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Child's Play

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Child's Play

Sport in Kids' Worlds

Edited by Michael A. Messner and Michela Musto

Contributions by Don Sabo, Phil Veliz, Douglas Hartmann, Alex Manning, Cheryl Cooky, Lauren Rauscher, Toben F Nelson, Jeffrey Montez de Oca, Jeffrey Scholes, Brandon Meyer, Murray J. N. Drummond, Chelsey Thul, Nicole M. LaVoi, Torrie Hazelwood, Fatimah Hussein, Ann Travers, Michael Kehler and A. James McKeever

Afterword by William A. Corsaro

Series: Critical Issues in Sport and Society

Published by: Rutgers University Press

Subjects:Sports and Recreation, Childhood Studies, Sociology

272 Pages, 6.0 x 9.0 in, 4 illustrations, 8 graphs, 3 t

Paperback
9780813571454
Published: May 1, 2016

Hardcover
9780813571461
Published: May 1, 2016

PDF
9780813571478
Published: May 1, 2016

EPUB
9780813572918
Published: May 1, 2016

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

Is sport good for kids? When answering this question, both critics and advocates of youth sports tend to fixate on matters of health, whether condemning contact sports for their concussion risk or prescribing athletics as a cure for the childhood obesity epidemic. Child’s Play presents a more nuanced examination of the issue, considering not only the physical impacts of youth athletics, but its psychological and social ramifications as well.

The eleven original scholarly essays in this collection provide a probing look into how sports—in community athletic leagues, in schools, and even on television—play a major role in how young people view themselves, shape their identities, and imagine their place in society. Rather than focusing exclusively on self-proclaimed jocks, the book considers how the culture of sports affects a wide variety of children and young people, including those who opt out of athletics. Not only does Child’s Play examine disparities across lines of race, class, and gender, it also offers detailed examinations of how various minority populations, from transgender youth to Muslim immigrant girls, have participated in youth sports.

Taken together, these essays offer a wide range of approaches to understanding the sociology of youth sports, including data-driven analyses that examine national trends, as well as ethnographic research that gives a voice to individual kids. Child’s Play thus presents a comprehensive and compelling analysis of how, for better and for worse, the culture of sports is integral to the development of young people—and with them, the future of our society.

Introduction: Kids and Sport

Michael A. Messner and Michela Musto

Part I. Playing Fields: The Social Landscape of Youth Sports

Chapter 1. Surveying Youth Sports in America: What We Know and What It Means for Public Policy

Chapter 2. Kids of Color in the American Sporting Landscape: Limited, Concentrated, and Controlled

Chapter 3. Girls and the Racialization of Female Bodies in Sport Contexts

Chapter 4. Sport and the Childhood Obesity Epidemic

Chapter 5. The Children Are Our Future: The NFL, Corporate Social Responsibility, and the Production of “Avid Fans”

Part II. Fields of Play: Kids Navigating Sport Worlds

Chapter 6. Athletes in the Pool, Girls and Boys on Deck: The Contextual Construction of Gender in Coed Youth Swimming

Chapter 7. The Voices of Boys on Sport, Health, and Physical Activity: The Beginning of Life Through a Gendered Lens

Chapter 8. “We Have a Right to the Gym”: Physical Activity Experiences of East African Immigrant Girls

Chapter 9. Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Kids and the Binary Obstacles of Sport Participation in North America

Chapter 10. Examining Boys, Bodies, and PE Locker Room Spaces: “I Don’t Ever Set Foot in That Locker Room”

Chapter 11. Park “Rats” to Park “Daddies”: Community Heads Creating Future Mentors

Afterword: Kids, Sport Research, and Sport Policy

Notes on Contributors

Index

MICHAEL A. MESSNER is a professor of sociology and gender studies at the University of Southern California. He is the author of several books, including It’s All for the Kids: Gender, Families, and Youth Sports and Some Men: Feminist Allies and the Movement to End Violence Against Women.

MICHELA MUSTO is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Southern California. Her work has appeared in Gender & Society and Sociology of Sport Journal.

"A much needed contribution to the fields of childhood and sport studies."
~Sport in American History

"Together, these essays present an understanding of youth sports supported by research data and ethnographic data that share a child’s voice. This convincing collection recognizes the culture of youth sport and its bearing on the growth of youth. It is for anyone interested in youth sports... Highly recommended."
~Choice

"A carefully crafted and meticulously organized anthology, Child's Play provides a much needed research agenda for studying physical activities and sport participation among young people, and serves as a valuable source of information for any parent or adult concerned about youth sports."
~Jay Coakley, author of Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies

"Messner and Musto have pulled together a powerful collection of essays that offer panoramic insight and riveting detail. The voices of kids are truly revelatory and powerfully demonstrate children’s cultural fluency within the constraints of age and other inequities. Child’s Play is a rare achievement that centers kids’ experience in sports while using it as a crucial prism onto other major sociological projects."
~Allison Pugh, University of Virginia

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