This book critically examines the ways in which sports contribute to, or inhibit, social well-being, the directions these changes take and the conditions necessary for sport to have beneficial outcomes. The themes addressed in the book demonstrate the diversity and versatility of the social impacts sport can potentially achieve as well as the variable benefits of sport in different social contexts. The contributions are focused around four major themes:

- Sport development and social change: intended and unanticipated consequences

- Empowerment and personal change through sport

- Sport participation, social inclusion and social change

- The impact of sport in society: historical and comparative perspectives

The volume constitutes the first scholarly attempt to locate, compare and conceptualize the social impact of sport in different local, national and international contexts. Through international comparison and empirically grounded case studies the book provides an important new departure in the study of the social meanings of sport in society, linking themes and areas that have previously been studied merely separately from one another.

This book was previously published as a special issue of Sport in Society.