Professor Dominic Malcolm

BA, MA, PhD

Pronouns: He/him
  • Professor of Sociology of Sport

Dominic Malcolm is a Professor of Sociology of Sport in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. Following completion of a BA in Politics at Nottingham University, MA in the Sociology of Sport at Leicester University, and PhD (through published work) also at Leicester, he started at 天堂视频 in 2005. He is currently Deputy Theme Lead for Sport, Business and Society and a Deputy Director of Doctoral Programmes in the School.

Dominic has authored 5 monographs, edited 9 anthologies and written over 100 journal articles and book chapters. These publications cover a wide range of subjects within the sociology of sport, including an analytic overview of the subdiscipline in Sport and Sociology (Routledge 2012) which has now been translated into Chinese.

Initially this work focused on cricket, and in particular aspects of violence, imperial and postcolonial relations and national identity, and in 2013 this strand of work culminated in the publication of Globalizing Cricket: Englishness, Empire and Identity (Bloomsbury).

Most recently, research has focused on the intersection of sport, medicine and health. This body of work includes journal articles on the working practices of doctors and physiotherapists in sport, including their and inter-professional relations and management of confidentiality, and their role in the management of pain and injury.  In 2016 he published Sport, Medicine and Health: the medicalization of sport? (Routledge) and, in 2020, The Concussion Crisis in Sport (Routledge).

Current research projects include examinations of the media representation of concussion and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the construction of medical expert knowledge on concussion, and the impact of sport’s concussion crisis on a range of non-elite sports participants.

Additionally he is working with an international team of respiratory physicians on a major NIHR funded project, Global RECHARGE. The project seeks to design, implement and evaluate culturally applicable rehabilitation programmes for populations with or recovering from various forms of lung disease.

  • Research Fellow, North American Society for the Sociology of Sport
  • Fellow, Norbert Elias Foundation

Selected External Research-Related Roles

  • Honorary Member, National Institute for Health Research Diet, Lifestyle & Physical Activity Biomedical Research Unit based at University Hospitals of Leicester and 天堂视频.
  • Editor-in-Chief, International Review for the Sociology of Sport.
  • Executive Board member, International Association for the Sociology of Sport.
  • Convenor, British Sociological Association Sport Study Group (2002-2011).

Selected Recent Research Projects and Sources of Funding

  • Understanding the context for concussion prevention in youth sport: socio-cultural and psychological barriers, (with Amanda Black, University of Calgary), SSHRC Insight Development Grant $55,000.
  • UK-Taiwan Critical Social Sciences of Sport Network, (with Alan Bairner, Alison Bowes, Sean Chen (Taiwan PI), Tony Hwang and Mandy Chiang), ESRC-MOST,  £50,000.
  • Health and Wellbeing in professional wrestling (with Claire Warden and Anthony Papathomas), British Academy, £9,700.

Featured publications

  • Malcolm, D., Bachynski, K., Doherty, A. and Sanderson, J. (2021) A Sociocultural research agenda for concussion and sport. Frontiers in Sport and Active Living. DOI: 
  • Malcolm, D. (2021) Post-truth Society? An Eliasian sociological analysis of knowledge in the twenty-first century. Sociology. DOI:
  • Yusuf, Z.K., Mademilov, M., Mirzalieva, G., Bourne, C., Orme, M.W., Sooronbaev, T., Singh. S.J., Malcolm, D. (2021), . Journal of Global Health
  • Malcolm, D. (2020) . London: Routledge
  • Malcolm, D. and Velija, P. (eds) (2018) . London: Routledge
  • Malcolm, D. (2017) London: Routledge.