Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies

1
Sports in SocietyIssues and Controversies

• Chapter 4
• Sports and Socialization
• Who Plays and What Happens to Them?

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SocializationMain Definition

• Socialization
• Is an active process of learning and social
  development
• Occurs as we interact with others
• Involves the formation of ideas about who we are
  and what is important in our lives

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Stevensons Findings(1999)

• Becoming an elite athlete involves
• The process of introduction and involvement
• The process of developing commitment

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Donnelly Youngs Findings (1999)

• Becoming an athlete in a sport subculture
  involves
• Acquiring knowledge about the sport
• Associating with people in the sport
• Learning the norms of the sport
• Receiving recognition and acceptance from other
  athletes

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Coakley Whites Findings (1999)

• Deciding to play sports depends on
• Ideas about sports connection to other interests
  and goals
• Desires to develop display competence
• Social and material support
• Memories of past experiences in sports
• General cultural images and messages about sports

6
Functionalist and Conflict Theory Research on
Dropping Out of Sports

• People dont drop out forever, nor do they cut
  all ties with sports
• Dropping out is tied to other changes and
  transitions in a persons life
• Dropping out is not related only to bad
  experiences
• Dropping out may cause problems among those who
• Have identities grounded totally in sports
• Lack social material resources

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Coakleys Findings (1992)

• Burnout among elite adolescent athletes was most
  likely when
• High performance sports were organized so that
  athletes had little control over their lives
• Sport involvement was perceived to interfere with
  accomplishing important developmental tasks

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Koukouris Findings (1994)

• Ending or reducing sport participation was
  associated with
• The need to find a job and become independent
• Realistic assessments of sport skills and
  potential for future achievements
• Efforts to stay physically active and connected
  with sports

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Summary Changing or Ending Competitive Sport
Participation

• Changes in participation are grounded in
  decision-making processes tied to peoples lives,
  life courses, and social worlds
• Identity issues and developmental issues are
  important
• Problems are most likely when sport participation
  has constricted a persons life

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Being Involved in SportsWhat Happens?

• In some cultures people believe that sports
  automatically build positive traits and
  relationships among all participants

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Factors Often Overlooked in Research on Character
Building in Sports

• Different sports offer different experiences
• Selection processes in organized sports favor
  some characteristics over others
• Different people define sport experiences in
  different ways
• Meanings given to sport experiences often change
  over time
• Social relationships mediate sports experiences
• Many activities other than sports can provide
  character-building experiences

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Sport Participation Is Most Likely to Produce
Positive Effects When (I)

• New non-sport identities are formed
• Knowledge is gained about the world beyond sports
  
• Experiences go beyond sports
• New relationships are formed that go beyond
  sports
• 
  
  (continued)

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Sport Participation Is Most Likely to Produce
Positive Effects When (II)

• Lessons learned in sports are applied to
  situations outside of sports
• Participants are seen by others as total human
  beings, not just athletes
• General competence and responsibility are learned

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General Summary

• If playing sports constricts or limits a persons
  life, expect negative socialization effects
• If playing sports expands or diversifies a
  persons life, expect positive socialization
  effects

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Power Performance Versus Pleasure
Participation Sports

• Pleasure/Participation
• Emphasis on connections between people
• Ethic of expression, enjoyment, health
• Body source of pleasure
• Inclusion accom-modation of differences
• Democratic structures
• Compete with others

• Power/Performance
• Use power to push limits in pursuit of victories
• Excellence proved through winning
• Body tool and weapon
• Competence-based inclusion/exclusion
• Hierarchical structures
• Opponents enemies

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Studies of Sport Experiences

• The voices of sport participants indicate that
  
• People define and give meaning to their sport
  experiences in connection with their social
  relationships
• Meanings given to sport experiences are grounded
  in cultural definitions about gender, race
  ethnicity, social class, sexuality, and other
  characteristics defined as socially important

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Fines Findings (1987)

• The moral socialization that occurs in little
  league baseball
• Depends on how the boys hear and apply the
  moral messages from adults
• Emphasizes masculinity as involving toughness and
  dominance

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Theberges Findings (2000)

• The locker rooms of womens ice hockey teams are
  key places in which
• Women bond with each other and form a sense of
  community
• The players use relationships with each other to
  develop meanings for their sport participation
  and apply those meanings to to their lives

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Crossets Findings (1995)

• The lives of women athletes in the LPGA were
  influenced by gender relations in U.S. culture
• The women developed an ethic of prowess a
  mindset highlighting a commitment to physical
  competence as a basis for evaluating self and
  others on the tour
• This ethic existed to neutralize the negative
  effects of traditional ideas about femininity
• Conformity to the ethic helped the women
  legitimize their roles as professional athletes

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Wacquants Findings (1992)

• The social world of the boxing gym
• Was created in connection with the social forces
  in the black ghetto and its masculine street
  culture
• Sheltered black men from the full destructive
  impact of social and cultural forces in their
  lives
• Provided a disciplined regime of body regulation
  that established a positive identity and
  separated the men from the negative influences of
  a chaotic environment

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Studies of Socialization As a Community
Cultural Process

• ?Sports are sites for struggling over how we
  think and what we do
• ?Sports are sites where people create and learn
  stories they can use to make sense of the world
• ?Sports consist of vocabularies and images that
  influence ideology

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Socialization and the Formation of Ideology

• ?Hegemony is the process of forming agreement
  about particular ways of viewing and making sense
  of the world
• ?Sports are important sites for hegemonic
  processes because they provide pleasurable
  experiences to so many people
• ?Corporate sponsors use sports to establish
  ideological outposts in peoples heads

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Sport, Socialization, Ideology

• Research shows that none of us live outside the
  influence of ideology
• The stories that emerge in connection with sports
  and sport experiences generally reproduce
  dominant forms of ideology, but they also can
  challenge and even transform dominant ideology