Critical Sports Studies: A Document Reader

Critical Sports Studies: A Document Reader provides students with a selection of essays that examine social problems in sport. Readers are challenged to critically consider various topics to better understand how the global phenomenon of sport can lead to challenges both on and off the field.

The opening chapter introduces the study of sport in society as an academic discipline. Later chapters cover amateurism in sport, sports and politics, and the role of media in sports. Students read articles that examine key issues in sport, including race and racism, the appropriation of Native American images, Title IX and gender participation and inclusion, violence and aggression, toxic masculinity, abuses of power and authority, team bonding through hazing, and more. The closing chapter provides suggestions for making sports a more inclusive space. Each chapter includes QR codes that link to additional articles and provide opportunities for further study and exploration.

Critical Sports Studies is an ideal supplementary or core text for courses in critical sports studies, kinesiology, the sociology of sport, or any course related to the history and culture of sport.

Nicholas Villanueva, Jr. is an award-winning author, an assistant professor of ethnic studies, and the director of critical sports studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He earned his Ph.D. in history with a concentration in race and ethnicity in 20th century America at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of The Athlete as National Symbol: Critical Essays on Sports in the International Arena and Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderland, which won the 2017 Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association and the 2018 National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies Tejas Foco Non-Fiction Award.