GLOBAL TRENDS AND LOCAL NEEDS – THE TROUBLE WITH SPORT ‘GLOBALIZATION’

Abstract

Sociologists such as Elias and Dunning (1993), have empirically studied long term processes of change in sport, eliciting attention to trends such as sportization (the increasing formalisation of folk games into regulated pastimes and what is now identified as „modern sport‟), politicization (increasing political control in sport), medicalization (increasing medical specialization engaged in modern sport), technicization (increasing technical capability of sports equipment and even artificial limbs in influencing achievement in sport), and globalization (increasing spread of one sporting model, based on Olympic, secular and Western models internationally). The question in this case is the extent to which the process of globalization has affected the development of Sport. This research paper used research documentation providing access to some of the recent research on globalization and interviewing sport scholars to explore how sport has become a global phenomenon, by examining globalization and its impacts on sport generally, and on coach education specifically (case study).