites and interviews with 25 participants, resulted in four main findings. First, the access to the programmes is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to foster develo…
Sport in the welfare state – Still a male preserve: A theoretical analysis of Norwegian football management
Classical sociology of social differentiation and power, and welfare state ideology of equality and egalitarian authority represent two sides of the same story. Focusing on gender, the former suggests major differences in sport, while the latter hypothesises a world without gender differences. The contemporary situation of Norwegian sport is discussed within the background of gender differences with a focus on authority in the most popular organi…
Telemark Skiing: The Ultimate Norwegian Sport and a Class Phenomenon
In this paper, we scrutinise telemark skiing with regard to gender, social class and other sociological variables. In so doing, our methodological approach involves applying Bourdieu’s framework to analyse the surveys – one representative nationwide and one from a specific telemark race. National statistics are utilised as an additional source. The main findings are that telemark skiing is dominated by boys, and, moreso than other skiing discipli…
The contested terrain of sport, media & indigenous representation: A case study of sámi sport organisation in Norway
This paper examines the representation of Sámi sport in Norwegian media by applying a Nordic-informed 'critical ethnicity theory', and a media framing perspective. The study extends previous analyses that have focused on media stereotyping of Indigenous athletes to explore how the media represent Sámi sport. Drawing from a combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of Norwegian print media from 1994-2017, Sámi sport is represented as both a u…
A one-off event and the construction of organisational identity: The case of the 2016 Lillehammer Youth Olympic Games Committee
In this article, we investigate the organisational identity (OI) of the 2016 Lillehammer Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (LYOGOC). Using OI theory, we scrutinised how the youth focus of the winter edition of the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) and the institutional environment of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) shaped LYOGOC's identity. We conducted an interview with five leaders in a focus group after the games, as well as observati…
The Changing Room in Physical Education as Cross Roads Between Fields and Curricula: The Experiences of Norwegian Students
With a survey of physical education (PE) among a national representative sample of fifth to tenth grade students ( N = 3,226) in Norway, we investigated how students experience the changing room situation in relation to PE classes. Most students find the changing room situation unproblematic, while some report problems. A majority (59.6%) of the students disagreed with the statement "I experience that an adult is looking after us when we change/s…
Stuck in structure: How young leaders experienced the institutional frames at the Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, 2012
The aim of this paper is to explore how young leaders within the Innsbruck Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee experienced the degree of freedom within the institutionalized structure of the International Olympic Committee. Employing a theoretical framework of new institutionalism, a qualitative case study including observations and interviews was conducted. The concept of translation provides a framework for analysing institutional change i…
The meaning of social context: Experiences of and educational outcomes of participation in two different sport contexts
Based on a general belief in society about the good outcome of sport, this article critically examines the meaning—that is both the personal experience of participation and the potential educational outcome—which is derived from participation in two sport contexts under the umbrella of the Sports City Program (SCP) in Norway. With a theoretical framework based on the field theory of Bourdieu, and a qualitative methodological approach, the article…
Beiträge / Contributions. Adolescents’ Preferences for Participation - Alternative Versus Conventional Sports. A Norwegian Case / Sportpräferenzen von Jugendlichen - alternativer und konventioneller S…
Comparing preferences for sport participation between alternative and conventional sports, this article exhibits some differences across sport contexts, as well as across gender and class. However, the main finding is the major similarities of preferences and dominating social groups (boys that is) across the contexts. This indicates that a similar habitus is in play in the alternative context as in the conventional one, and that "real alternativ…
Individuality or Cultural Reproduction: Adolescents’ Sport Participation in Norway: Alternative versus Conventional Sports
The Norwegian Government initiated the Sports City Program (SCP) in 1992 in an attempt to encourage inactive segments of the urban population to become more active. The program was implemented by the Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sports and is designed to provide sporting activities for those who are not involved in conventional sports. Through a survey in one of the cities where the SCP is most developed, this study examines t…
Alternative sport programmes and social inclusion in Norway
This article examines the ‘alternative’ sport and physical activities provided by the Sports City Programme (SCP) in Norway, which are designed to attract more young people (especially inactive young people) to take part in physical activities. In particular, it examines whether these ‘alternative’ sports have been more successful than conventional sports in breaking down class and gender-based barriers to participation. The data indicate that th…
The meaning of social context: Experiences of and educational outcomes of participation in two different sport contexts
Based on a general belief in society about the good outcome of sport, this article critically examines the meaning—that is both the personal experience of participation and the potential educational outcome—which is derived from participation in two sport contexts under the umbrella of the Sports City Program (SCP) in Norway. With a theoretical framework based on the field theory of Bourdieu, and a qualitative methodological approach, the article…
The Norwegian sporting field reconsidered – the application of Bourdieu’s field theory on a pluralistic and blurred world
This article takes as a point of departure the history and present situation of the Norwegian sector of sport and physical activity (SPA), and sketches three ideal types of sport/activity: conventional (organized and competitive) sport, self-organized activities and commercial activities. After presenting Bourdieu's theory of fields, the author tries to identify – or derive from the SPA sector – the sporting field, based on the criteria that the …
Biggest but smallest: Female football and the case of Norway
This essay discusses the contemporary gender situation in Norwegian football (soccer), with reference to three questions: (i) why is there still a significant gender gap; (ii) why has female football grown rapidly over the last decades; and (iii) why is the Norwegian situation relatively egalitarian after all, when compared, for example, to the UK? The former two questions are analysed by the application of the work of Dunning, which shows that, …
Understanding Sport Clubs as Sport Policy Implementers: A Theoretical Framework for the Analysis of the Implementation of Central Sport Policy through Local and Voluntary Sport Organizations
This article aims at developing a theoretical framework for analysing the implementation of sport policy, as it is conducted by voluntary sport clubs at grassroots level. First, three options are presented and discussed: i) a classical top-down implementation model, ii) the governance theory of policy tools, and iii) the Advocacy Coalition Framework. Second, the theoretical perspectives are discussed, and criticized for failing to take sufficient…
Elite Athletes’ Perspectives on Providing Whereabouts Information: A Survey of Athletes in the Norwegian Registered Testing Pool / Das Meldesystem und die Anti-Doping-Bestimmungen aus der Sicht der At…
This paper reports on the perspectives of elite athletes on anti-doping work in general and on the whereabouts system in particular, and uses a figurational perspective to explore the unintended consequences of the planned introduction of the whereabouts system. A cross-sectional survey of all the athletes in the Norwegian registered testing pool (n = 236, response rate = 80.8%) was carried out in 2006, using a structured questionnaire. Overall, …
Competitiveness and health: The work of sport clubs as seen by sport clubs representatives - a Norwegian case study
This article is study of sport club representatives' considerations about the work of sport clubs. Sport clubs are first and foremost providers of sport activity. However, when it came to the work of sport clubs, it is discovered that the focus is on competitiveness, but sport clubs were also seen as a vehicle for promotion of 'social goods' such as health. Based on documentary analysis, observations and interviews with board members of sport clu…
Sport as a vehicle for health promotion – an analysis of Norwegian policy documents
In contemporary western society, there has been an increasing focus on physical activity as a vehicle for promoting health. How physical activity is promoted and organized varies across countries. This article focuses on the Norwegian system, which is characterized by voluntary sport being organized during leisure time, and all being federated under the Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sports (NOC). Guided by the field concept of …
What does sport mean to you? Fun and other preferences for adolescents’ sport participation
The point that fun is the most important preference for both adolescents and adults when it comes to sport participation has resonance within the field of health promotion, as it suggests that sports and activities that generate fun increase the likelihood of people, especially adolescents, maintaining their involvement in sport. Moreover, sport is associated with class and gender suggesting that sport may be differentially experienced by young p…
The conventions of sport clubs: Enabling and constraining the implementation of social goods through sport
In order to shed light on the possibilities for using sport as a vehicle for the realization of social goods—understood as sport having a wider social role—this paper scrutinizes Norwegian sport clubs. The study is guided by the concept of convention, which refers to individuals’ cognitive structures, and to social structure. Three sport clubs were investigated and three qualitative methods, including document analysis, observation and interviews…
Telemark Skiing: The Ultimate Norwegian Sport and a Class Phenomenon
In this paper, we scrutinise telemark skiing with regard to gender, social class and other sociological variables. In so doing, our methodological approach involves applying Bourdieu’s framework to analyse the surveys – one representative nationwide and one from a specific telemark race. National statistics are utilised as an additional source. The main findings are that telemark skiing is dominated by boys, and, moreso than other skiing discipli…
Sport in the welfare state – Still a male preserve: A theoretical analysis of Norwegian football management
Classical sociology of social differentiation and power, and welfare state ideology of equality and egalitarian authority represent two sides of the same story. Focusing on gender, the former suggests major differences in sport, while the latter hypothesises a world without gender differences. The contemporary situation of Norwegian sport is discussed within the background of gender differences with a focus on authority in the most popular organi…
The sustainability of the Youth Olympic Games: Stakeholder networks and institutional perspectives
This paper explored the Youth Olympic Games' (YOG) potential sustainability (survival and success) through an analysis of how actors exert various forms of pressure on the YOG. Given the impact of the Olympic Games and of youth on society, it becomes important to study the newest member of the Olympic Family. Combining stakeholder, network and institutional literatures, a case study of the first Winter YOG in Innsbruck (Austria) was built by mean…
Stuck in structure: How young leaders experienced the institutional frames at the Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, 2012
The aim of this paper is to explore how young leaders within the Innsbruck Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee experienced the degree of freedom within the institutionalized structure of the International Olympic Committee. Employing a theoretical framework of new institutionalism, a qualitative case study including observations and interviews was conducted. The concept of translation provides a framework for analysing institutional change i…
Adolescent girls’ experiences of urban dance programmes: A qualitative analysis of Flemish initiatives targeting disadvantaged youth
A study on urban dance initiatives for disadvantaged girls in Flanders (Belgium) was set up, as there is little insight into the underlying social mechanisms that allow developmental benefits to occur for this group. A fieldwork approach, including observations at three dance sites and interviews with 25 participants, resulted in four main findings. First, the access to the programmes is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to foster develo…
Sport in Scandinavia and the Nordic Countries
"The Scandinavian and Nordic countries have some of the highest participation rates in sport and physical activity in the world and are therefore important case studies across a range of subjects, from sport policy to physical activity and health. This is the first book to bring together studies of all those countries in one volume, examining sport, physical activity and exercise, and exploring the factors behind such high levels of participation…
Performing Sport Political Legitimacy: A Cultural Sociology Perspective on Sport Politics
This paper concerns the performance of sport politics. We carry out a text analysis of a year-long media debate that raged in Norwegian newspapers throughout 2016. After the Medias had critiqued how the Norwegian Confederation of Sports (NIF) spends state-provided funds, the Minister of Culture questioned the alleged civil contribution from NIF and demanded change. An archival search retrieved 488 articles and 1604 pages on the matter. Performanc…
The Changing Room in Physical Education as Cross Roads Between Fields and Curricula: The Experiences of Norwegian Students
With a survey of physical education (PE) among a national representative sample of fifth to tenth grade students ( N = 3,226) in Norway, we investigated how students experience the changing room situation in relation to PE classes. Most students find the changing room situation unproblematic, while some report problems. A majority (59.6%) of the students disagreed with the statement "I experience that an adult is looking after us when we change/s…
Inside-out and outside-in: Applying the concept of conventions in the analysis of policy implementation through sport clubs
The aim of this article is to enrich theoretically the analysis of processes of policy implementation through sport clubs. Subsequent to reviewing previous theoretical contributions on this topic, we make the case that available conceptualizations are marked by an inside-out perspective and that they conceptually and empirically stop short at the end implementer, i.e. the sport club. Consequently, analyses of policy implementation through sport c…
A one-off event and the construction of organisational identity: The case of the 2016 Lillehammer Youth Olympic Games Committee
In this article, we investigate the organisational identity (OI) of the 2016 Lillehammer Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (LYOGOC). Using OI theory, we scrutinised how the youth focus of the winter edition of the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) and the institutional environment of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) shaped LYOGOC's identity. We conducted an interview with five leaders in a focus group after the games, as well as observati…
The Lay Gaze'-Rural Norwegian men's assessment of others' health based on pictures
In this article, we explore lay men's understanding of the relationship between other's bodily appearance and health-'the Lay Gaze'. We applied the theoretical concepts of biopower, medical gaze, bodyism and healthism-the ideology where one feature is that a slim body is equivalent to a healthy body-and interviewed 18 adult and elderly men in rural Norway, representing a heterogeneous group regarding age, ethnicity and education. To explore the i…
Leisure-Time Activities in Different Contexts and Depressive Symptoms in Norwegian Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study
The purpose of this study was to examine the association between physical activity organised in sports clubs, non-organised physical activity, other organised leisure-time activities, and depressive symptoms among adolescents. This study was based on cross-sectional data from the Ungdata survey conducted between 2017 and 2019. The sample comprised 7656 adolescents (aged 13-16 years). Binominal logistic regression was used to analyse the associati…
Doing research into Indigenous issues being non-Indigenous
Based on research into Indigenous people and sport, this article discusses the opportunities and challenges for a non-Indigenous researcher to study Indigenous issues. The author shares personal experiences from research into Sámi sport (Sámi are the Indigenous people of the North Calotte) and compares these with the literature relating to post-colonial methodologies. It concludes with some overarching elements to take into consideration when res…
Sport and Mega-Event Impacts (31 works) · Sociology (30 works) · Political science (28 works) · Sports, Gender, and Society (27 works) · Norwegian (20 works) · Law (16 works) · Social science (14 works) · Public relations (13 works) · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering (12 works) · Politics (12 works)