Fully revised for the third edition, this popular text provides an advanced yet accessible introduction to the tools, terminology and research perspectives that students need to know in order to engage in academic debate and successfully complete research-based assignments. It first explores the language and nature of research, before developing readers' understanding of different research methods and the role of theory in research. Chapters are complemented by examples, boxed summaries of...

Skills for finding information are essential for academic study and beyond. This illustrated guide provides practical advice on how to source and use the right resources. It includes guidance on how to carry out a literature review as well as the skills needed for finding and evaluating information.

Set against a backdrop of concerns about the potential break-up or radical change to the global world order, this volume sets out to investigate the use of sports mega-events by a number of emerging states.Sports mega-events, it is argued, can be understood as a key component in states’ ‘soft power’ strategies, that is, their attempts to showcase their nations on the international stage, increase their power relative to others via non-coercive means and to increase trade and touris...

Now in a fully revised, extended and updated new edition, this is the only book to offer a comparative overview of the development of elite sport systems around the world.The book examines sport policies and programmes in 20 developed and developing countries that have achieved international sporting success, including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Japan, Brazil, Russia, Australia, and South Korea, helping the reader to understand the factors behind that success. Fo...

The London Olympics of 2012 acted as a focal point for an examination of UK sport policy. Individual chapters from leading specialists in their fields focus upon the central components of the UK‘smodel of sport - for example elite, school and community sport and talent ID policies - and discuss what kind oflegacy 2012 is likely to leave on the sports landscape in years to come. The conceptlegacy is a common theme running through all contributions which themselves stem from a wide variety o...

This is a multi-disciplinary contribution to the burgeoning literature on and around mega-events in general and sports mega-events in particular. The volume is not specifically about mega-events or their management, but rather how such events act as a lens through which a number of important and critical questions about the decisions to host, the host nation, its society and the politics of culture, sport and leisure more broadly can be dealt with. In doing so this book seeks to build on, ...

This edited volume explores the analytical possibilities of contrasting Brazil and the United Kingdom as examples of emerging and established powers, respectively. It is organised around several themes focusing on the roles of Brazil and the United Kingdom in the management of global economic governance, international development, international security, the politics of regional integration, global climate change governance, and the political leveraging of sports mega-events. Each chapter ...