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Sport celebrates basic human values of freedom, justice and courage. This collection of essays probes beneath those assumptions in order to illuminate how sport is intimately related to power and domination. Topics include the media treatment of sport, drug-taking in sport and the controversial and problematic relationship between sport and politics in Russia and South Africa.

1. Theorising sport : an introduction / Jennifer Hargreaves -- 2. Sport, culture and ideology / John Hargreaves -- 3. 'Highlights and action replays' : ideology, sport and the media / Alan Clarke and John Clarke -- 4. Women and leisure / Christine Griffin. [et al.] -- 5. Women in sport in ideology / Paul Willis -- 6. Sport and youth culture / David Robins -- 7. On the sports violence question : soccer hooliganism revisited / Ian Taylor -- 8. Sport and drugs / Martyn Lucking -- 9. Sport and communism : on the example of the USSR / James Riordan -- 10. The politics of sport apartheid / Peter Hain.

This paper is a reaction to the general neglect of an adequate treatment of gender relations in the sociology of sport. It looks at the limitations of analyses of female sport and at the possibilities of producing a potentially authentic sociology of female sport which combines theory with sporting practice. I argue that analysing sport is an inherently controversial affair. The focus of the paper is female sport in capitalist societies, and, more specifically, in the UK. I argue that theory should question popular assertions about female sport by looking at complexities and contradictions. I discuss the relevance of feminist theories to sport and the particular problem of working out the relationship between capitalist relations and gender relations in sport. A number of issues are discussed which have theoretical and practical dimensions — for example, the male/female distinction in sport, the desire for equality of opportunity with men in sport, the philosophy of separate development, and the concern for qualitatively different models of sport for both sexes. Central to this paper is the problem about how we might explain theoretically the relationship between the possibilities and the limitations of female sport which have important practical and ethical implications. The focus is on the female, but the issues are relevant to males as well.

All sports focus on the physical body, with images of speed and power, agility, skilfulness and achievement. Throughout the history of sports, gender divisions and stereotypes have been intrinsic to their structure and culture, while sexuality has been inseparable from the gendered character of sports. In other words, gender and sexuality have been fundamental to the understanding and practice of all sports and physical cultures, and lie at the centre of the growing field of sport studies. The Routledge Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality offers a guide of unparalleled depth and breadth to the many complex inter-relationships between sport, gender, and sexuality. Consisting entirely of new empirical and theoretical essays by leading and emerging researchers and scholars from around the world, the books maps the historical, theoretical and empirical terrain of gender and sexuality studies in sport. Including personal and political narratives from across a wide range of different sports and physical activities, the book covers the separation of male and female sport and physical education from the mid-nineteenth century up until the present day. It examines structural and cultural forms of gender segregation, homophobia, heteronormativity and transphobia, as well as the ideological struggles and changes that have led to nuanced ways of thinking about the sport, gender, and sexuality nexus. This is a landmark work of reference that will be a key resource for all advanced students and researchers working in sport studies, gender studies, sexuality studies or sociology.