Description:
This book extends the recent interest in culture within sport psychology to include less mainstream sports such as martial arts, circus arts, extreme sports, and dance. The chapters will help sports participants and social scientists gain an understanding of marginalized sporting identities, and challenge issues such as exclusion, miscommunication, and ineffective practice in sport. It will be ideal reading for sport and exercise academics and practitioners, advanced students of applied sport psychology, and in related fields such as sport science, critical studies, sociology, cultural studies and social anthropology.
Review Quotes:
'Human beings evolved to become an intensely social species. Our nervous systems (and the behaviours, thoughts, and emotions that arise from them) grow, get damaged, and become healed all within cultural and subcultural (e.g., family, sport, community) contexts. Mainstream sport and exercise psychology has traditionally had a primary focus on individuals, as if mental health, psychological disorders, and performance are athlete-centred issues. Schinke and McGannon, in this highly informative book, have assembled a fine group of authors who show us how socially and culturally bound our lives are and how no one (e.g., athlete, coach, researcher, practitioner) is an island, but rather we are situated on complex continents with many countries, regions, cities, and villages that all shape who we become'. - Mark Andersen, Professor of Sport Psychology, College of Sport and Exercise Science, Victoria University, Australia
'The Psychology of Sub-Culture in Sport and Physical Activity presents a collection of articles on important and crucial issues untouched by conventional and traditional approaches in sport psychology. The use of critical narrative approaches to capture the cognitions, behavior and feelings of athletes, together with the utilization of reflections and reflexivity in practice, has encouraged me to think critically about my own research interests, methodologies, and practices . . . I strongly recommend the book to sport psychology researchers, practitioners, and students who wish to enhance their knowledge and skills, and use them for the benefit of those who need them.' - Gershon Tenenbaum, Benjamin S. Bloom Professor of Educational Psychology, Florida State University, USA