Institutional Interpretations of the Relationship between Sport-Related Disciplines and Their Reference Disciplines: The Case of Sociology of Sport

The sociology of sport literature is now sufficiently broad to allow a general analysis of research patterns in this field. To facilitate the identification of these vectors of expansion, sources referenced in articles published in Sociology of Sport Journal and Journal of Sport and Social Issues between 2003 and 2011 are examined in terms of sources referenced. Highly cited sources often used together in the same sources can be combined through bibliometric methods in clusters of similar influential publications, which together can be used to map the field. The resulting clusters show that a dominant pattern in these clusters is the preeminent role played by authors like Foucault, Bourdieu, and Connell. To help explain the preeminence of these authors’ work, a hypothesis is proposed, which interprets it with the help of institutional theory as an effort of a field to find legitimacy by developing research from reference academic disciplines that concerns sport or is closely linked to it (e.g., through the concept of corporeality).