Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies

1. Sports in Society:Issues and Controversies Chapter 4 Sports and Socialization: Who Plays and What Happens to Them?

2. Socialization:Main 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

3. Stevenson’s Findings(1999) Becoming an elite athlete involves: • The process ofintroduction and involvement • The process ofdeveloping commitment

4. Donnelly & Young’s 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

5. Coakley & White’s Findings (1999) Deciding to play sports depends on: • Ideas about sport’s 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 don’t drop out forever, nor do they cut all ties with sports • Dropping out is tied to other changes and transitions in a person’s 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

7. Coakley’s 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

8. 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

9. Summary: Changing or Ending Competitive Sport Participation • Changes in participation are grounded in decision-making processes tied to people’s lives, life courses, and social worlds • Identity issues and developmental issues are important • Problems are most likely when sport participation has constricted a person’s life

10. Being Involved in Sports:What Happens? In some cultures people believe that sports automatically build positive traits and relationships among all participants

11. 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

12. 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)

13. 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

14. General Summary: • If playing sports constricts or limits a person’s life, expect negative socialization effects • If playing sports expands or diversifies a person’s life, expect positive socialization effects

15. 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 Power & PerformanceVersusPleasure & Participation Sports

16. Studies of Sport Experiences The voices of sport participants indicate that • People define and give meaning to their sport experiences in connection with theirsocial relationships • Meanings given to sport experiences are grounded incultural definitionsabout gender, race & ethnicity, social class, sexuality, and other characteristics defined as socially important

17. Fine’s 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

18. Theberge’s Findings (2000) The locker rooms of women’s 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

19. Crosset’s 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

20. Wacquant’s 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

21. Studies of Socialization As a Community & Cultural Process Sportsare sites for struggling over how we think and what we do Sportsare sites where people create and learn “stories” they can use to make sense of the world Sportsconsist of vocabularies and images that influence ideology

22. Socialization and the Formation of Ideology Hegemonyis the process of forming agreement about particular ways of viewing and making sense of the world Sportsare important sites for hegemonic processes because they provide pleasurable experiences to so many people Corporate sponsors use sportsto establish “ideological outposts” in people’s heads

23. Sport, Socialization, & Ideology • Research shows thatnone 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