Europe on the move?

Europeans nowadays are offered a differentiated sport culture in which they can put together their very own personal sport programs. Since so many different choices exist, one would expect that the number of Europeans taking part in sport is very large. In the research articles that are brought together in this book, we notice, however, striking cross-national differences. In general, it can be concluded that of all European Union citizens, around 60% takes part in sport or exercise, implying that still four out of ten Europeans are not active in sport. There are, however, many differences in the nature and scope of sport participation between the member states of the European Union. In addition, not only between but also within European Union member states, different patterns of inequality with respect to participation in sport could be found. What is more, the structures in sport practices do not occur in all countries to the same degree, i.e. the magnitude of individual differences varies cross-nationally. In sum, this book shows that in spite of its popularization, sport continues to be a socially structured activity.

Autorentext

Charlotte Van Tuyckom is postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology at Ghent University (Belgium). Her research focuses on sport participation, physical activity and health from a cross-national comparative perspective. Charlotte is author/co-editor of several books and (inter)national publications.