A systematic review of figurational sociology within physical education research

In this systematic review our purpose was to explore how Norbert Elias’s figurational sociology, amounting to 18 volumes of his collective works, has advanced understanding of PE, in both theory and practice. We had two objectives. First, to identify where in the existing research literature figurational sociology has been applied to make sense of PE. Second, to outline how others may apply figurational sociology in their PE research in ways more consistent with Elias’s approach: in more rigorous, less ‘fantastical’ ways, that do his theories greater justice. We used six electronic databases and a manual Google Scholar follow-up. Initially 388 articles were identified, and then reduced to 55 for full text screening. From those, 12 were excluded for failing to meet our inclusion criteria, resulting in a final 43 articles. In analysing these papers, we grouped them into ‘low’ (12 articles), ‘medium’ (17) and ‘high’ (14) categories, according to the depth with which authors drew upon figurational sociology. We found wide usage of how Elias’s approach, ranging from superficial application and understanding by authors, where studies could have been completed more or less without its use, to where it was employed with the depth Elias would have intended. We conclude by suggesting figurational sociology has much to offer in helping us understand social issues in PE, noting its use is sporadic across the global PE academic community, either because scholars are unaware of its illuminating potential, or because they have adopted alternative sociological approaches. Rather than advocate an ‘either-or’ approach for understanding of PE, we refer to Elias’s call for a ‘central theory,’ where sociologists should collectively seek to realise some of the synthetic ambitions of classical sociology.