Associate Professor, Sport Management
I have three clearly defined, and often interrelated, lines of inquiry that inform both my research and teaching:
- Social inequality (i.e., gender issues; Olympic and international sport federation policy and governance; athlete-driven sport organizations)
Ongoing projects in this area focus on gender equality in the Olympic Movement and at the Olympic Games, as well as in the governance of provincial, national, and international sport organizations. In addition, I study athlete governance, particularly in emerging sports such as roller derby.
- Alternative sports and subcultures (i.e., roller derby, skateboarding)
Ongoing projects in this area focus on girls and women onlyness, and particularly the organization and production of girls and women onlyness in sport and physical activity organizations such as girls-only skateboarding groups.
- Qualitative research methods (i.e., research ethics, politics of research).
I not only use qualitative methods in my research, I also study research ethics and the politics of research with respect to qualitative methods. And, I serve on the university’s Social Sciences Research Ethics Board.
- Broadly, gender and sport — particularly gender equality and the Olympic Movement/Games and in sport governance
- Alternative sport (including roller derby, skateboarding, snowboarding)
- Girls and women-only activities (including women’s home improvement workshops, entrepreneur organizations, and sport and recreation groups)
- Research ethics (especially related to qualitative research methods)
- North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS)
- Canadian Sociological Association (CSA)
Donnelly, Michele K., and Donnelly, Peter (under contract). Gender and the Olympic Programme. London: Routledge.
Giardina, Michael D., and Donnelly, Michele K. (Eds.) (2017). Physical Culture, Ethnography and the Body: Theory, Method and Praxis. London: Routledge.
- Giardina, Michael D. & Donnelly, Michele K. Introduction (pp. 1-22).
Donnelly, Michele K.; Norman, Mark and Donnelly, Peter. (2015). The Sochi 2014 Olympics: A Gender Equality Audit. Centre for Sport Policy Studies (CSPS) Report. [Available here: https://kpe.utoronto.ca/sites/default/files/the-sochi-2014-olympics—a-gender-equality-audit.pdf]
Donnelly, Michele K.(2014). “Drinking with the derby girls: Exploring the hidden ethnography in research of women’s flat track roller derby”. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 49 (3-4), 346-366. [Special Issue on Sport & Alcohol]
- Power, politics and policy
- Professional engagement with the sport industry
I am a co-founder, and now serve on the Advisory Board of the Girls on Track Foundation whose mission is “To foster important life skills in girls, through participation in roller derby as skaters and decision makers”.
