Synopses & Reviews
Hoop Dreams on Wheels is a life-history study of wheelchair athletes associated with a premier collegiate wheelchair basketball program. The book, which grapples with the intersection of biography and history in society, situates the study in broader context with background on the history and sociology of disability and disability sports. It documents the development and evolution of the basketball program and tells the individual life stories of the athletes, highlighting the formative interpersonal and institutional experiences that influenced their agentive actions and that helped them achieve success in wheelchair sports. It also examines divisions within the disability community that reveal both empowering and disempowering aspects of competitive wheelchair athletics, and it explores some of the complexities and dilemmas of disability identity in contemporary society.
The book is intended to be read by a general audience as well as by students in college courses on disability, sports, social problems, deviance, medical sociology and anthropology, and introductory sociology. It also will be of interest to scholars in the sociology of disability, sociology of sports, and medical humanities, as well as life-history researchers and professionals in the fields of physical education, therapeutic recreation, and rehabilitative counseling.
Synopsis
Hoop Dreams on Wheels is written in an accessible story-telling style, as it will be read by a general audience as well as by students in college courses on disability, sport, the body, and social problems. The main component of the book, the life histories of the players, will be especially appealing to students, who will find these accounts useful as a way to develop their sociological imagination, that is, an understanding of the interrelationship between biography and history in society and the ways in which personal troubles are related to public issues. By linking personal stories to collective narratives, the life histories reveal the world of ordinary people's problematic living experience, to quote Norman Denzin, and show how society speaks itself through the lives of individuals. Additionally, the book is of interest to scholars in the sociology of disability, sociology of sport, sociology of the body, life-story researchers, and professionals in the fields of therapeutic recreation and rehabilitative counseling.