MACMILLAN Sport and Physical Activity across the Lifespan: Critical Perspectives

This edited collection problematizes trajectories of health promotion across the lifespan. It provides a distinctive critical social science perspective of the various directions taken by dominant policies in their approach to promoting sport for all ages. It offers an array of theoretical and methodologically diverse perspectives on this topic, and highlights the intersections between different life stages and social, economic and cultural factors in the developed world, including class, gender, ability, family dynamics and/or race. Sport and Physical Activity across the Lifespan critically explores dominant policies of age-focussed sport promotion in order to highlight its implications within the context of particular life stages as they intersect with social, cultural and economic factors. This includes an examination of organised sport for pre-schoolers; ‘at-risk’ youth sport programmes; and the creation of sporting sub-cultures within the mid-life ‘market’. This book will be of interest to those wanting to learning more about how age and life stages affect the way people think about and participate in sport, and to better understand the impacts of sport across the lifespan. Review “The content provides new perspectives related to themes that would interest academics and students in the fields of sport and physical activity, particularly those who are keen to explore the impact of political factors and geographical locations upon participation, programmes and policy. … the book makes links between social, political and economic factors and the influences they exert on sport and physical activity, its readership is likely to be broad and diverse.” (Jane Dorrian, Sport, Education and Society, Vol. 24 (8), 2019) “The strength of this book is that it is an ambitious overview that offers a far-reaching and coherent argument about the state of sport participation across Australia, Europe and UK. It offers the reader a wide and comprehensive selection of perspectives … . this book is suitable for researchers, undergraduate and post-graduate students and public health practitioners, who will all gain useful insights from it.” (Anne Elliott, Annals of Leisure Research, February 01, 2019) “This edited volume comprises some extremely thought-provoking chapters within the field of the “Sport for All” discourse. … The book seeks to bust the myths perpetuated by the “sport evangelists” by deconstructing them through empirical and historical analyses and presents the tensions within and unintended consequences of such narratives.” (Mark Brooke, idrottsforum.org, June, 2018) From the Back Cover This edited collection problematizes trajectories of health promotion across the lifespan. It provides a distinctive critical social science perspective of the various directions taken by dominant policies in their approach to promoting sport for all ages. It offers an array of theoretical and methodologically diverse perspectives on this topic, and highlights the intersections between different life stages and social, economic and cultural factors in the developed world, including class, gender, ability, family dynamics and/or race. Sport and Physical Activity across the Lifespan critically explores dominant policies of age-focussed sport promotion in order to highlight its implications within the context of particular life stages as they intersect with social, cultural and economic factors. This includes an examination of organised sport for pre-schoolers; ‘at-risk’ youth sport programmes; and the creation of sporting sub-cultures within the mid-life ‘market’. This book will be of interest to those wanting to learning more about how age and life stages affect the way people think about and participate in sport, and to better understand the impacts of sport across the lifespan. About the Author Rylee A. Dionigi is Associate Professor in the School of Exercise Science, Sport an