Kath Woodward – författare

Fully revised and updated, the fourth edition of Social Sciences: The Big Issues explores key debates about how we live our personal, domestic and emotional lives at a time of enormous, previously unimaginable change and disruption, including a pandemic that locked down households and economies.

Since the third edition, everyone’s life has changed. The pandemic – at least temporarily – stopped social life as we knew it and virtually forced governments to close down their economies. This is where this edition of The Big Issues starts. Staying at home posed a radical departure from routine life, but reactions to Covid-19 have exposed the endurance of particular social relations – especially inequalities – which characterize societies worldwide.

A few of the new big issues covered in this edition include:

Building on the strong foundation of this well-loved text, this fully revised fourth edition explores how big issues and social forces intersect to create both change and evidence of continuity, especially of social inequalities. It provides a clear, accessible introduction to the ideas and approaches of the social sciences across a range of disciplines, including sociology, psychology and politics.

Fully revised and updated, the fourth edition of Social Sciences: The Big Issues explores key debates about how we live our personal, domestic and emotional lives at a time of enormous, previously unimaginable change and disruption, including a pandemic that locked down households and economies.

Since the third edition, everyone’s life has changed. The pandemic – at least temporarily – stopped social life as we knew it and virtually forced governments to close down their economies. This is where this edition of The Big Issues starts. Staying at home posed a radical departure from routine life, but reactions to Covid-19 have exposed the endurance of particular social relations – especially inequalities – which characterize societies worldwide.

A few of the new big issues covered in this edition include:

Building on the strong foundation of this well-loved text, this fully revised fourth edition explores how big issues and social forces intersect to create both change and evidence of continuity, especially of social inequalities. It provides a clear, accessible introduction to the ideas and approaches of the social sciences across a range of disciplines, including sociology, psychology and politics.

Our world is an increasingly unstable place, but current changes offer new opportunities as well as new challenges. This key volume provides an accessible exploration of identity as a contemporary concern in everyday life and as a key concept in social science. Drawing on work from a range of disciplines and focusing on the key social divisions of gender, class and nation, it shows how these challenges and opportunities work out in practice.

What is really happening when people either individually or in groups identify with particular definitions of themselves or strike out to take up new identities? Do gender, class and ethnicity offer some stability and even certainty about who we are, or are they to be seen as limitations on our freedom to choose our own identities? Are we in the end bound by the social constraints and inequalities with which we started out?This key text is essential reading for all students starting out in the social sciences and for anyone with an interest in the dilemmas of identity-making in contemporary society.

Our world is an increasingly unstable place, but current changes offer new opportunities as well as new challenges. This key volume provides an accessible exploration of identity as a contemporary concern in everyday life and as a key concept in social science. Drawing on work from a range of disciplines and focusing on the key social divisions of gender, class and nation, it shows how these challenges and opportunities work out in practice.

What is really happening when people either individually or in groups identify with particular definitions of themselves or strike out to take up new identities? Do gender, class and ethnicity offer some stability and even certainty about who we are, or are they to be seen as limitations on our freedom to choose our own identities? Are we in the end bound by the social constraints and inequalities with which we started out?This key text is essential reading for all students starting out in the social sciences and for anyone with an interest in the dilemmas of identity-making in contemporary society.

Sport generates some of the most intense feelings and levels of commitment. It is big business globally, but also the source of the most powerful personal identifications and individual and collective pleasures. Sporting events are routine and embodied, whether in the gym, on the field or at the training ground, and they are also spectacular, for example in mega events at the stadium or, for followers at a distance, through the media of television, radio and the Internet. Large numbers of people are caught up in personal and collective investment and public engagement with sport. Why does it matter so much?

In this book, Woodward demonstrates why sport matters and how, arguing that we should take sport seriously, and explore what is social about it. Sport is not just another domain to which social theories can be applied; it is also distinctive and generates new ways of thinking about social issues and debates. Sport is affected by the global economy and social, political and cultural processes – but it also shapes the wider social terrain of which it is part. Sport reproduces inequalities as well as offering opportunities. It is not always a level playing field. Sport is more than play.

Planet Sport is an engaging and concise introduction to some of the big issues in contemporary debates about sport in globalised societies, and will appeal to students, academics and general readers alike.

Sport generates some of the most intense feelings and levels of commitment. It is big business globally, but also the source of the most powerful personal identifications and individual and collective pleasures. Sporting events are routine and embodied, whether in the gym, on the field or at the training ground, and they are also spectacular, for example in mega events at the stadium or, for followers at a distance, through the media of television, radio and the Internet. Large numbers of people are caught up in personal and collective investment and public engagement with sport. Why does it matter so much?

In this book, Woodward demonstrates why sport matters and how, arguing that we should take sport seriously, and explore what is social about it. Sport is not just another domain to which social theories can be applied; it is also distinctive and generates new ways of thinking about social issues and debates. Sport is affected by the global economy and social, political and cultural processes – but it also shapes the wider social terrain of which it is part. Sport reproduces inequalities as well as offering opportunities. It is not always a level playing field. Sport is more than play.

Planet Sport is an engaging and concise introduction to some of the big issues in contemporary debates about sport in globalised societies, and will appeal to students, academics and general readers alike.

In the decade or more since publication of the first edition of Understanding Sport, both sport and wider global society have undergone profound change. In this fully updated, revised and expanded edition of their classic textbook, John Horne, Alan Tomlinson, Garry Whannel and Kath Woodward offer a critical and reflective introduction to the relationship between sport and contemporary society and explain how sport remains an important agent and symptom of socio-cultural change.

Fully integrating historical, sociological, political and cultural analysis, the book covers every key topic in the study of sport and society, including:

Retaining the accessibility and scholarly rigour for which Understanding Sport has always been renowned, this new edition includes entirely new chapters on global transformations, sports mega-events and sites, sporting bodies and governance, as well as a succinct guide to researching sport. With review and seminar questions included in every chapter, plus concise, helpful guides to further reading, Understanding Sport remains an essential textbook for all courses on sport and society, the sociology of sport, sport and social theory, or social issues in sport.

In the decade or more since publication of the first edition of Understanding Sport, both sport and wider global society have undergone profound change. In this fully updated, revised and expanded edition of their classic textbook, John Horne, Alan Tomlinson, Garry Whannel and Kath Woodward offer a critical and reflective introduction to the relationship between sport and contemporary society and explain how sport remains an important agent and symptom of socio-cultural change.

Fully integrating historical, sociological, political and cultural analysis, the book covers every key topic in the study of sport and society, including:

Retaining the accessibility and scholarly rigour for which Understanding Sport has always been renowned, this new edition includes entirely new chapters on global transformations, sports mega-events and sites, sporting bodies and governance, as well as a succinct guide to researching sport. With review and seminar questions included in every chapter, plus concise, helpful guides to further reading, Understanding Sport remains an essential textbook for all courses on sport and society, the sociology of sport, sport and social theory, or social issues in sport.