Understanding the Culture of Family and Marathons
Todd L. Goodsell,
Sociology
The goal of this research is to better understand how families manage multiple and possibly competing pressures on their time, using a case study of non-elite endurance running. Previous research has drawn attention to the relationship between work and family, but most people have commitments in addition to these two, including leisure, religious, and civic commitments. Amateur endurance running is taken as a case study because it is a third area of commitment (in addition to family and work) that may be particularly difficult to coordinate with family relationships. The principal investigator will conduct an ethnography of the marathon culture in Utah during 2008 to develop an understanding of how runners understand and manage family relationships and running.
