Social Risk and the Meaning of Sport

Abstract

The topic of risk is most often discussed in the literature on environmental, health, and technical hazards. More recently, however, it has become a topic of concern to social scientists who apply risk analysis to social relations and social structure. The concept of risk can be used in analyses of sport as a factor in analytical models and as a component of applied sport sociology. This essay considers definitions of risk, the sociological tradition in risk analysis, and the application of risk to sport studies.