Lo sport fa la differenza. Riflessioni sociologiche sulle relazioni tra sport e produzione sociale/riproduzione sociale. Identità, stili di vita, riscatto, violenza

Why do people play sports? Can sports practice and the activities and behaviors connected to it be expressions of identity? How does sport differentiate people socially? These questions, which we will attempt to answer in this contribution with second-level data, analysis of scientific literature and data deriving from participant and non-participant observation, give a glimpse of the various declinations of sport and the broad spectrum of sport's functions. Catalyst of free time and states of mind other than the routine commitments of work, leisure, pleasant recreational and physical practice of and for the body, practice and activities to physically improve oneself or be better than one's opponents, leisure activities in life on a daily basis, sport has an intrinsic physical social dimension of encounters, clashes, individual and group challenges, sociability. Activator of aggregation effects among spectators, supporters and athletes, it is the physical and symbolic place for the expression of the most urgent social needs and feelings (environment, anger, politics). In the analysis, the scenario is made up of the same social fabric in which sport as an activity is at the same time leisure, lifestyle, social difference, which intervene along the coordinates of social production/reproduction