1

SPED 2710
THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT:

Sociology of
WHAT IS IT ?
Physical &
Education & WHY STUDY IT ?
Sports

Reference:
Coakley, J. J. (2021). Sports in society : issues and
controversies (13rd edition.). McGraw-Hill Education.
 2

The sociology of sport is concerned with the deeper

meanings and stories associated with sports in society
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Learning Objectives

 Explain what sociologists study about sports and why sociology of sport
knowledge is different from information in sports media and everyday
conversations.
 Understand issues related to defining sports and why a sociological definition
differs from official definitions used by high schools, universities, and other
organizations.
 Explain what it means to say that sports are social constructions and
contested activities.
 Explain why research and knowledge in the sociology of sport may be
controversial among people associated with sports.
 Understand the meaning of “ideology” and how ideologies related to
gender, race, social class, and ability are connected with sports.
 Use model/theory to describe your observation and research results
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Sports as Social Phenomena

 Phenomenon (singular form) – any observable occurrence

 Sports activities & images are part of people’s lives
 Given special meaning in people’s lives
 Connects important ideas, beliefs & ideologies
 The “view points” that underlie people’s actions, feelings & thoughts
 Connects with major spheres of social life
 e.g. family, education, media, politics & religion
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Using Sociology to study sports

 Sociology
 the study of the social worlds that people create, maintain, and change
through their relationships with each other.
 Social worlds
 Identifiable spheres of everyday actions and relationships.
 Created by people, but they involve much more than individuals doing
their own things for their own reasons.
 Our actions, relationships, and collective activities form patterns that
could not be predicted only with information about each of us as
individuals. These patterns constitute identifiable ways of life and social
arrangements that are maintained or changed over time as people
interact with one other.
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Using Sociology to study sports

 Social worlds (regardless of sizes)

 encompass all aspects of social life:
 The values and beliefs that we use to make sense of our lives;
 Our everyday actions and relationships; and
 The groups, organizations, communities, and societies that we form as we make
choices, develop relationships, and participate in social life

 Society
 a relatively self-sufficient collection of people who maintain a way of life
in a particular territory

Physical 100 : [Link]

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Example
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Key concepts used in sociology

 Culture
 the shared ways of life and shared
understandings that people develop as
they live together
 [Link]
2HlTQPS40
 Research Example
 Sum, R. K. W., Ma, M. S., Ha, A. S., Tang, T. M., Shek,
C. K., Cheng, C. L., & Kong, F. (2016). Action research
exploring Chinese physical education teachers’ value
of physical education: from belief to culture. Asia
Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science, 5(1), 70-
84.
 Action research exploring Chinese physical
education teachers’ value of physical education:
from bel ([Link])
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Japan VS Italian Football Team

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Key concepts used in sociology

 Social Interaction
 People taking each other into account and, in the process,
influencing each other’s feelings, thoughts, and actions
 Act & Reaction in social settings
 Social statues
 Status (~ hierarchy)
 Ascribed (Assigned, not chosen)
 E.g. birth order, sex, nationality, race, ethnicity
 Achieved

 Roles (guidelines & expectations we have)

 Impression Management
 “Performing stage in front of the audience” – frontstage & backstage
[Link]
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Impression Management
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Key concepts used in sociology

 Social Structure
 the established patterns of relationships and social arrangements
that take shape as people live, work, and play with each other
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Hong Kong Sports Institute Athlete Status

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Defining Sport
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Recall the Definition of Sport in
SPED2720 Foundation

 Organized competitive activities governed by rules that standardize

competition and conditions so individuals can compete fairly
 Competition against an opponent or oneself
 Strategy and skill play significant role in determination of outcome
 Participants are motivated by internal/external rewards
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Single definition of sports

may lead us to overlook
important factors in a
particular social world

Putting sports into context

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Defining Sport

 Widely used in North America

 physical activities that involve challenges or competitive contests
 European Sports Charter
 “Sport means all forms of physical activity, which through casual or
organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness
and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in
competition at all levels”
 International Olympic Committee (IOC)
 “To be recognised by the IOC, a sport must first of all be governed by an
International Federation (IF)”
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Defining Sport

 Hong Kong Sport Institute (HKSI) Introduction-to-HKSI-e

 Government’s Elite Vote Support Scheme (EVSS),

 the achievements of athletes in different sports at major international
competitions are reviewed every 2 years to identify the high
performance sports to be supported by the HKSI for a 4-year period
aligning with the Asian Games (AG) and Olympic Games (OG) cycles.
 Tier A*
 whose athletes have consistently performed at the highest international level
and have the potential to achieve medals at the OG. They receive the same
full support provided to Tier A sports as well as additional resources to enhance
preparation for the Olympic Games.

 Tier A (EVSS score of 10 points or above)

 whose athletes have competed in at least three previous Asian or Olympics
Games since 1997, are identified as Tier A. They are provided with dedicated
coaching teams, funding for elite training programmes, full sports science and
sports medicine support, and athlete development programmes
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Official Definitions of Sports

 Vary from one social world to another

 Defining sports in official terms & and choosing specific activities
that qualify as sports - an important process in organizations,
communities, and societies
 Being classified as an official sport gives special status to an activity
and is likely to increase participation, funding, community support,
and general visibility
 Important implications
 many people will be excluded from participation
 decide that they are not fit to play
 avoid other physical activities that are defined as “second class.”
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Pros & cons of
a precise definition of sport

Pros Cons
 Allows sport to be  Privileges people with the
distinguished from other resources to organize
activities competitive games and
the interest in doing so
 Provides a common focus
for people doing research  Overlooks those without
and developing theories resources or inclinations to
compete
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Sports Are Social Constructions

 As parts of the social world that are created by people as they

interact with one another under particular social, political, and
economic conditions that exist in their society
 Defining & identifying official sports = political process
 Outcomes that benefits some people more than others
 Process of creating sport & sustaining sports in the social world
 Debates in whose ideas would be adopted in decision making
 What is the meaning and primary purpose of sports, and how should
sports be organized to fit that meaning and purpose?
 Who will play sports with whom, and under what conditions will they
play?
 What agencies or organizations will sponsor and control sports?
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Cheerleading
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Olympic Games New Sports

at 2020, 2024 & 2028
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Sports are contested activities

 No timeless & universal agreements about what they mean, why

they exist, or how they should be organized
 Change of people who have the power and authority
 to control the sport and resources
 to shape the meanings given to particular activities at different times in
a community or society
 Struggle overtime
 the meaning, purpose, and organization of sports;
 who plays under what conditions; and
 how sports will be sponsored and controlled
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Reflect on Sports

Who Plays & Who doesn’t

Contesting a place in Sports

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Sociology has always

attempted to defatalize and
denaturalize the present,
demonstrating that the world
could be otherwise

—Editor, Global Dialogue (2011)

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The Sociology of Sport

 A subdiscipline of sociology and physical education that studies

sports as part of social and cultural life, that is, as social
phenomena
 Focuses primarily on "organized, competitive sports”
 New phenomena of sports – recreational, extreme, adventure,
virtual, newly emerging etc.
 Asks critical questions about sports in society
 Why are some activities, and not others, selected and designated as
sports in particular groups and societies?
 Why are sports created and organized in different ways at different
times and in different places?
 How do people include sports and sport participation in their lives, and
does participation affect individual development and social
relationships?
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The Sociology of Sport

 How do sports and sport participation affect our ideas about bodies, human
movement work, fun, social class, masculinity and femininity, race and
ethnicity, ability and disability, achievement and competition, pleasure and
pain, deviance and conformity, and aggression and violence?
 How do various sports compare with other forms of movement in producing
positive health and fitness outcomes?
 How do sports contribute to overall community and societal development, and
why do so many people assume that they do?
 How is the meaning, purpose, and organization of sports related to the culture,
social structure, and resources of a society?
 How are sports related to important spheres of social life such as family,
education, politics, the economy, media, and religion?
 How do people use their sport experiences and knowledge about sports as
they interact with others and explain what occurs in their lives and the world
around them?
 How can people use sociological knowledge about sports to understand and
participate more actively and effectively in society, especially as agents of
progressive change?
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Using the Sociology of Sport

 Involve critical thinking about the potential consequences of what

we know about sports in society
 Think critically about sports so you can identify and understand the
issues and controversies associated with them.
 Look beyond performance statistics and win–loss records to see
sports as social activities that can have both positive and negative
effects on people’s lives.
 Learn things about sports that enable you to make informed
choices about your sport participation and the place of sports in
your family, community, and society.
 See sports as social constructions and strive to change them when
they systematically and unfairly disadvantage some categories of
people at the same time that they privilege others
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Controversies Created by
the Sociology of Sport
 Sociological research often provides evidence that there is a need to
change the organization of sports and the organization of society.
 Those who benefit from the status quo are usually threatened by such
findings and may try to discredit or ignore them
 those who control sports organizations
 benefit from the current organization of sports
 think that the current organization of sports is “right and natural.”
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Why study sports in society ?

 Socially significant activities for many people

 Make sense of their experiences and the world around them
 Increase social capital - social resources that link them to social worlds in
positive ways
 Reaffirm important ideas and beliefs, including ideologies
 a shared interpretive framework that people use to make sense of and
evaluate themselves, others, and events in their social worlds
 represents the principles, perspectives, and viewpoints
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Ideologies

 Ideologies - shared interpretive framework that people use to make

sense of and evaluate themselves, others, and events in their social
worlds
 Unaware, simply take for granted
 Characteristics
 Emerge with the struggle over the meaning and organization of social life
 Resist change
 Complex and sometime inconsistent
 Change as power relationship change in society
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Gender Ideology

 Interrelated ideas and beliefs that are widely used to

 define masculinity and femininity
 identify people as male or female
 evaluate forms of sexual expression
 determine the appropriate roles of males and females in society
 Central ideas and beliefs:
 Human beings are either female or male.
 Heterosexuality is nature’s foundation for human reproduction; other
expressions of sexual feelings, thoughts, and actions are abnormal,
deviant, or immoral.
 Men are physically stronger and more rational than women; therefore,
they are more naturally suited to possess power and assume leadership
positions in the public spheres of society.
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Gender Ideology

 Debates about the truth of these ideas and beliefs

 Larger struggles over what it means to be a man or a woman
 What is defined as normal, natural, moral, legal, and socially
acceptable when it comes to expressing gender and sexuality;
 Who should have power in the major spheres of life such as the
economy, politics, law, religion, family, education, health care, and
sports
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Racial Ideology

 Interrelated ideas and beliefs that are widely used to classify

human beings into categories assumed to be biological and
related to attributes such as intelligence, temperament, and
physical abilities
 Vary greatly from culture to culture, due to historical factors
 Divisive forces that privilege particular categories of people and
disadvantage others head coach of Texas Western College

 e.g. US white vs black (17th century)

[Link]
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Racial Ideology

 Central ideas and beliefs:

 Human beings can be classified into races on the basis of biologically
inherited or genetically based characteristics.
 Intellectual and physiological characteristics vary by race, with white
people being intellectually and morally superior to black people and all
people of color.
 People classified as white have only white ancestors, and anyone with
one or more black ancestors is classified as a black person
 justify segregation and discrimination based on skin color and deny that
black people were real “Americans” in the full legal sense of the term.
 Dominant ideology evolved:
 Physical weakness > less evolved
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Social Class Ideology

 Interrelated ideas and beliefs that are widely shared and used by
people to evaluate their material status; explain why economic
success, failure, and inequalities exist; and what should be done
about economic inequalities in a group or society.
 Central ideas and beliefs:
 All people have opportunities to achieve economic success.
 The United States is a meritocracy where deserving people become
successful and where failure is the result of inability, poor choices, or a
lack of motivation.
 Income and wealth inequality is normal and inevitable because some
people work hard, develop their abilities, and make smart choices and
others do not.
 Socioeconomic inequality is justified and the wealth and privilege
of economic elites is protected
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Ableist Ideology

 Interrelated ideas and beliefs that are widely used to identify

people as physically or intellectually disabled, to justify treating
them as inferior, and to organize social worlds and physical spaces
without taking them into account.
 Central ideas and beliefs:
 All people can be classified as either enabled or disabled.
 People with a disability are inferior to and more needy than enabled
people.
 Attitudes, actions, and policies based on the belief that people
perceived as lacking certain abilities are inferior and, therefore,
incapable of full participation in mainstream activities
 Enabled vs disabled
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Models/Theories
in Sociological studies
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs model
 Research Example
Motivation & behaviour of serious leisure participants: The case of the Comrades Marathon

 Characteristics of distance athletes/runners

 sense of identity
 the unique ethos & sub-culture within the distance running community
 the need to persevere & master the skill (through effort)
 the durable benefits
 Interview questions e.g.
 Do you feel the need to persevere against all odds?
 Explain the meaning of rewards?
 Do you feel that you have achieved something each time you finish the
marathon?
 Can you comfortably interact socially with other runners?
 How would you explain the value of the Comrades Marathon in terms of your
own life?

Reference: Fairer-Wessels, F. A. (2013). Motivation and behaviour of serious leisure participants: the case of the Comrades
Marathon. South African Journal for Research in Sport, Physical Education and Recreation, 35(2), 83-103.
 Need for belonging (Maslow’s 3rd level)
“Where else can you finish 27 532th and still feel as if you were in an Olympic
final?”
“When you're on the road everybody's on the same level If you're a CEO of a
company or a gardener, you're on the same level. The BNAC goes out of its way to
make new members feel welcome; more so than other clubs and, therefore, it is
easier to feel a sense of belonging”
 Self-actualization (Maslow’s highest level )
“Despite being in horrific pain for the last couple of miles, my feet actually felt they
were on fire; I loved every single minute of it and have never been so proud of
myself?”
“it is one of the most rewarding things you can ever do because of the incredible
degree of difficulty of the race, so anyone that finished the Comrades is just simply in
sport, 1 believe, of the best.”
Self Determination Theory
Socio-ecological Model
 Research Example
Barriers and Facilitators to Leisure Physical Activity in Children:
A Qualitative Approach Using the Socio-Ecological Model

 Socio-Ecological Model
 Individual characteristics (age & sex)
 Microsystem (parents & friends)
 Mesosystem (timing & out-of-school schedule)
 Exosystem (safety & weather)

Reference
Martínez-Andrés, M., Bartolomé-Gutiérrez, R., Rodríguez-Martín, B., Pardo-Guijarro, M. J., Garrido-Miguel, M., & Martínez-Vizcaíno, V.
(2020). Barriers and facilitators to leisure physical activity in children: a qualitative approach using the socio-ecological model. International
journal of environmental research and public health, 17(9), 3033.
 Microsystem: Parents, Siblings and Friends
 Descriptive Findings:
Most of the participants shared the games with their fathers and siblings, but not with
their mothers. Moreover, some of the children only engaged in leisure activities with
their parents during the holidays.

“I ride my bike or scooter with my brother and my father” (IP717. Boy, urban
environment).

“I don’t do many things with my parents” (IP694. Girl, urban environment).

“No, I used to go to flamenco lessons, but I had to stop because my mum and dad
were working and couldn’t drive me there” (IP516. Girl, rural environment).

“In the summertime, my parents and I go to the beach. But in M (village), I don’t
spend much time with them” (IP609. Boy, rural, environment).
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Conclusion

 Sociology is the study of the social worlds that people create,

organize, maintain, and change through their relationships with
each other.
 Sociologists use concepts, research, and theories to describe and
explain social worlds, enables people to understand, control, and
improve the conditions of their lives and the social worlds in which
they live.
 In the process, they enable us to put the lives of individuals and
groups into context.
 This makes us aware of the circumstances that set limits and create
possibilities in people’s lives.
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Conclusion

 Defining sports presents a challenge. (no single definition)

 Sports as social construction, vary over time and from one social
world to another
 Sports as Contested activities, with debate over meaning, purpose
and organization
 Critical thinking approach
 “Is it working or not working?
 For whom is it working or not working?
 Whom does it harm or disadvantage?
 What is the value of sport as it is organized, and could value be
increased if it were changed?”
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Conclusion

 The sociology of sports as controversial

 Problem discovery
 Continue to do research and produce knowledge that can be used to
promote fairness and social justice.
 Sports also reaffirm and sometimes challenge important ideas and
belief, especially those related to gender, race and ethnicity, social
class, and ability
 Sports as integral part of everyday life that they cannot be ignored
by anyone concerned with the organization and dynamics of
social life today.
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SPED 2710
PRODUCING KNOWLEDGE
ABOUT SPORTS IN SOCIETY
Sociology of
Physical HOW IS KNOWLEDGE
PRODUCED IN THE
Education & SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT?
Sports

Reference:
Coakley, J. J. (2021). Sports in society : issues and
controversies (13rd edition.). McGraw-Hill Education.
2
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Learning Objectives

 Identify the five steps involved in the production of sociology knowledge.

 Know the differences between a quantitative approach and qualitative
approach and when it would be best to use one over the other when doing
social research.
 Identify and describe the three major research methods used in the
sociology of sport.
 Explain the differences between cultural, interactionist, and structural
theories.
 Describe what it means to say that sports are more than reflections of
society.
 Know the key features of a critical approach to producing knowledge in the
sociology of sport.
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Sport Sociology - Deeper Game

 Using research & theories to Macro View

understand
Social &
 The social and cultural contexts in Cultural Context
which sports exist.
Social Worlds
 The connections between those
contexts and sports. Organization
 The social worlds that people
create as they participate in sports.
Groups
 The experiences of individuals and
groups associated with those social
worlds. Individuals

 The organization of sports and how

people are influenced by sports
Micro View
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Tools used to study sports in society

 Social Research
 Investigation in which we seek answers to questions about social worlds
by systematically gathering and analyzing data
 Primary tool
 Social Theories
 Logically interrelated explanation of the actions and relationships of
human beings and the organization and dynamics of social worlds
 Frameworks for research question, interpreting information, applying
knowledge we produce about sport
 Combination of description, reflection and analysis
 Help us to make choice and anticipate consequences
SPED2720 Foundation L1 pp.50 6
Inductive VS Deductive Reasoning

 Inductive 歸納  Deductive 推論

Specific Existing Theory

Observation

Formulate Hypothesis
(prediction)
Generalization
(Pattern)
Experiment

General Conclusion Conclusion

(Develop Theory) (Accept/reject hypothesis)
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All people use “Theories”

 Gather information about people and things around us.

 Use this information to develop personal explanations about our
experiences, people, events, and social worlds—i.e., personal
theories.
 Personal theories = summaries of our ideas and explanations of
social life and the contexts in which it occurs
 Reasoning
 make sense & gain control of your life & social worlds you live in
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Sociological theories are
different than personal theories

 Designed to answer questions that go beyond experiences and

situations encountered by one person
 Based on systematic data collection and analysis
 Developed in connection with the research and theories of others
in sociology
 Published and critically examined, tested, and validated or
discredited by other scholars
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Social theories

 Cultural theories
 Interactionist theories
 Structural theories
 Functionalist theories
 Conflict theories
 Critical theories
 Feminist theories
 ……
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Producing knowledge in the
sociology of sport

Develop research questions and review

previous studies on the topic being studied

Select appropriate theory & research methods

Collect & analyze data

Use findings to produce conclusions

Publish results so others can assess their

validity & reliability
 11

Case Study

for
Knowledge
production in
sociology
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At the ceremony
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Producing knowledge in the
sociology of sport

Develop research questions and review

previous studies on the topic being studied

Select appropriate theory & research methods

Collect & analyze data

Use findings to produce conclusions

Publish results so others can assess their

validity & reliability
 14
Develop Research Questions

 Culture
 What gender-related words, meanings, and symbols do
American children learn to use as they identify themselves and
others?
 Social interaction
 How do children perform gender in their everyday lives, and
how do they learn to successfully present themselves to others
as boys or girls?
 Social structure
 How does the organization of sports at all levels create
constraints and possibilities that influence the lives of boys and
men in different ways than they influence the lives of girls and
women?
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Producing knowledge in the
sociology of sport

Develop research questions and review

previous studies on the topic being studied

Select appropriate theory & research methods

Collect & analyze data

Use findings to produce conclusions

Publish results so others can assess their

validity & reliability
 16
Introduction to the theories

 Cultural theories
 Interactionist theories
 Structural theories
 Functionalist theories
 Conflict theories
 Critical theories
 Feminist theories
 …
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Cultural Theories

 Explain
 the ways that people think and express their values, ideas, and beliefs as
they live together and create social worlds.
 Processes through which people create, maintain, and change values,
norms, ideas, and beliefs about their lives and the social worlds in which
they live
 Focus - The ways people define and make sense of their bodies,
experiences, and relationship
 Major concepts - Values, norms, ideas, beliefs, ideology, symbols, narratives
associated with sports
 Research example - impact of racial ideology on the sport participation
choices of individuals
 18
Interactionist theories

 Explain
 The origins, dynamics, and consequences of social interaction
among people in particular social worlds
 Focus - processes of social learning and development which
people give meaning to sport experiences and integrate them into
their lives
 Major concepts - social interaction, socialization, role models,
significant others, self-concept, identity, symbol, labeling,
deviance, and stereotyping to study social development during
childhood, adolescence, and adulthood
 Research Example – the process of normalizing pain and injury
when playing sports
 19
Structural Theories

 Explain
 Different forms of social organization and how they influence
actions and relationships.
 Focus - the ways that relationships are organized and how they
influence people’s access to power, authority, material resources,
economic opportunities, and other resources
 Major concepts - Status, roles, groups, authority, power relations,
social control, social inequality, social institutions, organizations, and
societies
 Research Example – gender equity in school sport programs
 20
Functionalist Theory
 Explain
 Society is an organized system of interrelated parts
 Sports are studied in terms of their contributions to the system
 Focuses on sport participation and positive outcomes for individuals and
society
 Major concepts – function, dysfunction, mutual interdependence
equilibrium, roles, norms, institutions
 Take social action
 Promote the development and growth of organized sports
 Increase sport participation opportunities to foster individual
development
 Increase the supervision and control of athletes
 Mandate coaching education programs
 Highlight success in elite programs
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Conflict Theory

 Explain
 Society is a system of structures & relationships shaped by economic forces
 Sports are studied in terms of how they promote economic exploitation and
capitalist expansion
 Focus - how sports perpetuate the power & privilege of elite groups in society
 Major concepts – money, power, control, conflict, competition, social groups etc
 Take social action
 Focus on class inequality and how it might be minimized or eliminated in and
through sports
 Develop awareness of how athletes and spectators are used for the profit and
personal gain of the economic elite
 More emphasis on play and less on commercial spectator sports
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Critical Theory
 Explain
 Society involves cultural production, power relations, & ideological struggles
 Sports are social constructions that change as power relations change and as
narratives and discourses change
 focuses the meaning and organizations of sports, and on sports as sites for cultural
transformation
 Major concepts – critique, challenge power structures & domination, social
problems
 Take social action
 Use sports to challenge and transform exploitive and oppressive practices
 Increase the number and diversity of sport participation opportunities
 Challenge the ideological implications of the stories told about sports in a
culture
 Challenge the voices and perspectives of those with power in sports and
society
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Feminist Theory

 Explain
 Society life is pervasively gendered
 Sports are gendered activities grounded primarily in the values and
experiences of men with power and influence
 Focuses how sports reproduce gendered ideas and practices related to
physicality, sexuality, and the body
 Main concepts - masculinity and femininity, gendered dimension of sports,
gender ideology
 Take social action
 Challenge aspects of sports that systematically privilege men over women
 Expose and transform oppressive forms of sexism and homophobia in sports
 Use sports as sites to empower women and promote the notion of partnership
and competition with others
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Selection of research methods

 Quantitative approach
 collecting information about people and social worlds, converting the
information into numbers, and analyzing the numbers by using statistical
procedures and tests.
 Qualitative approach
 collecting information about people and social worlds, identifying patterns
and unique features, and analyzing the information by using interpretive
procedures and tests
 Mixed of Quantitative & Qualitative
 Inductive & deductive approach
 25
Data Collection Methods

Surveys Observations Test Analysis Experiments

•Written •Non-participants •Scan text, audio •Laboratory-based-
Questionnaires observation to identify Measure action of
•Interview •Participant themes, participants exposed
observation keywords to a particular
•Deconstruct text treatments in a highly
to identify logic, controlled setting
assumptions, •Field-based – in a
ideology, natural setting
contradiction

[Link]
 26
Producing knowledge in the
sociology of sport

Develop research questions and review

previous studies on the topic being studied

Select appropriate theory & research methods

Collect & analyze data

Use findings to produce conclusions

Publish results so others can assess their

validity & reliability
 27
Collect & analyze data

 Cultural Theories
 collected information on the team names that players and coaches
selected
 names, along with colors, uniforms, banners, and songs or chants –
symbolic
 boys were much more likely to avoid sweet, cutesy names in favor of
power names
 Interactionist Theories
 observed the actions of people & how they performed gender as they
interacted with others
 children indicated that their performances clarified and blurred
traditional gender distinctions
 28
Collect & analyze data

 Structural Theory
 collected data on the adult divisions of labor and who held power
positions
 21 /31 the commissioner and assistant commissioners = men
 the head and assistant coaches = men
 formal authority at the league and team levels
 team managers, or “teammoms,” = women 86%.
 performed support roles that were labor intensive, time consuming,
and behind the scenes.
 29
Producing knowledge in the
sociology of sport

Develop research questions and review

previous studies on the topic being studied

Select appropriate theory & research methods

Collect & analyze data

Use findings to produce conclusions

Publish results so others can assess their

validity & reliability
 30
Use Findings to Produce Conclusions
 31
Producing knowledge in the
sociology of sport

Develop research questions and review

previous studies on the topic being studied

Select appropriate theory & research methods

Collect & analyze data

Use findings to produce conclusions

Publish results so others can assess their

validity & reliability
 32
Worth to take note

 Social science research does not produce “ultimate truth” in the form of
knowledge that eliminates all doubt and uncertainty in everyday life.
 Research, theories, and knowledge in the sociology of sport will never
lead to the creation of a single strategy to prevent social problems and
forever guarantee fairness and justice in sports and sport organizations.
 Knowledge about social worlds is never complete, and using knowledge
to solve current problems does not mean that the solutions will be free
of challenges and problems.
 33
Using a critical approach

 What values, ideas, and beliefs are promoted through sports, and who is
advantaged or disadvantaged by them?
 What are the meanings currently given to sports and sport participation, and who
is advantaged or disadvantaged by those meanings?
 How are sports organized, and who is advantaged or disadvantaged by existing
forms of organization in sports?
 Who has power in sports, to what ends is power used, and how are various
categories of people affected by power relations associated with sports?
 Who accepts and who resists the organization of mainstream sports, and what
happens to those who resist?
 What strategies effectively foster progressive changes in sports and the social
worlds around them?
 34
Summary

 Sociology of sport knowledge is produced through research and theories

 Research provides data and systematic analyses to answer questions and validate
or revise existing theories about sports in societ
 Personal theories vs social theories
 Social Theories e.g. cultural, interactional, structural, conflict, critical, functional,
feminist etc.
 5-stage process – Research question – Metholodogy – Data collection & analysis–
Finding, discussion to produce conclusion – publication
 Sports are more than mere reflections of society
 Sports are sites where meanings, relationships, and forms of social organization
are created, maintained, and changed
 35

Class Activity
 36

RESEARCH STRUCTURE
A plea for support - ABSTRACT
for elite student
- INTRODUCTION
athletes in Hong
- RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Kong secondary
- METHODOLOGY
schools.
- RESULTS & DISCUSSION
Sum, R. K. W., & Ma, M. M. (2014)..
- CONCLUSION & IMPLICATION

[Link]
 37
Research Questions

 Original
 How do ESAs manage their academic and athletic lives
 What support is given to ESAs in the secondary school setting in Hong
Kong
 At present (subject/participants)
 How do university student-athletes (USAs) manage their academic and
athletic lives?
 What support is given to USAs in the university setting in Hong Kong?
 38
Background Information

 Gender i.e. F or M
 Age
 Self-perceived Social-economic status (SES) e.g. low, middle & high
 School & College i.e. cuhk/CC, NA, UC, SC, WS etc.
 Program/year e.g. ESHE/2, PESH/1
 Event e.g. karate kumite
 Type e.g. contact, individual
 Year of sports e.g. 10 years
 Current Status e.g. HKSI elite b, CU representative, none
 39
Semi-structure Interview

 About academic lives

1. How many courses and credits you had taken in this semester?
2. How do you manage academic lives?
3. How do you think the support from CU, PEU and department?
 About athletic lives
1. How often, when, where do you train?
2. What kinds of training and the duration?
3. How do you manage athletics lives?
 40
Semi-structure Interview

 Management
1. How do you manage, balance and make choices between your
academic and athletic lives?
2. Do you think you manage well? Why or Why not?
3. How do you think the school could better cater for your need?
 Any Follow up questions you would like to ask ?
 41
1. CHOOSE A PARTNER
(PSEUDONYM, FAKE NAME)
2. COLLECT BACKGROUND
INFORMATION
3. CONDUCT SEMI-
You Task STRUCTURED INTERVIEW
4. RECORD YOUR RESULTS
WITH TRANSCRIBED
Results VERBATIM (WORD TO WORD
TRANSCRIPTION)
5. SUBMIT VIA CUHK
BLACKBOARD TO CLAIM THE
PARTICIPATION MARKS
 1

SPED 2710 SPORTS & SOCIALIZATION

Sociology of WHO PLAYS

Physical &

Education & WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM

Sports

Reference:
Coakley, J. J. (2021). Sports in society : issues and
controversies (13rd edition.). McGraw-Hill Education.
 2
Learning Objectives

 Describe what occurs during the socialization process and explain why it is important to
study socialization as an interactive learning process.
 Identify key factors involved in the process of becoming and staying involved in sports.
 Describe key factors involved in the process of changing or ending sport participation and
explain when the retirement process is most likely to be difficult for a former athlete.
 Understand why sport participation does not have the same socialization effects for
everyone who plays sports.
 Differentiate pleasure and participation sports from power and performance sports and
explain why it is important to know these differences when discussing socialization in sports.
 Identify the conditions under which sport participation is most likely or least likely to have
positive socialization effects on those who play sports.
 Explain why sport participation does not automatically lead to physical fitness and well-
being and why it may not reduce obesity rates in a society.
 3
4 Central topics
sports & socialization

 The process of becoming involved and staying involved in sports.

 The process of transitioning out of active sport participation.
 The consequences of being involved in sports.
 Socialization as a community and cultural process.
 4
What is Socialization?

 An active process of learning and social development

 Occurs as we interact with one another and become
familiar with the various social worlds in which we live
 Process involves the formation of ideas about who we are
and what is important in our lives.
 An interactive process.
 We make decisions that influence our lives and social worlds.
 Contexts are often out of our control.
 5

VS

Resources & Contexts

Make choice based on
 6
Becoming & Staying Involved
in Sports

 Based on personal internalization model, research found that Sports

Participation is related to
 A person’s abilities, characteristics and resources
 Influence of significant others – parents, teachers, siblings, peers,
role models
 Availability of opportunities to play in ways that are personally
satisfying.
 Multiple process – interact, make decisions, shift with age and
with change in social conditions and relationships
 7
1. Physical Literacy as
a pathway in sports
 The motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and
understanding to value and take responsibility for engaging in
physical activities for life (Whitehead, 2019)
 Decline in child-controlled physically active play and games
 Emerged of organized sports - primary sites (in parents’ perspective)
 Failure to meet standard of health
 Fundamental skill – locomotor, stability, manipulative
 Basic for every sports skills
 8
2. Family Culture & the Sport
Participation of Children

 Wheeler’s finding in the UK

 Parents
 who defined sport participation is important for young people and
willingly dedicated considerable family time, money and energy to
support their children
 Did not coach or critique other than verbal encouragement
 Study family as the immediate context in which sport participation
is initiated and nurtured
 Family culture provides context – children see sports involvement as
a normal part of their everyday lives and continue to play sports as
they become adolescents and young adults
 Closely tied to family dynamics and decisions, structural and
cultural factors
Parents and other family members - Significant others
Who influence when, how and where children plays sports 9

Winning at starting point ?

[Link]
 10
3. Making choices to participate
During adolescence

 Young people in UK
 Their ideas about the connection between sports participation and the
own growth and development
 Their desires to develop and display competence so they could gain
recognition and respect from others
 Family and peer support for participation
 Their access to the resources needed for participation (time,
transportation, equipment, and money)
 Their memories of past experiences with physical activities and sports
 The social and cultural significance of sports in their social worlds.
 11
3. Making choices to participate
During adolescence

 Extend control over their lives, achieve development and career

goals
 Experiences in PE lessons
 Sport participation pattern shifts over time, depending on different
factors
 Make choice to participate sports for different reasons at different
points in their lives (personal growth )
 12
4. Identity formation and
Being accepted as an athlete

 Donnelly & Young’s Findings

 4 phases of continuing socialization
 Acquiring knowledge about the sport
 Interacting with people involved in the sport
 Learning how participation occurs and what is expected of athletes in
the sport
 Being recognized and accepted as an athlete by other athletes in
the sport
 Accepted by other athletes with “walk the walk, talk the talk”
 Continuous process
 Membership in sports culture is always temporary
 Being accepted, receiving social support for formation and
maintenance of athlete identity
 13
Changing/ending sport participation

 Common occurrences - cut from team, lose interest, drop out,

suffer injuries, face physical challlenges
 Make choices on change and time conflict in life
 Transition to other roles
 Focus on
 Normal life changes that impact sports participation
 Burnout and the factors that cause it
 Stopping & restarting participation
 Factors influencing the quality of transitions out of competitive sport
careers
 14
1. Getting on with life &
Getting out of sports

 Research - “why do so many young adults stop practicing sport”

 Participants - Age 18 -35 in Netherlands
 Setting – local sport club
 4 major life events
 Beginning to work
 Live independently
 Cohabiting/getting married
 Becoming a 1st time parent
 2854 times stop a sport & 1447 drop membership (Overlapping)
 Significant others – friends
 Women > Men due to domestic tasks & caregiving
 15
1. Getting on with life &
Getting out of sports

 Change due to shifts of needs, resources and restrictions

 Life events
 reduce sports participation
 Provide opportunities to initiate/resume sports at some point
 Getting out of sport
 Not always results of negative experiences, poor or abusive coaching,
injuries or declining abilities
 Implication
 Responsive to changing needs
 Provision of l ess time-consuming and more flexible forms of sports
 2. Love it or Leave it 16
Burnout among Adolescents and
Young Adult Athletes
 Research –identify the reasons for unexpectedly high burnout rates
among top players in the younger age categories
 Participants – 16-18 Gaelic Football players
 The cause
 Exhaustion due to intense training and competition
 A devaluing of sport participation and performance
 A sense that achieving performance goals and improving performance
was not possible
 Stress related to burnout
 Lack of control and power
 “vocabulary of empowerments”
 3. Stopping and starting: 17
Sporadic participation until going out
for good
 Common pattern – involving sports during childhood, stopping
during early-to-mid-teen years and playing sports on and off at
various recreational levels during adulthood
 Minority - Being an athlete is central
 Majority - Have multidimensional identities
 Little research (since no personal or social problems)
 Skateboards as a cultural phenomenon in Australis studies
 4 Skater identities
 Modification - controlling their clothing and presentation of self
 Dedication - persistence and enthusiasm
 Humor – humility
 Homage – classic tricks, top skaters, knowledge of skating events and
stories
 4. Game Over: being forced, 18
injured out and voluntarily
ending sport careers.
 High-performance and professional sports always end
 Involuntarily or voluntarily
 6 Factors influencing the transition experience
 The centrality and importance of athlete identity
 Anticipating and preparing for the transition
 Exploring opportunities and possibilities for future growth and development
 Being satisfied with athletic performance
 Creating strategies for maintaining desire connection with teammates
 Having social and emotional support systems
 19
Participation in Sports:
What happens?

 Do sports build character?

 Inconsistent and confusing findings due to the assumptions
 All have same/similar experience
 Organized sports provide unique experiences that are not available in
other activities
 Overlooked factors
 Sport experiences are diverse, both negative & positive
 Selection processes exist in sports
 The meanings given to sport experience vary from person to person
 People change
 Relationship and context matter
 Sport experiences are not unique
 20
Sport participation produces
positive effects when it provides

 Opportunities to explore and develop non-sport identities

 Knowledge-building experiences that go beyond the locker room
and playing field
 New relationships with people who are not connected with sports
 Training that shows how lessons learned in sports can be applied to
situations unrelated to sports (that is skills transfer lessons)
 Opportunities to develop and display competence in non-sport
activities
 Worth to note – do not occur automatically
 Negative effect – constricts opportunities, experiences, relationships
& developing competence in non-sport activities and situation
 21
Sport experiences are diverse

Power and Performance Sports Pleasure and Participation Sports

Use power to push limits in pursuit of victories Emphasis on connections between people
Ethic of expression, enjoyment, concern, and
Excellence proved through winning
health
Body = tool and weapon Body = source of pleasure

Competence-based inclusion/exclusion Inclusion and accommodation of differences

Hierarchical structures Democratic structures

Opponents = enemies Competitors as partners

 22
Sport participation and health

 The healthiest physical activities - rhythmic, noncompetitive exercises

in which people control and regulate body movements.
 Health benefits decline in competitive sports.
 Health costs of competitive sport are due to Injuries (cuts, broken
teeth, injured knees, broken bones, spinal cord injury)
 Violence (when body is used as a weapon)
 Risk taking (when athletes exceed limits)
 Unhealthy lifestyles (disordered eating, drinking)
23
 24
Summary

 Socialization – complex, interactive process

 Learn about themselves and social worlds
 Connection with sports and other activities in people’s lives
 Being involved and staying involved
 Decision to play sports – availability of opportunities, existence of social
support, processes of identity formation and affirmatio and cultural
context
 Changing or ending active sports participation
 Make decisions - Day after day, setting and revising priorities, significant
others
 Sports as site for socialization experiences
 25

HTTPS://[Link]/WATCH?V=DXSJAJJMAZU
 1

Activity 2
PE LESSON DRAWING & ANALYSIS
 2
Your Task

1. 2 in a group; Choose your partner

2. Decide who will draw Pri. PE and the other will draw Sec. PE
3. Draw on your own (10 minutes)
4. Afterward, give to your partner for interpretation
5. Comment on your partner’s interpretation
6. Change role
7. Reflection on (within 300 words)
• Your PE lesson
• Your drawing skill to present your idea
• Your observation and interpretation skill for other’s drawing
8. Submit your drawing & your reflection together via CUHK blackboard
 3
SPORTS IN SCHOOL

IS SPORT SUITABLE FOR

SPED 2710 SCHOOL CURRICULUM?

Sociology of Change over

time - Chrono

Physical Pubic Policy -

Macro

Education &
Social
Worlds/Comm
unity - Exo

Sports Organization
– Meso

Groups -
Micro
Individuals –
Person
 4
Arguments For and Against
Interscholastic Sports

Arguments Arguments
For Against
Involve students in activities Distract attention from academics

Build self-esteem Create dependence

Enhance fitness and lifetime

Increase passivity and injuries
participation

Generate spirit and unity Create superficial and transitory spirit

Promote support Waste resources

Develop and rewards valued skills Create pressure and distort status system
 5
SPED2720 Foundation L3
Change of Concept in PE

 Before - PETs = Sport Coach

 Syllabuses for Secondary &
Primary School Health Education
 Secondary – Physical, mental
and social
 Primary – morality, intelligence,
physique, social skills and
aesthetics
 PETs ≠ Sport Coach
 6
SPED2720 Foundation L7
Hong Kong School Curriculum
7
 8
In different level of systems…
 9
Organized Youth Sport

 Organized youth sport is sponsored at different levels to meet different goals

 Leisure and Cultural Services Dept.
 Sport Federations
 Non-profit Community Organizations
 Private Commercial Clubs
 Experiences in sport e.g.
 Learn how to train and compete
 Accept winning & losing, success & failure
 Values: Pursuit of excellence, friendship, and respect (Olympism)
 Problems associated e.g.
 Physical and psychological abuse
 Overtrain, overuse injuries and stress problems
 Violence in the field and off the field
 Profit-making using children
 Children seldom have the opportunity to play without adults intervening
 10
Is Sport Suitable for School Curriculum?

 Some of the qualities of sport are compatible with school curriculum

 Some properties are not
 11
Differences in PE/Sport

 Education  Recreation/Elite
 Teachers  Coaches
 Process  Product
 Learning  Performance
 Student centred  Sport centred
 Participation  Excellence
 Compulsory  Voluntary
 12
Playing sport in PE

 Depending on the context of sports

 Nature - individual, team, racket, etc.
 Targets
 Resources
 Teachers
 Problems associated e.g.
 Usually too many players to form proper teams
 Students sit out & are passive
 Few students can take key positions
 Usually misbehave & lose interest
 13
School Sport

 Sport is seasonal
 Players are named to teams with which they remain for the whole
season
 Seasons defined by formal competition
 Culminating event for each sport
 Extensive record keeping
 Festive atmosphere about school sport
 14
School Sport could make the difference

 Educational philosophy emphasizes a different set of aims from

community
 We wish to use sport as a “medium” in which young people can
learn about themselves and their social world.
 The emphasis in HK in the PE curriculum is to integrate sport as one
of the ways of physically educating students
 The claims are similar to those made in other countries ie. Psycho-
motor, cognitive & affective
 15
Multi-faceted Approach of PE

 Difference exists between school PE and School sports teams

 Sport
 only one aspect of the school PE curriculum
 the vehicles or tools that teachers work with to bring about changes in
students
 Bringing more changes by
 Use alternative sports that are more likely to be pursued throughout life
into old age
 Emphasis on activity rather than fitness
 Provide more information on the components of good health
 Inform graduating students about lifestyles that complement good health
 16
Siedentop’s suggestions

 Sport education in the PE class requires:

 All students play all the time
 Games are modified to match ability and experiences of the players
 Students become involved as players, managers, advertisers, coaches &
scorekeepers
 17
School PE & Social Learning

 Not all school experiences carry the same message

 School PE has a range of possibilities
 Meanings of participation may change over time
 Socialization occurs through social relations (not the sport/PE
participation itself)
 Questions to be reflected
 Can the same lessons be achieved in non-sport activities?
 How do we create, maintain, and change our uniqueness?
 18

[Link]
 1

DEVIANCE IN SPORTS:
IS IT OUT OF CONTROL?
SPED 2710

Sociology of
Physical
Education &
Sports
 2
Learning Objectives

 Define deviance and identify challenges faced when studying

deviance in sports.
 Explain the absolutist and constructionist approaches to deviance in
sports.
 Define the sport ethic, and identify the norms of the sport ethic.
 Distinguish between deviant overconformity and deviant
underconformity.
 Identify the athletes most likely to overconform to the norms of the
sport ethic
 Outline the phases in a professional sport career and indicate when
performance-enhancing substances become important in that
career..
 Outline and evaluate new strategies to control doping in sports.
 3

Deviance Deviance
4
 5
Defining & studying
deviance in sports
 Deviance occurs when a person’s ideas, traits, or actions are
perceived by others to fall outside the normal range of
acceptance in a society
 Formal deviance - violations of official rules and laws that are
punished by official sanctions administered by people in positions of
authority
 Informal deviance - violations of unwritten customs and shared
understandings that are punished by unofficial sanctions
administered by observers or peers
 6
Defining & studying
deviance in sports
 Understanding deviance requires an understanding of norms
 Norm = a shared expectation that people use to identify what is
acceptable and unacceptable in a social world
 Formal norms = official expectations that take the form of written
rules or laws
 Informal norms = customs or unwritten, shared understandings of
how a person is expected to think, appear & act in a social world
 7
Challenges when
studying deviance in sports

 The types and causes of deviance in sports are so diverse that no

single theory can explain them all
 Actions accepted in sports may be deviant in other situations; and
actions accepted in society may be deviant in sports.
 Deviance in sports often involves overconformity to norms, rather
than rejecting or not conforming to them
 Training and performance in sports are based on such new forms of
science and technology that people have not yet developed
norms to guide and evaluate much of what occurs today in sports
 Absolutist approach 8
to studying deviance

 Assumes that social norms are based on essential principles that

constitute an unchanging foundation for identifying good & evil
and distinguishing right from wrong.
 Assumptions:
 Norms represent social or moral ideals
 Any departure from the ideal constitutes deviance
 The greater the departure from the ideal, the more serious the deviance.
 9
Constructionist approach to
explain deviance in sports

 Deviance occurs when ideas, traits, or actions fall outside the

boundaries that people create and use to decide what is
acceptable and unacceptable in a social world
 Combination of cultural, interactionist, and structural theories
 Assumptions
 Norms are socially constructed as people interact with each other and
determine what’s acceptable and what isn’t
 Deviance is socially constructed as people negotiate the boundaries of
their acceptance.
 Power dynamics influence this negotiation
 Most ideas, traits, and actions fall into a normally accepted range
 10
Deviant
Under-conformity Vs Over-conformity

 Underconformity
 occurs when ideas, traits, and actions indicate a rejection of norms or
ignorance about their existence, such as bar fighting, sexual assault, or
referring to a person with an intellectual disability as “stupid.” do not
measure up to expectations based on norms or laws
 Anarchy - condition that exists when there is widespread deviant
underconformity to the point of general lawlessness in a social world.
 Overconfirmity
 Occurs when ideas, traits, and actions go beyond expectations in ways
that are defined by most people as unacceptable
 Fascism - condition that exists when there is widespread deviant
overconformity based on unlimited obedience to norms or to the
commands of an autocratic leader
 11
Deviant
Under-conformity Vs Over-conformity
 12
Deviant Overconformity in Sport

 Engaged in unquestioned overconformity to norms related to

training and competition
 Self-injurious overtraining, extreme weight-control strategies, taking
untested or dangerous performance-enhancing substances, and playing
while injured
 Consequences in deterioration of their family relationships, job
performance, and/or physical health
 Understand the context of sport cultures and the norms of “the sport
ethic.”

Bodybuilder Neil Currey Dead At 34

 13
The Sport Ethic & Deviance in Sports

 Ethic - an interrelated set of norms that a collection of people use

to guide and evaluate ideas, traits, and actions in a social world
 Sport ethic
 guide and evaluate attitudes and actions in the social world of power
and performance sports
 4 primary norms
Dedication of the
 Reminder - Be sensible Game
Strive for distinction

Sports Ethic

Accept no obstacles
Accept risks and
in the pursuit of
play through pain
success in sports
 14
Most Likely to Overconform to
the Norms of the Sport Ethic

 Athletes who have a strong need for approval and respect from
other athletes and their coaches.
 Characteristics
 Those with low global self-esteem and a strong need to be recognized
and accepted as athletes by their peers in sport.
 Those who perceive achievement in sports as the surest way to be
defined as successful and gain the respect of others.
 Those who link their identity as an athlete to their masculinity so that
being an athlete and being a man are merged into a single identity.
 Those who play on teams in which coaches and teammates make
overconformity an important feature of acceptance as a team
member.
 15
Deviant overconformity and
group dynamics
 Engaging in deviant overconformity
 Bonds athletes together in ways that normalize overconformity to the
sport ethic in sport groups
 Separates athletes from the general community while inspiring awe and
admiration among community members
 Often leads athletes to develop HUBRIS – that is, pride-driven arrogance
and an inflated sense of self-importance that leads one to feel separate
from and superior to others

[Link] [Link]
 16
How to control deviant
overconformity in sports

 Learn to identify the forms and dynamics of over-conformity

among athletes (and make coaches aware)
 Raise critical questions about the meaning, organization, and
purpose of sports
 Help athletes to learn how and when to set limits on their
conformity to the norms of the sport ethic
 Assist athletes to connect more meaningfully and deeply with
people in the general community
 17
Deviance on the field

 Deviance on the Field or Related to Sports

 Cheating on the Field of Play
 E.g. dirty play, fighting, the use of violence, strategic fouls etc

 Cheating, Corruption, and Harassment in Sport Organization

 Sports Gambling, Match-Fixing, and Prop-Fixing
 18
Hazing:
Deviance or Team Building?
 Hazing is a chronic issue at many levels of sports
 Confusion between
 Rite of passage - an institutionalized cultural ritual that marks a transition
from one status to another.
 Initiation - an expected, public, and formal ceremony that marks entry into
a group or organization
 Hazing - secret, private, interpersonal process that reaffirms a hierarchical
status difference between incoming and existing group members
 Bullying - consists of aggressive acts that are meant to intimidate, exploit,
or harm another person
 19
Deviance Off the Field

 Topics
 Crime rates – Felony (a chrime punishable by death or more than one
year in prison)
 Academic cheating
 Alcohol Use and Binge Drinking
 Age, race, ethnicity, & social class background must be taken into
account when analyzing data

[Link]
 Performance-Enhancing Substances 20
(PESs): A Case Study of Deviant
Overconformity
 Persistent issue
 Substance use is not caused by defective socialization or a lack of
moral character among athletes
 Usually occurs among the most dedicated, committed, and hard-
working athletes in sports
 An athlete’s uncritical acceptance of the norms of the sport ethic
 21
Using performance enhancing
substances in sports

 Brissonneau’s model of a cycling professional sport career.

 22

Real Case:
Lance
Armstrong

HTTPS://[Link]
.COM/WATCH?V=UXD7
MDXMPJO
23
 24
New Strategies for Doping Control

 Critically examine the deep hypocrisy involved in elite power and

performance sports
 Establish rules clearly indicating that certain risks to health will not
be tolerated in sports
 Establish a “harm reduction” approach in which athletes are not
allowed to play until certified as “well” (not simply “able to
compete”) by two independent physicians or medical personnel.
 Establish injury and health education programs for athletes
 Establish a system of transparency and accountability for medical
staff and sport scientists who work for athletes, teams, and sport
federations
 Make drug and substance education a key part of health
education programs.
 25

Six
Thinking
Hats
ACTIVITY 3

[Link]
 26
Different perspectives
 27
Case Study of HKG Judo Player

 Tsui Shuk Ki
 Women’s 52 kg
 Disqualification of AG event by
doctor
 Right knee Injury in Jan 2023
 Perfect functional test result
 Apology from SF & OC
representative
 28

• USE AT LEAST 3
THINKING HATS TO
EVALUATE THE CASE
Your Task • INDICATE YOUR HATS
• SEND VIA CUHK
BLACKBOARD
 1

VIOLENCE IN SPORTS
WHO SUFFERS THE
SPED 2710 CONSEQUENCES

Sociology of
Physical
Education &
Sports
 2
Learning Objectives

 Define violence
 Explain the differences between the four major types of on-the-field
violence in sports.
 Know the connections between violence in sports and deviant
overconformity, commercialization, and competition strategies.
 Understand when and how athletes learn to use violence as a strategy in
sports.
 Describe the consequences of violence for athletes and understand the
implications of brain trauma for athletes and for sports.
 Know the conditions under which athletes may learn to control their
violent actions off the field and when their sport experiences may
contribute to off-the-field violence, such as assault and sexual assault.
 Distinguish the various forms of spectator violence
 Identify strategies that could be used to control venue and post-event
violence.
 3
Violence

 World Health Organization

 The intentional use of physical force or
power, threatened or actual, against
oneself, another person, or against a
group or community, that either results in
or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury,
death, psychological harm,
maldevelopment or deprivation
 Form - physical, sexual, psychological, or
involve deprivation or neglect
 Sociologist Allan Johnson
 Violence is primarily about control.
Violence works. It makes people do what
they otherwise would not.
 4
Violence in sports history

 not new, but not all sports are

violent.
 more severe in the past, both
on and off the field
 rates of sports violence have
not increased over time
 an issue today partly because
it may reproduce gender
ideology that privileges men
over women at the same time
that it endangers many men.
 5
Violence on the field

 Brutal body contact

 collisions, hits, tackles, blocks, body checks, and other forms of forceful physical
contact that can produce injuries
 Borderline violence
 actions that violate the rules of the game but are accepted by most players and
coaches as consistent with the norms of the sport ethic and as useful competitive
strategies.
 Quasi-criminal violence
 actions that violate the formal rules of the game, public laws, and even informal
norms among players.
 Criminal violence
 actions that are clearly outside the law to the point that athletes condemn them
and law enforcement officials prosecute them as crimes.
 6
Violence and overconformity
to the norm of sport ethic

 being dedicated to the game and not letting the fear of injury reduce the
physicality of their actions on the field.
 generally accept and may use these forms of violence to enhance their status
on a team, their identities as athletes, and their popularity among spectators
 athletes who engage in quasi- and criminal violence are generally condemned
by coaches, teammates, and spectators.
 related to the identity insecurities of athletes in high-performance sports
 often take extreme measures to prove themselves, even if it involves violence.
 reinforces feelings of self-worth by eliciting acceptance from other athletes
 Willingly facing violence and playing in pain honors the importance of the game and
expresses dedication to teammates and the culture of high-performance sport
 7
Commercialization and
Violence in Sports

 some athletes in power and performance sports are paid well for
their willingness and ability to do violence on the field
 Mixed Martial Art (MMA)
 expand the visibility of violence in sports
 violent images and words are often used to promote sport events
because many marketing people believe that spectators are
drawn to events involving violence—or at least the anticipation of it
 anticipation of violence that gives their lives significance
 commercialization enables people—mostly men—to play sports in
which these experiences are available
 8
The Institutionalization of
Violence in Sports

 In non-contact sports, violence is usually limited to using violent

images in verbal statements.
 Learning to Use Violence as a Strategy in Men’s and Women’s
Contact Sports
 9
Consequences of Violence on
the Field

 Concussions, Head Hits, and Brain Injuries

 Concussions and repetitive sub-concussive head trauma can cause
both temporary and permanent brain damage
 10
Controlling Violence on the Field

 brutal body contact is the most difficult form of violence to control

 90 percent of the serious injuries within the rules of the games and
contests
 require changes in gender ideology and the cultures of certain
sports
 rule changes and tactics to promote safety
 efforts to change contact sports to minimize violence have elicited
strong responses
 other strategies might involve:
 Suspensions for players
 Fines for team owners
 11
Violence off the field

 Sexual Violence in Sports

 Sexual Violence and Assault by Male Athletes
 Assaults and Sexual Assaults by Coaches, Trainers, and Doctors
 12
Violence among Spectators

 Spectators bring with them the histories, issues, controversies, and

ideologies of the communities in which they live.
 When tensions and conflicts are intense and widespread,
confrontations may occur.
 Sport events may be used as sites for confrontations.
 Racial, ethnic, and class divisions increase the likelihood of
violence.
 Nearly all spectator violence involves younger men
 13
Controlling Spectator Violence

 Crowd size and the standing or seating patterns of spectators.

 Composition of the crowd in terms of age, sex, social class, and
racial/ethnic mix.
 The importance and meaning of the event for spectators.
 The history of the relationship between the teams and among spectators.
 Crowd-control strategies used at the event (police, tear gas, attack dogs,
surveillance cameras, or other security measures).
 Alcohol consumption by the spectators.
 Location of the event (neutral site or home site of one of the opponents).
 Spectators’ reasons for attending the event and their expectations for
outcomes.
 The importance of the team as a source of identity for spectators (class
identity, ethnic or national identity, regional or local identity, club or gang
identity).
14
 1

GENDER AND SPORTS

SPED 2710 IS EQUITY POSSIBLE ?

Sociology of
Physical
Education &
Sports
 2
Learning Objectives

 Describe the two-sex classification system, and explain how it

impacts the meaning and organization of sports as well as who
participates in sports.
 Explain how orthodox gender ideology has influenced sports and
how sports have influenced gender ideology.
 Understand what it means to say that sports and sports organizations
today are male-dominated, male-identified, and male-centered.
 Understand the current approach to sex testing and how it is related
to orthodox gender ideology.
 Identify existing gender inequities in sports and the barriers faced
when trying to achieve equity.
 Identify effective strategies to promote gender equity in sports and
sports organizations.
 3
L1. Gender Ideology

 Interrelated ideas and beliefs that are widely used to

 define masculinity and femininity
 identify people as male or female
 evaluate forms of sexual expression
 determine the appropriate roles of males and females in society
 Central ideas and beliefs:
 Human beings are either female or male.
 Heterosexuality is nature’s foundation for human reproduction; other
expressions of sexual feelings, thoughts, and actions are abnormal,
deviant, or immoral.
 Men are physically stronger and more rational than women; therefore,
they are more naturally suited to possess power and assume leadership
positions in the public spheres of society.
 4
Orthodox Gender Ideology

 simple binary (two-sex)

classification system: M or F
 opposite sex
 gender binary
 the foundation for defining
gender
 masculine or feminine in a
group or society
 sport event classification
 reflection of social and
Carter, J. A., Casanova, E., & Maume, D. J. (2015). Gendering
cultural ideas – Social Olympians: Olympic media guide profiles of men and women
Construction athletes. Sociology of Sport Journal, 32(3), 312-331.
 5
Being Out of Gender Bounds

 rigid, unbending ideas and beliefs about the ways that males and
females are supposed to look, think, feel, and act
 leads to the assumption that heterosexuality = natural & normal.
 do not fit = unnatural, abnormal and, “out of bounds” in terms of
gender
 marginalizes lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transsexuals, queer, and
intersex people (LGBTQs)
 fosters homophobia - a generalized fear/intolerance of anyone
who isn’t clearly classifiable as a heterosexual male/female
 fear/intolerance is created when people see others with an
appearance or presentation of self that does not make sense to
them in terms of the gender ideology they use
 6

[Link]

caster semenya
 7
Orthodox Gender Ideology as
a Tool to Maintain the Status Quo
 males & females as different + unequal
 males have greater access to higher levels of privilege, power, and
influence than females have
 men occupy higher positions of power and influence in greater
numbers than women do
 males are more likely than females to “self-police” gender
boundaries and discourage all boys and men from pushing or
crossing the line that separates “heterosexual men” from women
and from anyone who is “out of gender bounds” in their view
 maintaining gender distinctions reaffirms orthodox gender ideology
and legitimizes disproportionate male power in society.
 8
Orthodox Gender Ideology
and Sports
 3 major beliefs that constitute the core
 Male-dominated
 ability and performance qualifications are associated with manhood and men;
 being “qualified” in sports means possessing masculine characteristics, or
performing “like a man.”
 Male-identified
 what men value is assumed to be valued in all sports, making sports a “man’s
world” that revolves around men and manhood;
 the femininity of female athletes may be questioned and women in coaching
or positions of authority are seen by many as “out of place.”
 Male-centered
 men and men’s lives are the expected focus of attention;
 few women and women’s sports represented in sports stories, history, legends,
records, events, halls of fame, and media programming.
 SPED2720 L3 Historical Foundation
Origin of competitive sport from
Greece – Ancient Olympics

 Ancient Olympics – B.C. 776 – A.D 393

 Olympia
 Once every 4 years
 Culture - Religious events including
sports competition, dance etc.
 Honor Zeus
 Mount Olympus
 Only Men in Greeks
 Women, slave & foreigner forbidden
Founder of Modern Olympics

The inclusion of women at the

Olympic Games would be
“impractical, uninteresting,
unaesthetic, and incorrect.” —
Baron Pierre de Coubertin, 1912
(In Fitzgerald, 2016)

Baron Pierre de Coubertin

IOC President 1896 - 1925
 1st & 2nd
modern Olympic Games
1896 Athens, Greece

1900 Paris, France

 12
Mainstream Sports Reaffirm
Orthodox Gender Ideology

 Sports Reaffirm Male–Female Difference

 sex segregation is expected, accepted, and mandatory in nearly all
competitive events
 using sex tests to maintain the Two-Sex System
 Until the late-1960s)

 Late 1967: chromosome test (XX)

 1999 - IOC abandoned sex testing and verification
 13
Mainstream Sports Reaffirm
Orthodox Gender Ideology
 New test for hyperandrogenism
 condition that exists when women have naturally elevated androgens (i.e.,
hormones produced by glands in the human body’s endocrine system;
testosterone and androstenedione are the two primary androgens)
 IOC and the IAAF rule - women with hyperandrogenism were eligible to compete
only if their testosterone level was below “the normal male range” of 10-
nanomoles-per-liter of blood
 only if additional tests proved that her body is “androgen insensitive,” meaning
that it does not process or utilize any amount of testosterone
 if the tests indicated she is androgen sensitive, she could not compete as a
woman until she had drug treatments to suppress her natural production of
testosterone to the point that her testosterone level was well below that of a
normal man
 not equally available to female athletes worldwide
 new “female fairness” policy ??
 14
Controversies with the policy

 Policing femininity is neither easy nor fair - human bodies cannot be

divided into 2 nonoverlapping categories.
 Basing women’s eligibility on appearance invites discrimination,
discourages females from participating in elite sports, and
encourages women to use makeover strategies to look “feminine”
as defined in “Western” cultures.
 The testing and treatment requirements are unfair to women who
lack resources or who live in places where “Western” medicine is
scarce or unavailable.
 The policy can have harmful psychological consequences for
women who are told they are not “woman enough” to compete in
high-performance sports for women.
 15
Controversies with the policy

 The policy assumes that testosterone is the only factor that identifies
sex, and that a high level of testosterone creates unfairness in
women’s events. There are more than 200 biological factors that
influence sport performance, and research has not shown that
testosterone is the only factor that makes a difference
 The policy claims to be about fairness, but it ignores unfair
differences in access to training, quality coaching, equipment,
technology, sport medicine, and nutritional foods—which also
influence performance in women’s events.
 The policy creates a context of suspicion based solely on selective
gender-based appearance norms.
 The policy ignores biological factors as a source of unfairness in
men’s events, even though hormonal and genetic variations
influence the athletic performances of men.
 16

DUTEE CHAND – INDIAN TRACK AND FIELD ATHLETE

HTTPS://[Link]/WATCH?V=U1UYPX4ASNO
 17
Mainstream Sports Reaffirm
Orthodox Gender Ideology

 Sports Celebrate Masculinity

 sports consist of body movements, norms, thinking processes, and
organizational structures that reproduce a form of masculinity revolving
around strength, power, and conquest
 hegemonic masculinity - form of masculinity that is dominant or has the
most clout in society
 sports are a primary site
 Sports Legitimize Male Power and Dominance
 sport as an institution remains gendered in ways that reaffirm
heterosexual male power
 men control much of the power in women’s sports, whereas women
control practically no power in men’s sports.
 18
Progress Toward Gender Equity

 There were no male-only sports (boxing was the last all-male sport).
 Every nation’s athletes included women.
 The US team had more women than men.
 An African American woman won a gold medal in all-around
gymnastics.
 A female Saudi athlete wore a hijab in judo.
19
20
 21
Gender Inequities remain

 Participation Inequities
 high school, college sports, professional sport (esp. salaries)
 funding and other resources:
 FIFA awarded $4 million to the winners of the 2019 Women’s World Cup VS $38
million to the French team that won the Men’s World Cup in 2018
 related to the media rights fees paid to cover the events

 Olympic & Paralympic sports

 22
Gender Inequities remain

 Access to facilities
 Quality of facilities (playing surfaces, weight training, locker rooms, showers, & so on)
 Availability of scholarships
 Program operating expenses
 Provision and maintenance of equipment and supplies
 Recruiting budgets
 Scheduling of games and practice times
 Travel and per diem expenses
 Opportunity to receive academic tutoring
 Numbers of coaches assigned to teams
 Salaries for administrators, coaches, trainers, and other staff
 Provision of medical and training services and facilities
 Publicity and media coverage for women’s teams and events
 23
Barriers to Equity

 Budget cuts and privatization of sports programs

 Few models of women in positions of power
 A cultural emphasis on “cosmetic fitness” for women
 Trivialization of women’s sports
 Resistance in male-dominated/identified/centered sports
organizations
 24
Strategies to achieve equity

 Using the Law and Engaging in Grassroots Activism

 Confront discriminatory practices in your athletic department and
become an advocate for female athletes, coaches, and administrators.
 Insist on fair and open employment practices in the entire organization,
including the athletic department.
 Keep a record of equity data and have an independent group issue a
public “gender equity report card” every 3–4 years for your athletic
department or sport program.
 Learn and educate others about the history of gender discrimination in
sports and how to recognize the subtle forms of discrimination that
operate in sport worlds that are male-dominated, male-identified, and
male-centered.
 25
Strategies to achieve equity

 Object to practices and policies that decrease opportunities for women

in sports, and inform the media of them.
 Package and promote women’s sports as revenue producers, so there
will be financial incentives to increase participation opportunities for
women.
 Recruit female athletes into coaching by establishing internships and
training programs.
 Use women’s hiring networks when seeking coaches and administrators
in sports programs.
 Create a supportive work climate for women and establish policies to
eliminate sexual harassment in the athletic department.
 26
Summary

 Gender equity in sports is integrally tied to ideology, power, and

structural issues.
 Sports are sites at which this gender ideology is reaffirmed and
resisted.
 Gender inequities persist because sports have traditionally been
organized to be male-dominated, male-identified, and male-
centered.
 Orthodox gender ideology also leads to the marginalization of
lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender, queer, and intersex
persons in sports.
 Gender equity processes - sport participation among girls and
women has increased dramatically
 27
Summary

 Critical analysis is important because it guides efforts to achieve

equity and it shows that there are reasons for men to join women in
trying to achieve equity
 gender ideology and sports have been organized around the values
and experiences of heterosexual men.
 Real and lasting gender equity depends on changing the dominant
definitions of masculinity and femininity and the way we do sports.
 Until there are significant changes in gender ideology and the logic
embedded in sports and sport organizations, full gender equity will
not be achieved.
 28

• FORM IN GROUPS OF 3 -4
• WHAT IS/ARE THE ISSUE ?

Gender Issue • ANY CONTROVERSY?

to be • WHY/WHY NOT?
EXPRESS THE CONSENSUS OF
discussed •
GENDER IDEOLOGY IN YOUR
GROUP
 29
Case 1 –
Tong Zeng Huan (CHN)

 Track & Field Athlete

 30
Case 2 –
Caster Semenya (South African)

 Middle Distance Runner

 31
Case 3 –
CeCé Telfer (Jamaican)

 Track & Field athlete

 32
Case 4 –
Emily Bridges (UK)

 Cyclist
 33
Case 5 –
Layshia Clarendon (USA)

 Basketball player
 34
Case 6 –
Schuyler Bailar (USA)

 Swimmer
 1

RACE AND ETHNICITY:

SPED 2710 ARE THEY IMPORTANT?

Sociology of
Physical
Education &
Sports
 2
Learning Objectives

 Understand the concepts of race, ethnicity, and minority group, and

distinguish between them.
 Explain why race is a social construction and how racial categories
are based on social meanings rather than a valid biological
classification system.
 Explain how and why race and racial ideology have been linked
with sports.
 Explain why scientists and others have searched for sports
performance genes in bodies with dark skin and why this is a
misleading and futile exercise.
 Identify the major challenges related to race and ethnic relations in
sports today, and explain how they are different from the challenges
faced throughout most of the twentieth century.
 3
Defining Race & Ethnicity

 Race
 a population of people who are believed to be naturally or biologically
distinct from other populations.
 depends on a classification system through which meanings are given to
particular physical traits.
 Ethnicity
 cultural heritage that people use to identify a particular population
 not based on biology or genetically determined traits
 on cultural traditions and history
 ethnic population - category of people regarded as socially distinct
because they share a way of life, a collective history, and a sense of
themselves as a unique population.
 4
Defining Minority

 socially identified population that suffers disadvantages due to

systematic discrimination and has a strong sense of social
togetherness based on shared experiences of past and current
discrimination
 5
L1 Racial Ideology

 Interrelated ideas and beliefs that are widely used to classify

human beings into categories assumed to be biological and
related to attributes such as intelligence, temperament, and
physical abilities
 Vary greatly from culture to culture, due to historical factors
 Divisive forces that privilege particular categories of people and
disadvantage others head coach of Texas Western College

 e.g. US white vs black (17th century)

 6
L1 Racial Ideology

 Central ideas and beliefs:

 Human beings can be classified into races on the basis of biologically
inherited or genetically based characteristics.
 Intellectual and physiological characteristics vary by race, with white
people being intellectually and morally superior to black people and all
people of color.
 People classified as white have only white ancestors, and anyone with
one or more black ancestors is classified as a black person
 Justify segregation and discrimination based on skin color and deny that
black people were real “Americans” in the full legal sense of the term.
 Dominant ideology evolved:
 Physical weakness > less evolved
 7
Creating race and racial ideologies

 Racial categories are social creations

 17th century - based on meanings given to particular religious
beliefs, language or ethnic traditions, histories, national origins,
and social status
 18th Century - in connection with religious beliefs, scientific
theories, and a combination of political and economic
processes
 Racial classifications vary from culture to culture
 Overtime – identify and rank populations they believed were
naturally or biologically distinct from other population
 from superior to inferior
 civilized to uncivilized
 8
Example:
Untouchables in Indian
 Dalit
 Born into a lifetime of marginalization,
exclusion and human rights violations
 India caste system

[Link]
 9
Racial Categories

 Drawing color lines in society

 Snow white to midnight black
 Continuum
 Skin color as continuous traits
 Others e.g. Height, brain size, leg
length etc.
 Racial categories can be line-
drawn anywhere and
everywhere
 Draw many
 Draw few
 Reject
 10
“Race” in United States

 Traditionally based on “one-drop rules”

 Black ancestor “Negro” (black)
 White race
 Social agreement among white men
 An effort to perpetuate slavery
 Maintain the “purity” of the “white race
 Mixed-race people challenge the validity of
dominant race logic
 Golfer Tiger Woods
 1/4 Thai, 1/4 Chinese, 1/4 African American,
1/8 Native American, 1/8 white European
(Ca-bl-in-asian = Caucasian + Black + Indian Black Vs Cablinasian
+ Asian).
[Link]
 11
Problems with race & racial ideology

 used for justify the oppression and exploitation of one population by

another
 fueled & supported racism - attitudes, actions, and policies based
on the belief that people in one racial category are inherently
superior to people in one or more other categories
 in extreme cases - supported beliefs that people in certain
populations are
 (1) childlike beings in need of external control; (2) subhuman beings that
can be exploited without guilt; (3) forms of property that can be bought
and sold; or (4) evil beings that should be eliminated through genocide,
that is, the systematic killing of an identifiable population.
 foster the use of racial stereotypes, or generalizations used to define
and judge all individuals who are classified in a particular racial
category.
 12

Stories of everday racism in Hong Kong

[Link]
[Link]
 13
Race and racial ideology in Sports

 Influence how athletes are assessed in society and in science

 “See” sport performances in “racialized” terms, i.e. in terms of skin
color
 Black > biological & genetic factors, natural physical abilities
 White > cultural & social factors, organization
 Explain the success or failure of people with dark skin in racial terms
 Use whiteness as the taken-for-granted standard
 Do research designed to “discover” racial difference
 14
“Jumping Genes” in Black Bodies

 Oversimplified and misleading ideas about genes

 Genes do not work independently of the environment - activated and
suppressed by many environmental factors
 Influence of genes is regulated by chemicals that exist in cells as well as
chemicals, such as hormones, that come from other parts of the body
 Other factors - why people choose to do certain sports, why they’re
motivated to practice and excel, how they’re recognized and identified
by coaches and sponsors, and how they’re able to perform under
particular conditions
 X explain why one person jumps higher than another, explain why
people from one population jump, on average, higher than people from
other populations.
 No evidence shows that particular genes related to jumping or other
complex sport performances vary systematically with skin color or any
socially constructed ideas about race and racial classification
 15
“Jumping Genes” in Black Bodies

 Jumping is more than a physical activity related to a single gene or

interrelated set of genes
 total body movement involving neck, shoulders, arms, wrists, hands,
torso, waist, hips, thighs, knees, calves, ankles, feet, and toes
 a timed coordination of the upper and lower body, a particular type of
flexibility, a “kinesthetic feel,” and a total body rhythm
 a timed coordination of the upper and lower body, a particular type of
flexibility, a “kinesthetic feel,” an
 individual expression as much as an exertion, and it is tied to a sense of
the body in harmony with space as much as overcoming gravity
through physical forced a total body rhythm
 Athletes in different sports jump in different ways
 Racial Ideology and a Sense of 16
Athletic Destiny Among African
American Men

 Influence interpret their physical abilities & potential as athletes

 A sociological explanation of the achievements of African
American male athletes
 3 social and cultural conditions
 Racial ideology – “Black male physicality” and innate, raced-based
physical abilities among black people
 Long history of racial segregation and discrimination – limitation of
opportunities for black men to achieve success and respect in
mainstream economic and occupational sphere
 The existence of widespread encouragement and opportunities to
develop physical skills and excel in a few sports in which there are
economic payoffs
 Racial Ideology and a Sense of 17
Athletic Destiny Among African
American Men

 2 Intermediate outcomes
 Many young African Americans, especially males, come to believe that
success in certain sports is part of their biological and cultural destiny
 Yong black men are motivated to use every available opportunity to
develop the skills they need to succeed in their sport and achieve their
destiny
 Eventual outcome > Outstanding sports achievement
 18
Racial Ideology and Sport Choices
Among Whites and Black

 choices and achievements in sports are influenced by racial

ideology and the stereotypes it supports
 young African Americans would think twice before taking up a sport that
is identified by their peers as “white, for fear of being labeled a
“wannabe white.”
 white girls and boys in certain areas might choose to play soccer or
lacrosse because the school football and basketball teams have mostly
black players.
 19

Jesse Owen Stories

HTTPS://[Link]/WATCH?V=TCCDH665PGO
 20
The Dynamics of racial and
ethnic relations in sports

 The challenges they present today are different from the ones
faced in the past
 when current challenges are met, new social situations are created
in which new challenges emerge
 never-ending process of nurturing relationships, producing an
inclusive society, and sharing power with others
 Racial and ethnic diversity brings potential vitality and creativity to
a team, organization, or society, but this potential does not
automatically become reality. It requires constant awareness,
commitment, and work to achieve and maintain it.
 21
Eliminating Racial and Ethnic
Exclusion in Sports

 When those who control teams personally benefit if they recruit and
play the best players regardless of skin color or ethnicity
 When athlete performance can be measured in concrete,
objective terms so that racism and prejudice are less likely to
influence judgments about skills
 When an entire team benefits from a good performance by a
teammate, regardless of the teammate’s skin color or ethnicity
 When friendships and off-the-field social relationships between
teammates are not required for team success
 22
Dealing With and Managing Racial
and Ethnic Diversity in Sports

 New challenges upon Inclusion

 Management challenges
related to the social dynamics
 The organization, teams, players
etc..
 The league, the players, other
baseball teams, spectators
 Stadium, seat arrangement -
class, food,

Branch Rickey signed black player

Jackie Robinson
[Link]
 23
Dealing With and Managing Racial
and Ethnic Diversity in Sports

 Racial segregation in the locker rooms

 Black players could not buy homes in
the segregated whites area where
they played
 received death threats
 Marginalization
 the positions of racial ideology
 Black - outfield in baseball and wide
receiver and defensive and running
back in football
 White - pitcher and catcher in baseball
and quarterback and offensive guard in
football
 24
Integrating Positions of Power
in Sport Organizations

 pattern: positions of power and control are held primarily by white,

non-Latinx men
 racial and Gender Report Cards
 the movement of women and ethnic minority persons into power
positions in sports has stalled recently
 do not give up racial and ethnic beliefs easily
 well-established ideologies rooted deeply in their cultures
 benefit from dominant racial ideology generally resist changes in
the relationships and social structures
 full inclusion in terms of sharing power is far from being achieved
 25
Using Critical Theory to Ask Questions
About Racial Classification Systems

 Which classification systems are used?

 Who uses them?
 Why are some people so dedicated to using certain
classification systems?
 What are the consequences of usage?
 Can negative consequences be minimized?
 Can the systems be challenged?
 What occurs when systems change?
 26
Summary

 Racial and ethnic issues exist in sports

 The idea of race has a complex history as a foundation for racial
ideology
 Racial ideology influences the ways that many people connect
skin color with athletic performance
 The fact that some sports have histories of racially and ethnically
mixed participation does not mean that problems have been
eliminated
 Sports continue to be sites for racial and ethnic tensions and
problems
 Sports can also be sites for challenging racial ideology and
transforming ethnic relations
 27

How about the

situation in HKG ?
BILAL AFSAR – ESHE GRADUATE
HTTPS://[Link]/WATCH?V=WL0LVOFHHEQ
HTTPS://[Link]/WATCH?V=TOTSD55GUEY
 28

• FIND AN ATHLETE EXAMPLE IN

HONG KONG WITH OTHER RACE &
ETHNICITIES.
Race & • DO HIS/HER EXPERIENCE SIMILAR TO
Ethnicity BILAL?
WHY/WHY NOT? EXPLAIN
to be
•

• DO RACE AND ETHNICITIES

discussed IMPORTANT IN THE CONTEXT OF
HONG KONG?
29
30
 1

SPED 2710
SOCIAL CLASS
DO MONEY & POWER MATTER
Sociology of IN SPORT?
Physical
Education &
Sports
 2

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
 3
Learning Objectives

 Define social class, class ideology, and class relations, and explain how
they are related to sports today.
 Identify who has power in sports today, and the interests that are served
by that power.
 Critically assess the argument that professional sports arenas and stadia
benefit everyone and create jobs in a city.
 Explain how class, gender, race, and ethnic relations intersect and
influence sport participation patterns in society.
 Explain why sports in the future are likely to be less diverse in terms of
ethnicity and social class.
 Describe the ways in which social class impacts sport spectators today.
 Identify the conditions under which sport participation is most likely and
least likely to lead to upward mobility and occupational success.
 4
Social Class & Class Relations

 Social Class - refers to categories of people who share a

similar economic position in society based on a combination
of their
 Income
 Wealth (Saving & Assets)
 Education
 Occupation
 Social Connections (Social Capital)
 Class relations - ways that social class is incorporated into
the organization of our everyday lives
 5

MEDIA COVERAGE OF INSPIRING “RAGS TO RICHES” STORIES

 6
Social Stratification

 Refers to structured forms of economic inequalities that are part of

the organisation of everyday life
 e.g. upper, middle and lower class
 These inequalities influence life chances.
 Life chances (i.e., opportunities to achieve economic success and
gain economic power) vary from one social class to another in the
social stratification system.
 7
Sports and Economic Inequality

 Money and economic power exert significant influence on the

goals, purpose, and organization of sports in society
 Formally organized sports developed, scheduled, or maintained
with economic resources
 Those who control money and economic power use them to
organize and sponsor sports.
 Give preference to sport forms that reflect and maintain their
values and interests
 As a result, sports emerge out of a context in which inequality
shapes decisions and the allocation of resources.
 In the process, sports reproduce the very inequalities that so many
people think are absent in them.
 8
Class Relations and Power in Sports

 most powerful/influential people in sports

 top 8 most influential people in sports business*
Rank Name Position

1 American Sport Gambler will influence media ratings for mainstream sports

2 Adam Silver Commissioner, National Basketball Association

3 Roger Goodell Commissioner, National Football League

4 Eric Shanks CEO & Executive Producer, Fox Sports

5 Rob Manford Commissioner, Major League Baseball

6 David Levy President, Turner Broadcasting

7 Casey Wasserman Chairman & CEO, Wasserman, Chairman, LA 2028

8 Mark Parker Chairman, President & CEO, Nike

 Source: Sports Business Journal (King, 2018)

 Antonio Gramsci - Ruling Class – hegemony
[Link]
 9
Social Class and
Sports Participation Patterns

 Social class and class relations influence who plays, watches, and
consumes information about sports.
 Generally, the higher the social class, the greater the involvement
and influence.
 Sports participation occurs in the context of class-related lifestyles.
 reflects patterns of sponsorship
 access to participation opportunities
 Social class is related strongly to participation among all categories
of people
 Example in Hong Kong
 Hong Kong Golf Club
 Membership
 Public use
 Homemaking, Child Rearing, and 10
Earning a Living: Class and Gender
Relations in Women’s Lives
 Gender role in marriage
 family cook, shopper, chauffeur, housekeeper, and homework
supervisor.
 Parents (esp. women) in middle- and lower-income families
 constrained by homemaking and child rearing responsibilities
 unable to pay for child care, domestic help, and sports participation
fees
 lack time, transportation to and from sport facilities, access to gyms and
playing fields in their neighborhoods, and the sense of physical safety
 Higher-income families seldom have household responsibilities
 parents drive them to practices, lessons, and games;
 make sure they are well-fed;
 have the equipments they need
Being Respected and Becoming a 11
Man: Class and Gender Relations in
Men’s Lives

 Sport as a site to establish a masculine identity

 15- and 16-year-old French Canadian boys in the Montreal area
 Upper Class
 connected their sports participation with masculinity because playing sports, they
said, taught them leadership skills, and being a leader was central to their
definition of masculinity

 Middle Class
 playing sports provided them with opportunities to be with peers and gain
acceptance in male groups, which fit their ideas of what they needed to do to
establish identities as young men

 Working Class
 playing sports enabled them to display toughness and develop the rugged
personas that matched their ideas of manhood. In this sense, social class
influenced the ways that sports and sport experiences were integrated into the
lives of these young men.
 Class Relations in Action: Changing12
Patterns in Sport Participation
Opportunities in US
 Publicly funded youth sports programs have been reduced or eliminated
 Varsity teams in low-income school districts are being eliminated
 Fewer young people from low-income neighborhoods have
opportunities to play sports
 Middle- and upper-income areas threatened by financial problem
 Maintained by “participation fees” paid by athletes’ parents
 Vote to raise more public funds or use private funds to build new fields
and facilities, hire coaches, and run high-profile tournaments that often
attract college coaches who recruit athletes by giving them scholarships
 Economic equalities
 Corporation sponsor only the sports that promote their brand and
products
 13
Class Relations in Action: The
Cost of Attending Sport Events
 Possible to attend some sports events
for free
 High school and many college
games and meets in US - affordable
for most people
 Tickets for minor league sports are
reasonably priced
 Ticket price increased more than
rate of inflation
 Fan Cost Index - strives to calculate
the cost of taking a family to the
game, including the cost of tickets,
parking, and refreshments
 National Football League teams in
2022 (in U.S. dollar)
14
 15
Global Inequalities in Sports

 number of people living in extreme poverty has declined over the

past two decades
 the gap between the richest and poorest people worldwide is
growing wi
 close to 3.5 billion people, about 46 percent of the world
population, lives on less than $5.50 per day as they struggle to
maintain stability in their lives
 40 percent of all people in the world have few resources to use on
anything beyond basic survival
 seldom have the resources needed to organize and play sports
 16
Inequality in Olympic Games

 Impact of global inequality in sports

 Prior to the 2020 Olympic Games in Toky
 78 of the approximately 204 nations that have participated in the
Olympics have never won a medal
 62 countries have won 5 or fewer medals in Olympic history
 The United States, on the other hand, with its combination of wealth and
population size, have won 2,827 medals—over 1069 more than any other
nation.
 Other exceptions are individual athletes who have wealthy
corporate sponsors
 Training technologies expenses - The resulting analyses of these
data and input from other specialists
 17
Inequality in Para Olympic
Games

 Traveling to the Paralympics is especially costly for Paralympians

because they often must bring with them prostheses, wheelchairs,
and a person to help them navigate unanticipated barriers.
 Host cities and nations require to make special efforts to make sure
that their athletes confront as few barriers as possible.
 Athletes from nations with relatively low GDP are extremely unlikely
to have access to the training and support required to qualify for
and travel to the Paralympics
 In countries where poverty rates are high, people with physical or
intellectual impairments have little or no opportunity to participate
and train in sports.
 18
Economic and Career
Opportunities in sports
 Sports as a sphere in which people from low-income and poor backgrounds
can experience upward social mobility
 Social mobility - a term used by sociologists to refer to changes in
wealth, education, and occupation over a person’s lifetime or from
one generation to the next in families; downward or upward
directions
 On a general level, career and mobility opportunities exist in sports and sport
organizations
 The number of paid career opportunities in sports is limited, and the
playing careers of most professional athletes are short term.
 Professional opportunities for women are growing but remain limited on
and off the field relative to men.
 Professional opportunities for ethnic minorities are growing but remain
limited on and off the field relative to whites with European heritage.
Sport Participation & Occupational 19
Careers among former athletes

 athletes may have a slight advantage over comparable peers

 increases opportunities for a young person to complete academic
degrees, develop job-related skills, and/or extend one’s knowledge
about the world outside of sports.
 increases support from significant others for overall growth and
development, not just sport development.
 provides opportunities to develop social networks that are connected
with career possibilities outside of sports and sports organizations.
 expands experiences, identities, and abilities unrelated to sports.
 limitation during athlete career - coach
 often want to separate athletes from experiences and relationships
unrelated to their sport.
 define dedication in terms of focusing exclusively on improving sport
performance and winning competitions.
 20
Summary

 Social class and class relations are integrally involved in sports

 Organized sports depend on resources, and those who
provide them do so in ways that support their interests by
establishing economic arrangements that work to their
advantage
 Class relations also are tied to patterns of sport team
ownership, event sponsorship, and media coverage of sports
 Sport participation patterns worldwide are connected with
social class and the distribution of material resources.
 Sports participation patterns also are connected with the
intersection of class, gender, race, and ethnicity in people’s
lives.
 21
Summary

 patterns of watching sports also are connected with social

class and class relations.
 opportunities for careers that hold the hope of upward social
mobility exist for some people in sports
 sports are clearly tied to patterns of class, class relations, and
social inequality in society. Money and economic power do
matter, and they matter in ways that often reproduce existing
patterns of social class and life chances.
 22

• CHOOSE A SPORT TO
INVESTIGATE
REVEAL ANY SOCIAL CLASS,
Social Class to •
MONEY AND POWER ISSUES
be discussed IN THAT SPORT
• EXPLAIN THE PHENOMENON
 23
Hong Kong Sport
[Link]

 Government
 Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau
 Sport Commission
 Community Sports Committee (CSC)
 Elite Sports Committee (ESC)
 Major Sports Events Committee (MSEC)
 Leisure and Cultural Services Department
 Sports Federation & Olympic Committee
 Paralympic Committee
 Hong Kong Sports Institutes (Elite Tier A, B)
 National Sports Associations
 Others – Kai Tak Sports Park (KTSP)
24
 1

SPED 2710
AGE AND ABILITY
BARRIERS TO PARTICIPATION &
Sociology of INCLUSION?
Physical
Education &
Sports

[Link]
 2
Learning Objectives

 Know the meaning and consequences of ableist ideology, ageism, and

ableism.
 Explain the relationship between age and sports participation patterns
and why older people are playing sports more frequently today.
 Distinguish between impairments and disabilities, and give examples of
each.
 Understand the differences between the medical and social models of
disability.
 Identify four barriers that impact the sports participation of people with
disabilities.
 Understand the dynamics of exclusion and inclusion processes involving
sports and people with disabilities.
 3
WHAT COUNTS AS ABILITY?

 Definitions of ability are influenced by ideology

 Ableist ideology = interrelated ideas and beliefs
 widely used to identify people as physically or intellectually disabled,
 to justify treating them as inferior, and
 to organize social worlds and physical spaces without taking them into
account
 rejects physical & intellectual variation as natural and normal among
humans
 ignores that meanings given to particular abilities change over time and
from one situation to another
4
 5
Ageism

 first used in 1969 by Robert Butler

 an evaluative perspective that favors one age group—usually
younger people—over others and justifies discrimination against
particular age groups that are assumed to be incapable of full
participation in valued social and cultural activities
 distorted relationships with older people and denied their abilities,
both physical and intellectual
 belief that younger people are more capable than and superior to
those who have passed through middle age and become old
 reported cases of age discrimination in US workplaces outnumber
race or sex discrimination cases by three to one
 How about the situation in Hong Kong ?
 6
Ableism

 an evaluative perspective in which the label of disability marks a

person as inferior and incapable of full participation in mainstream
activities
 visible or inferred impairment
 physical, sensory or intellectual condition that potentially limits a person’s
full participation in certain social or physical environments
 leads to forms of social organization in which people with disabilities
are marginalized and segregated from settings and activities
created by those who don’t currently have a visible impairment
that could mark them as disabled - with an impairment that is
determined by an influential person or official agency to cause
significant functional limitations
 leads people to forget that variations in ability are a normal part of
human existence
 7
CONSTRUCTING
THE MEANING OF AGE

 Ideas and beliefs about age vary over time and from one culture
to another
 In societies characterized by high rates of change, youth is
generally valued over age
 Being “old” = inflexible, out of touch, resistant to change, and
possessing outdated knowledge (stereotypes)
 beliefs that aging involves physical and intellectual decline
8
 9
Aging as a Social and Political Issue

 People over 60-years-old are the fastest growing segment of the

population in many societies
 the average life expectancy worldwide (F=74;M=70)
 Self-fulfilling prophecy with ageism
 Ageist assumptions that older people make no contributions to society
and ultimately are a burden that younger people must bear
 Political situation in which there is little concern about national and
community-based programs for older people
 only “lazy and irresponsible” older people need
 In connection with aging, this is one way that sports and sports
science can influence political decisions that impact people’s lives
 10
Age, Sports, and Ability

 aging is an intrinsically physical process of irreversible decline, but

the social significance given to this process is important
 Studies
 dominated by studies of youth as the future producers and consumers in
society (older people are overlooked)
 developmental implications of youth sports participation
 age-appropriate physical activity involvement from early childhood
through adolescence
 shortsighted and ignores the reality of aging populations in many
societies.
 popular sports worldwide celebrate youth and youthfulness
11
 12
Older People Only:
Age-Segregated Sports

 individual sports now sponsor masters and veterans competitions

 Swimming, Track and field (athletics), Cycling, dance, skiing, table
tennis, tennis, and triathlon
13
 14

[Link]
[Link]
 15
Older People Only:
Age-Segregated Sports
 Veterans and masters sports programs will increase as a growing population
of older people demand
 a way to create careers and make money
 sports events for older people as a way to increase tourism and bring
into the city people who are likely to have money to spend on hotels,
restaurants, and local tourist attractions
 Active older people are also attracted to events in which they can
compete without feeling the pressure to constantly improve their
performance
 emphasize maintaining their physical abilities so they can remain
active as they become older
 prefer lifestyle sports and modified versions of competitive activities
that are organized to emphasize the pleasure of movement, social
experiences, and controlled challenges
 16
CONSTRUCTING THE MEANING
OF ABILITY

 “Ability” is a loaded concept - Different people see various abilities

as essential as they view the world from their vantage point
 complex phenomenon - meaning shifts depending on the situation
and a person’s vantage point and experiences.
 understand the meaning of disability
 use terminology that does not unwittingly disadvantage those who
already face the challenge of living with and around their physical or
intellectual impairments.
 disability
 a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of
a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives
 universal aspect of experience
 17
CONSTRUCTING THE MEANING
OF ABILITY

 challenges exist in the form of barriers that are common features of

our everyday social and physical environments
 physical environments designed solely for people without movement
impairments
 social norms and organizational structures that ignore, marginalize, or
exclude people with certain impairments
 personal attitudes and vocabulary that link disability with inferiority
 avoid arbitrary barriers that turn our impairments into disabilities
 amputated below the knee, COULD NOT have been a member of your
national powerlifting team
 18
The Emerging Meaning of Disability

 the terms disability and disabled were first used by people who
wanted to replace widely used negative term
 The medical model and social model: two approaches to disability
 based on different conceptions of disability and how to deal with
impairments that affect people’s lives
 led people in and working with the disability community along with
scholars doing research on disability issues to debate the merits of
each model
 These debates have clarified the details of each model so that
people can make informed choices about when and how to use
each of them
 19
The medical model

Medical Model
Personal impairment is the problem

Physical impairment, lack of sensory function, or intellectual deficit is the problem

Disability is caused by physical and intellectual defects that prevent full participation in
social and physical environments.
Disability is cured by fixing impairments through medical treatment, therapy, or
rehabilitation.
A cure depends on access to professionals who use surgery, therapy, and rehabilitation to
“normalize” the impaired person
The effectiveness of a cure depends on the expertise of professionals and the quality of
assistive devises and technologies
When having an impairment fixed, the person submits to surgery, therapy, or rehabilitation

Ultimately, people with a disability are responsible for seeking out treatments, therapies,
and technologies that will fix their defects and improve their abilities
 20
The medical model

 the goal is to diagnose the origin of a physical or intellectual

impairment and then use medical or other treatments to fix it
 If successful, the body or mind is “normalized” and the person
becomes able to join or rejoin mainstream society
 If not successful, the next alternative was a rehabilitation program
to help the person overcome his or her flawed condition to an
extent that would permit at least partial participation in society.
 These medical, therapeutic, and rehabilitative treatments were
identified and performed by professionals in their fields, and people
with disabilities were passive recipients throughout the process.
 21
The Social Model

Social Model
Lack of accommodations is the problem are the problem

Disability is caused by prejudice, stereotypes, physical barriers, and lack of knowledge

about physical and intellectual impairments and how they can be accommodated
Disability is eliminated through accommodations that increase choices and control for
people with impairments
A solution depends on taking political action to eliminate barriers and create
accommodations
An effective solution depends on recruiting and organizing allies and executing strategies
to influence decision-makers
In taking political action, the person invests time, energy, other personal resources

Ultimately, the community is responsible for facilitating and mandating the elimination of
social and physical barriers that disable people with impairments
 The medical model and social 22
model: two approaches to
disability
 medical model
 Popular
 many people continue to accept ableist ideology and see disability as
an individual condition in need of expert diagnosis and treatment
 a massive industry has been built around this approach, and it prospers
when the primary goal is to fix or rehabilitate bodies and minds
 social model
 cultural and environmental transformation
 identified barriers as the problem and removing them as the goal
 liberating and empowering for people with impairments
 In United States - the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
 In Hong Kong
 23
The Meaning of Ability Differences

 People with certain impairments are segregated in many societies, they

often are defined as “others” and seen as strange or fearsome by
people in mainstream social worlds.
 This fosters even more marginalization and segregation as people use a
vocabulary of exclusion when talking about them: “handicapped,”
“deformed,” “retard,” “quad,” “paraplegic,” “spaz,” etc.
 Most languages do not have an adequate vocabulary of inclusion and
ability that defuses a fear of “otherness.”
 This creates the illusion that human variation is insignificant.
 manage their contact with “others” by enlisting the services of experts
as explained in connection with the medical model of disability
 history of disability is also the history of giving meaning to difference,
creating “others,” and using current and limited knowledge to treat
“otherness”
 24
Media Constructions of DisAbility

 when disability sports have been covered in mainstream media,

athletes often are portrayed as “courageous victims” or “heroic
supercrips” who engage in inspiring athletic performances
 media images and narratives
 Patronizing: “Aren’t they marvelous!”
 Curiosity: “Do you think she can really do that?”
 Tragedy: “On that fateful day, his life was changed forever.”
 Inspiration: “She’s a true hero and a model for all of us.”
 Mystification: “I can’t believe he just did that!”
 Pity: “Give her a hand for trying so hard.”
 Surprise: “Stay tuned to see physical feats you’ve never imagined!”
 25
Media Constructions of DisAbility

 construct disability in terms of the medical model

 focus on personal impairments that must be overcome
 leads people to ignore why particular social meanings are given to
disabilities and how they shape the lives of people with specific
impairments
 media coverage often perpetuates the ableist belief that
disabilities are abnormalities.
 misguided media representations
 efficient legs – supernormalizing; the wheelchair - remained an indicator
of disability through ableist eyes.
 accept coverage containing misrepresentations over no coverage
 want to be acknowledged for their physical competence.
 26
Barriers to sport participation

 Lack of encouragement and guidance

 Lack of fully accessible gyms and other facilities
 Too many one-time opportunities and events and too few regularly
scheduled programs
 A shortage of expertise in creating participation opportunities that
people with disabilities perceive as welcoming
 Over protective family members and lack of family resources to
support regular participation
 Few advocates with power and influence to mandate the
elimination of barriers
 Scarcity of institutionalized sources of year round
information/resources to support participation
 27
Exclusion and Inclusion

 From a sociological perspective, processes of exclusion and

inclusion always involve power relations
 Processes occur are organized around norms and traditions that
influence or determine who is welcome and who is not
 Norms and power relations also influence interaction between
those who are included, and the conditions under which they can
participate
 occur formally or informally
 “extra”—something out of the ordinary vs “normal”
 28
Response to Exclusion

 When people lack power, they usually respond to systemic and

pervasive exclusion with resignation or by seeking contexts in which
they feel welcome
 Sometimes they find support by aligning themselves with others
who have been excluded, or they might accept isolation and the
self-doubts that accompany it
 Over time, those who are excluded become invisible.
 29
The Emerging Meaning of Inclusion

 Social inclusion is a complex process involving the following actions

 Investments and strategies that create the conditions for inclusion by
closing physical and social distances and resource gaps that lead
people to think in terms of us and them
 Creating contexts in which previously excluded people can see that
they are valued, respected, and contributing members of a group or
community
 A proactive, developmental approach to social well-being in which
people are supported in connection with their needs
 Recognition of the reality of diversity as well as the commonality of
people’s lived experiences and shared aspirations
 30
Summary

 Sports and sports participation are closely tied to culturally based

ideas and beliefs about ability and the body.
 serve as a baseline for our own definition of “normal.”
 experience this impact to different degrees as our abilities and
bodies change over time due to aging and impairments caused by
injuries, illness, or chronic disease
 affect rates of sports participation and a society’s provision of
opportunities to participate in sports.
 Ableist ideology, ageism, and ableism negatively impact sports
and physical activity participation among people whose abilities
and bodies do not measure up to prevailing or dominant social
conceptions of normal.
 31
Summary

 Ageism
 accounts for various manifestations of age discrimination
 leads to age-segregated patterns of participation and provision of
participation opportunities

 Ableism
 accounts for the creation of a disability category in society and in sports.
 People are assigned to this category due to visible or functional impairments

 Ideas and beliefs about aging vary over time and from one social world
to another, but in societies characterized by rapid social and
technological change, being younger is valued over being older.
 turned age into a social and political issue in many societies, especially
those in which the average age of the population is increasing and
older people are becoming increasingly powerful in political terms.
 32

• FORM IN GROUP OF 3-4

• CHOOSE A SPORT/DISABILITY
Disability in • EXPLORE AND DESCRIBE THE
Hong Kong SITUATION IN THE CONTEXT OF
HONG KONG, EITHER FROM
Physical THE PERSPECTIVE OF
Education/ PE/SPORTS
WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS FOR
Sports •
SPORT PARTICIPATION?
• EXPLAIN WITH EXAMPLES
• SUGGESTION FOR INCLUSION
 33
Disability Sports in Hong Kong

Source: Hong Kong Paralympic Committee para foundation course

 34
Disability Sports in Hong Kong

Source: Hong Kong Paralympic Committee para foundation course

 35
10 Eligible Impairment Types

Source: Hong Kong Paralympic Committee para foundation course

 1

SPORTS AND MEDIA

COULD THEY SURVIVE WITHOUT
EACH OTHER?
SPED 2710

Sociology of
Physical
Education &
Sports
 2
Learning Objectives

 Identify the major forms of media, what they provide to people, and the
influence of commercial forces on media content.
 Discuss whether and how new media, including the Internet, change sport
spectator experiences.
 Know the characteristics of fantasy sports, sports video games, and esports
and explain how they change the sport-media landscape
 Identify factors that influence the images and narratives presented in the
media.
 Discuss how sports and the media depend on each other for commercial
success.
 Identify economic and ideological factors that influence relationships
between sports and the media.
 Identify ideological themes around which the media coverage of sports is
constructed.
 3
1958

Newsstand
Newspaper
 4

Newspaper
Newsstand
 5

Magazine
 6

Magazine
 7

Radio
 8

Television film Episode

 Social Media

9
 10

Multifaceted media content

 Characteristics Of The Media

 Transition from an era of sponsored and programmed mass

media into an era of multifaceted, on-demand, interactive,
and personalized media content and experiences
 Print media - newspapers, magazines, fanzines, books,
catalogues, event programs, and even trading cards—
words & images on paper.
 Electronic media - radio, television &film
 Digital media & the devices used to consume, create, and
distribute content have nearly eliminated the dividing line
between these media forms
 Characteristics Of The Media

 Provide information, interpretation, entertainment, and

opportunities for interactivity and content production
 In touch with information, experiences, people, images, &
ideas outside the realm of our everyday, real-time lives
13
 Media content

 edited & “re-presented” to us

 by others—producers, editors, program directors, programmers,
photographers and videographers, writers, journalists,
commentators, sponsors, bloggers, and website controllers
 15

[Link]
 16

[Link]
 Media Content

 5 Goals
 make financial profits
 influence cultural values
and social organization
 provide a public service
 enhance personal status
and reputation
 express themselves Media representations of sports are
creatively or politically carefully edited to highlight dramatic
action, even when it’s minor part of
an event
 Power and Control
in Sports Media

 Privately owned mass media (newspapers, magazines, radio, &

television)
 The dominant (most influential) goals
 make profits
 distribute content that promotes the perspectives and interests
of people in positions of power and influence
 Primarily controlled by the state
 The primary goals
 influence cultural values & social organization
 provide a public service
 Power and Control
in Sports Media

 Power relations in a society influence the priority given to the 5

goals that drive media content
 Content decision maker - filters
 select and create the images and messages to present
 usually emphasize images & narratives consistent with ideologies
that support their interests in addition to attracting large
audiences
 Increasing deregulation & private ownership
 Focuses more on individual consumption
 Focuses less on civic values & community
 Exceptional cases encounter difficulties when challenge dominant
ideologies
20
 Power and Control
in Sports Media

 The public receives edited, or mediated, information,

interpretation, entertainment, and interactive experiences that are
constructed primarily to boost profits and maintain a business and
political climate in which commercial media can thrive
 Average people influence mass media only through consumption
and program ratings
 Sport Media Decision making
 sports & events to be covered
 the image & commentary presented in the coverage
 An important role in constructing overall frameworks that
audiences use to define and corporate sports in their lives
22
 Media Presentations of Sports

 sports programming content including

 The pre-game analysis
 The camera coverage & angles, the close-ups, the slow-motion shots
 The attention given to particular athletes,
 The announcers’ play-by-play descriptions,
 The postgame summary and analysis
 All associated website content
 presented to entertain media audiences and keep sponsors happy
 sport leagues and their governing bodies hire their own writers and
commentators to produce media content, or they deny press
credentials to journalists who present content that sports officials
don’t like
 Media Presentations of Sports

 increased soap opera storytelling - a means of developing and

maintaining audience interest in commercial media sports coverage
 a never-ending series of episodes—the results of one game create
implications for the next one (or next week’s) to be broadcast
 sports rivalries are hyped and used to serialize stories through and
across seasons;
 conflict and chaos are highlighted with a predictable cast of “good
guys,” “bad guys,” and “redemption” or “comeback” stories;
 Worth to take note - what we see, hear, and read is a series of
narratives and images selected for particular reasons and grounded
in the social worlds and interests of those producing the event and
controlling the broadcast
 Media Presentations of Sports

 New York Times writer Robert Lipsyte (1996)

 televised sport “−sportainment”—
 the equivalent of a TV movie that purports to be based on a true story
but actually provides fictionalized history
 constructs sports & viewer experiences
 Smooth process - experience sports in a “true & natural” form
 = The goal of the directors, editors, & on-camera announcers who
select images and narratives, frame them with the stories they wish
to tell, make sure they please sponsors in the process
 Lawrence Wenner (2013): “The economic influences of media have
changed sport, changed our associations with it, and have
affected the stories that are told through sport, both in everyday
communication and in the service of commerce.”
 New Digital Media & Sports

 New digital & social media alter relationships in the production &
consumption content related to sports worldwide
 Individually created information, interpretation & entertainment.
 enables people to bypass the gatekeepers of content in the “old”
media— that is, journalists, editors, and commentators— as they
construct their own interpretations of events, athletes, and the
overall organization of sports

Sky Brown
Olympic bronze medal winner
Youtube view > 54 million view
Instagram > one million followers
 New Digital Media & Sports

 in case of mobile devices & growing connectivity

 change the way many of us access & respond to sport media content
 People have the ability to produce & distribute sport content &
commentary
 Interact with fellow fans
 Ask questions of players & coaches
 Follow them on social media
 Identify scores and statistics
 Stream events on demand
 Play online games that either simulate sports/ are associated with real-time
sport events around the world
 Transforms media experiences & mediated realities in dramatic ways
 New Digital Media Consumption

 Use new digital media to replace traditional content

 Shift in consumption patterns
 Broadcast live sports worldwide
 revenues in the past have depended on controlling this content and
maintaining large audiences to sell to advertisers
 Sport organizations such as MLB, the NFL, the English Premier Football
(Soccer) Division
 become more active in managing media representations of their sports
 offer Subscription – Annual (MLB $116/year), monthly
 access real-time coverage of all regular season games on multiple devices
 Allow people to control when & how consume sports content
 Offer alternatives to traditional media sources
29
 Fantasy Sports, Sports Video Games,
and E-Sports: Media Transformed

 Exerting significant influence

 changing audience demographics
in the media-sport realm
 altering how audiences define and
consume mediated sports
 disrupting the meaning and
organization of sports
 Fantasy Sports: Changing How
We Watch and Cheer

 A game created in 1979 by a baseball fan

 Pretends the owners of imaginary Major League Baseball teams
that competed against each other
 Consuming traditional media with the active challenge of using
their baseball knowledge to select their own “fantasy” teams from
the active players in Major League Baseball
 Use the performance statistics for their fantasy players to determine
a score that could be compared to the scores of their friends’
teams during and at the end of the season
 Conversion from relatively passive fans into
team managers & active competitors
in a league of their own
 Fantasy Sports: Changing How
We Watch and Cheer
 Added a new dimension to their roles as fans
 Read baseball coverage in newspapers & magazines more
carefully to learn about individual players on all teams, not just their
team
 Tracked performance data on players & watched as many
baseball games as they could to learn about the players they
might select for their fantasy teams in the future and which players
they may trade to other teams
 Collecting performance data for the players on all the fantasy
teams and calculating team scores to determine who was the
fantasy winner at the end of the season
 Fantasy football, baseball, basketball, hockey, auto racing, golf,
tennis, global soccer, cricket, and even professional wrestling
 Fantasy Sports: Changing How
We Watch and Cheer

 2 startup companies: FanDuel & DraftKings in 2010

 created short term competitions in addition to the season-long
ones
 pushed legal and moral boundaries as they introduced cash prizes
for the short term winners
 attracted more participants & billions of dollars (Raise the attention
- a form of illegal gambling)
 Company research: success in fantasy sports depended on a
participants’ skills rather than random chance (as with poker and
dice games)
 didn’t fit the technical definition of gambling
 Fantasy Sports: Changing How
We Watch and Cheer

 Make money by charging entry fees, running advertising on their

sites, and, in some cases, collecting a share of the money that
people now legally bet on sports in an increasing number of states
 Popularity
 North America
 60 million players in 2019 used the ESPN sports app
 Revenues $8 billion

 UK 6 million in fantasy soccer

 Fantasy soccer leagues in 252 countries and territories
 “Gamified” media-sport consumption - turning consumers into
virtual team managers who compete with each other
 close connection between fantasy sports and sports betting
 Sports Video Games:
Changing Sport Experiences

 the sibling closest to esports

 provides fans with the illusion of ownership & control in commercial
sports.
 This aspect of video games was recognized over 30 years ago by
Electronic Arts.
 Other companies: Atari, Sega, Taito, Nintendo (between the early
1970s and the late 1980)
 began with the Earl Weaver Baseball video game in 1987 & John
Madden Football in 1988
 used AI to provide realistic game playing experiences that set them
apart from other game developers at that time
 Sports Video Games:
Changing Sport Experiences

 The production of sport simulation games is tricky

 it requires complex licensing agreements between a sports league,
the league’s players association, game developers, and a
distributor.
 the realism of the games depends on the capabilities of software
and hardware (computers & consoles)
 the sophistication of other technologies such as motion-capture
cameras
 Madden NFL – best selling sports video game over 20 years
 NBA 2K – sold over 90 million copies
 Sociological questions to think of

 If young people are introduced to a sport through a video game, are

they more or less likely to play the real sport on which the game is
based? If so, will their experiences in the video game influence their
actions and feelings in real sport situations?
 Will young people be more or less likely to listen to coaches after being
in control of players, game strategies, and video game conditions?
 Will they bring new forms of game knowledge to situations in which
they play real sports?
 How many young people will choose to play sports video games rather
than real sports?
 Will a high school/college student’s status as a skilled and successful
video game player rival or surpass a student’s status as a skilled and
successful athlete on a traditional sports team at their school?
 Esports: Transforming the Sport-
Media Landscape
 organized, competitive video games played according to agreed-
upon rules by individuals and teams
 In mainstream media discussions
 distinction made between corporate-sponsored esports leagues &
tournaments that involve professional gamers competing for millions of
dollars of prize money and local esports clubs and the rapidly expanding
esports teams sponsored by high schools and colleges
 attracting attention from investors who see esports as a potential commercial
rival of professional sports
 investors are tracking the commercial potential of gaming media platforms
(portals) such as Twitch, Reddit, Discord, and various YouTube channels that
are go-to streaming sites for millions of esports fans.
 worries executives at mainstream television companies that have multi-
billion-dollar rights deals with the NCAA and professional sports leagues
 2019 Fortnite World Cup
sponsored by Epic Games
 classic example of commercial esports
 involved 40 million players who competed online during 1o weeks of qualifying rounds
to determine the 200 finalists who competed for $30 million in cash prizes at the Arthur
Ashe Stadium in Flushing, New York.
 The finalists, all males, came from 34 countries and the $3 million first prize in the solo
category was won by a 16-year old from the United States.
 multi-million-dollar winners in other competition categories (Duos, Celebrity Pro/AM,
and Creative); and the rest of the 200 finalists each took home $50,000.
 The 19,000 stadium seats were sold out for each of the three days of competitions.
 The media production truck had twice as many feeds as used by CBS during the 2019
Super Bowl.
 A full-color commentary broadcast was streamed on multiple platforms where many
viewers had the option of choosing close-up camera shots of their favorite players
 Sports & Media:
A two Way relationship
 Sports depend on media when become commercial entertainment
 Commercial sports require media to provide a combination of coverage,
publicity & news
 Sports promoters & team owners know the value of coverage, and they provide
free access to reporters, commentators, and photographers.
 the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic
Games (LOCOG)
 Accredited 21,000 journalists, media technicians, producers, and camera
operators to cover nearly 15,000 athletes during the Olympics and Paralympics;
 Another 6000 to 8000 were credentialed to cover non sport aspects of the events
 NBC sent 2700 people.
 The BBC deployed 756 staff
 the Associated Press (AP) had 200 journalists and photographers working full time
during the games
 Sports & Media:
A two Way relationship

 most have a special dependence on television because television

companies pay for the rights to broadcast games and other events
 “right fee” - provide sports with predictable, significant, and
increasing sources of income
 media provide sports with predictable, significant, and increasing
sources of income
 Sports & Media:
A two Way relationship

 Television revenues
 have greater growth potential than revenues from gate receipts
 include literally billions of viewers now that satellite technology transmits
signals to most locations worldwide
 Additional reasons for increased rights fees
 The deregulation of the television industry.
 A growing demand to watch certain spectator sports.
 Increased connectivity with satellite and cable worldwide.
 Sponsors willing to pay top prices for access to live sports audiences because
commercials are seen by people rather than being skipped over in recorded
programs.
 The growth of ESPN and other cable channels that collect money from cable
and satellite companies as well as commercial sponsors, which gives them
two sources of income.
 Sports & Media:
A two Way relationship

 Media Depend on Sports for commercial success are newspapers and

television.
 Major North American newspapers give 25 percent of their daily news
coverage to sports, more than any other single topic of interest,
including business or politics.
 It attracts local and online advertisers and online businesses that want
to reach middle-aged males with ads for tires, automobile supplies,
new cars, car leases, airline tickets for business travelers, alcoholic
beverages, power tools, building supplies, sporting goods, hair-growth
products, sexual performance products, testosterone, and hormone
therapies
 Major television networks in the United States now depend on the
coverage of live sports as their primary revenue generators and they
are willing to pay large amounts of money for the rights to broadcast
them.
 Sports and the Media: A Relationship
Based on Economics and Ideology

 Global economic factors have intensified the interdependence

between commercial sports and the media
 Corporations need ways to develop global name recognition, cultural
legitimacy, and product familiarity
 Promote ideologies that support a way of life based on consumption,
competition, and individual achievement.
 Media sports offer global corporations a means of meeting these needs
 certain sport events attract worldwide attention;
 satellite technology transmits television signals around the world;
 sport images are associated with recognizable symbols and pleasurable
experiences by billions of people;
 sports and athletes usually can be presented in politically safe ways by linking
them with local identities and then using them to market products, values,
and lifestyles related to local cultures or popular forms of global culture
 45
Images and narratives in
media sports

 sports are “mediated” = consist of selected images and narratives

 Media Production and Representation of Sports
 privately owned and organized to make financial profits
 selected for coverage on the basis of their entertainment and revenue-
generating potential
 images and narratives that exaggerate the spectacular, such as heroic
injuries or achievements
 Mainstream media also emphasize elite, commercial sport events
 Ideological Themes in Media Images and Narratives
 Success Themes - individual effort, competition, teamwork, aggression,
and effective game plans
 Consumption Themes - “TV time-outs”
 Consequences of
consuming media sports

 Active Participation in Sports

 positive link between watching & doing sports may exist only when
parents, teachers, or physical educators strategically connect media
representations with everyday sports participation
 those who are not regular participants use media sports as
entertainment
 those who are avid participants are the ones who use media sports as a
source of inspiration for their own participation
 connected with activity or inactivity depending on the circumstances
and the individuals involved
 Attendance at Sports Event
 Sports Betting
 Conclusion

 Media and media experiences have become ever-present in the

lives of people living in many parts of the world today
 Media sports - social constructions (like other aspects of culture)
 They’re created, organized, and controlled by human beings
whose motives and ideas are grounded in their social worlds,
experiences, and ideologies
 The media represent sports to us through selected images and
narratives that usually reaffirm dominant ideologies and promote
the interests of wealthy and powerful people who own media
companies and the corporations that sponsor programming
 Conclusion

 New media have altered the ways that people receive news,
consume media content, interact with others who share their
interests in sports, connect with athletes and teams, and even
express their feelings about everything from on-the-field action to
off-the-field management decisions
 People now have access to sports content 24/7 on television,
smartphones, tablets, and any Internet-connected device.
 Person’s identity as a fan
 reaffirmed at anytime, anywhere
 follow athletes on digital sites like Twitter, IG, FB & blogs
 eliminates the mainstream media filter and provides them with
information that comes directly from athletes.
 Conclusion

 Fantasy sports, sports video games & esports

 provide unique sport-related experiences unlike those occasioned by
traditional media
 changing the sport-media landscape
 their impact on traditional sports media is likely to be significant
 Sports & the media - increasingly interdependent (social world)
 They could survive without each other, but they would be different from
what they are now
 Commercial sports have grown - media coverage and the rights fees
paid by media companies
 Importance of the publicity & money provided by media
 commercial sports would be reduced to local business operations with much
less scope than they have today, and less emphasis would be placed on
elite, competitive sports in people’s lives
 Conclusion

 Media could survive without sports, but newspapers and television

would be different from their current format if they did not have
sports content and programming to attract young males and the
sponsors who wish to buy access to that demographic
 Make sense of sports media images & narratives on their own terms
and that this interpretive process of sense-making is influenced by
the social, cultural, and historical conditions under which it occurs
 Integrate media sports experiences into their lives in diverse ways
 Sports & the media need each other, especially when making
profits is a primary goal for each
 Studying the dynamics of this relationship helps expand our
understanding of sports in society.