Sports in Society: Issues and controversies in Australia and New Zealand has a threefold purpose:

• to show students the ways that sociology can be used to study sport in society
• to evoke critical questions from students as they think about sport in their lives and the world around them
• to facilitate the use of research, theory and everyday experiences to learn about sport in society.

We have designed this edition specifically to cater for the needs of students in Australia and New Zealand. While it is heavily influenced by the structure and content of American editions of Jay Coakley’s book (which we consider to be a fine text), this edition has been carefully rewritten from start to finish so that the content and examples are relevant and appealing to students in Australia and New Zealand. We based our ideas on our experience in teaching our own courses, as well as the plentiful feedback we received from local reviewers. Chapters have been rewritten to take into account new research and theoretical developments that specifically concern Australia and New Zealand. Information, including the content of tables and figures, has been replaced where needed. New substantive materials and examples have been added to maximise the relevance of the text, and there are also many new photographs and references. A major challenge we faced when rewriting this edition was to identify topics and references that we would not include. The sociology of sport has expanded so much over the past decade that Sports in Society is now more of an introduction to the field, rather than a comprehensive overview.

We hope that the book we have created will be helpful and informative, and we welcome your feedback.

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