Ramón Spaaij is Professor of Sociology of Sport at Victoria University and the University of Amsterdam. His research focus and profile is in the area of social cohesion, conflict and social change. The arc of his research career has been an investigation of how cohesive, resilient and inclusive communities can be created and sustained, and how conflicts that threaten community cohesion can be transformed. His research contributes to contemporary social science debates on diversity, social cohesion and community wellbeing by bringing sport into view as an important lens or setting through which to study, better understand and address these complex social issues. He is a co-convenor of the Sport Thematic Group at The Australian Sociological Association (TASA).
Fiona McLachlan is a lecturer in sport at Victoria University, where she teaches in the area of sociology of sport. Her research centres on sport, diversity and social change. Fiona’s research has a specific focus on gender equality and diversity in sport. She has a deep knowledge of the literature and theoretical frameworks employed in gender and sport research. In her Ph.D., she utilised gender theories to examine exclusion, inclusion and diversity at public swimming pools. Fiona has also contributed to several publications and forums on gender equality in sport.
Carla Luguetti is a lecturer in Physical Education and Health at Victoria University. Her research and teaching focus on topics of sport pedagogy and social justice. Over the past six years she has focused in understanding activist approaches within sporting contexts. Specifically, Carla's research aims at co-creating a pedagogical model for working with youth from socially vulnerable backgrounds in sport context. The intent is to use sport as a vehicle for assisting youth to become critically aware of their communities’ social issues.
Cameron Smee has a Bachelor's Degree in Physical Education and a Master's Degree in Sports Management. He worked for 5 years as a primary school classroom/physical education teacher. He is a second-year Ph.D. student at Victoria University. His research focus is on how children create a sense of self on the playground and in Physical Education. His areas of research interest are gender, children, physical education, and play/sport.
Suzanne Schrijnder is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. student at Victoria University where she focuses on lived experiences in women’s road cycling. Throughout her studies, ethnography is a reoccurring theme in her research, as she believes the methods of participation and observation provide the best opportunities to study the ‘real’ world. Suzanne’s aspirations are to continue researching the field of diversity in sport with a focus on gender. Consequently, she aspires to lecture and publish on these themes as she argues this social space requires more critical exploration.
Jack Hynes is a Ph.D. student at Victoria University. His thesis is titled ‘An exploration of the relationship between the system that produces elite Australian Rules footballers and identity’, and will use a mixture of genealogy, ethnography, and interviews to collect data. His observations whilst working as a performance analyst over two years for an elite football club helped to construct the thesis topic. Alongside this research, he holds a role at a local football club in an aim to engage with the broader community.
Matthew Klugman is a lecturer and researcher at Victoria University. His research spans several fields, including the intersecting histories of emotions, sports, race, gender, sexuality, medicine, science, migration, and bodies. Among other things, Matthew’s research examines the meaning and affects of sport, the consequences of forgetting as well as remembering, the complexities and effects of sporting passions, the iconography of sport, and the cultures of whiteness which so often shape modern sport. He has been an executive member of the Australian Society for Sports History (ASSH) since 2009.
Brent McDonald is a senior lecturer in the sociology of sport at Victoria University. With a Ph.D. based on an ethnography of a Japanese educational sport club, his research interests are grounded in the critical examination of sport as an important space from which to understand issues related to race and ethnicity, migration, and multiculturalism. Brent is the author of multiple journal articles and a co-author of Sport in Society (2011). He is also on the executive board of the International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA), and is a co-convenor of the Sport Thematic Group at The Australian Sociological Association (TASA).
Michael Burke completed a PhD at Victoria University entitled Sport, Foucault and Traditions of Feminism. It involved an investigation of the application of traditions of feminism to an understanding of the micro-politics of male power in sport. He has produced over thirty-five peer-reviewed papers in the fields of sport ethics, sport sociology and feminism. His research on drugs in sport has provoked much critical response. He is regularly interviewed in the popular media about athlete and coach behaviour, performance-enhancing and illicit drug use in sport, gender diversity in sport and sexual harassment, abuse and consent in sport.
Sarah Oxford is a lecturer at Victoria University. As a (non-white) feminist and sociologist, Sarah is interested in the contemporary entanglements of diverse social oppressions and their connections to modernity-coloniality. Her PhD explored the extent young women’s participation in Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) organizations disrupts gendered stereotypes and sensitizes communities to the capabilities of girls and young women. Sarah’s writing has been published in numerous journals and edited books.
Jora Broerse finished the two-year Research Master program in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam in 2017 and is currently a Ph.D. student at the Victoria University. In her master's thesis, she looked at intercultural encounters and lived multiculturalism in the sport context. In her Ph.D.-project, Jora continues looking at lived multiculturalism and is further interested in space making practices in super-diverse neighbourhood sport settings. In her research, sport is seen as a critical environment for understanding broader national issues such as migration, social cohesion, and belonging.
Jeffrey Bishara is a Ph.D. student focusing on violence and masculinity in mixed martial arts (MMA). He is primarily interested in researching the link between the rise of MMA and it’s affects on the everyday MMA participant. He looks at what goes on in the gym and how it is tied to the larger-structures in society, like policy and economy. He also enjoys the pleasures of teaching Social Dimensions of Sport and Exercise to Physical Education and Exercise Science students at Victoria University.
Ryan Storr is a Lecturer in Sport Development at Western Sydney University. He has recently completed his Ph.D. at Victoria University which explored how volunteers within community sports clubs respond to diversity and engage with diversity work. Ryan’s research interests focus on volunteerism in sport, and more recently diversity in sport, with a specific focus on LGBTI+ diversity in sport. Ryan has published in several journals including the Journal of Youth Studies and the International Review for the Sociology of Sport. Recent projects include co-authoring a White Paper on the role of Mega-Sporting Events on global LGBTI+ Human Rights, and a funded evaluation and scoping study which explored the current level of LGBTI+ inclusion in Australia cricket.
Lisa Lymbery is a Master's Research student at Victoria University. As an advocate for equality and her personal experiences in Australian community sports environments as an athlete, coach, and sports administrator, led Lisa to co-found EqualPlay – a Melbourne based not-for-profit. With a vision of an Australian grassroots sporting culture where participation and belonging better reflect our diverse communities, EqualPlay will facilitate the roll-out of a gender equity sports club accreditation program that Lisa is creating. One level of that program will focus on female leadership, and this is the focus of Lisa’s current research titled ‘Clearing the boundary/s: A multilevel analysis of how gendered relations enable female leadership in non-professional cricket’.