Paradoxes of Youth and Sport explores emergent debates among scholars, youth advocates, and sport practitioners concerning the role of sport in the lives of young people in urban settings. Specialists from diverse fields examine how sport can address social ills and act as a resource in the lives of disadvantaged youth versus how sport itself harbors and fosters social problems and is dominated by unequal access, the obsession to win, and commercialization. This book places sport at the crossroads of inquiry and practice regarding critical issues of our time, including youth development; violence; racial, gender, and class inequities; and inter-group relations.

Margaret Gatz is Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern California, and the editor of Emerging Issues in Mental Health and Aging.

Michael A. Messner is Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California, and the author of Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements and Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity.

Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach is Professor of Communication and Sociology at the University of Southern California, and coeditor, with Melvin L. DeFleur, of Theories of Mass Communication.