Assessing the Sociology of Sport: On Sport Participation and Disabilities in France

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On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, Stéphane Héas, a leading French scholar on sport participation and the rights and opportunities of people with disabilities and minorities to engage in sporting activity, considers the trajectory and challenges of sociology of sport in France with special reference to the needs of these populations. It is noted that while studies of sport and physical activity that engaged “a sociological gaze” were relatively late in coming to France, research engaging socio-cultural understandings of sport has accelerated in recent years. A key challenge to research in this area has been to redress the relative neglect of studying the opportunities and participation of people with disabilities and other minorities in sport and physical activity. In the future, the sociology of sport holds the promise of being able to support meaningful policy changes to enable equity and opportunity for these populations.