Can sport serve as a vehicle for social mobility of disadvantaged social groups? How and to what extent are different forms of social capital created through sport participation? Ramón Spaaij takes up these questions through a critical examination of the ways in which sport facilitates or inhibits upward social mobility.

Ramón Spaaij is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Australia, and at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam.

Introduction 1. Sport and Social Mobility: Untangling the Relationship 2. Social and Organizational Contexts of Sport 3. Political and Educational Contexts of Sport 4. Crossing/Creating Boundaries 5. Scaling Up? Sport and Linking Social Capital 6. Sport and Cultural Capital: Opportunities and Constraints 7. Social Mobility and Economic Life 8. Sport and Social Outcomes: Contradictory Tendencies