Notes on Studying Sport: Why it Matters and Theoretical Foundations

Land Acknowledgement

• Land Acknowledgement is on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenausaune, Lenaapeewak, and Attawandaron peoples. In our class, we are working towards reconciliation by learning about the history, experiences, and cultures of Indigenous peoples.

Class Agenda

• Introduction to the course

• Studying Sport: Why does it Matter?

• Thinking sociologically: Sport and Critical Theory

Housekeeping

• Instructor: Rachelle Miele, PhD (she, her)

• Email: rmiele@uwo.ca

• Availability: Zoom, Mondays $11 ext{ am} ext{–} 12 ext{ pm}$, by appointment

• Class time: Lectures Monday $8:30 ext{ – } 10:30 ext{ am}$

• Tutorials Wednesday $8:30 ext{ – } 9:30 ext{ am}$

• Office hour: Zoom links will be shared via email

Class Guidelines

• Respect those who are speaking and sharing their ideas

• Use the names and pronouns of our classmates

• Come to class as you are

• Come prepared and ready to learn each week

• Participate in class activities and share your ideas

• Support our classmates and be mindful of differing knowledge and experiences

• Submit your own work

• Seek help when needed

Let's take a look at the course

• OWL Brightspace

• Where can I find things?

• Syllabus

• What do I need to know?

• Assignments

• Who, what, where, when, and how?

• Class time

• Tutorials?

# Studying Sport: Why does it matter?

Consider the following

• Why should we study sport critically?

  • Cultural reasons

  • Cultural reasons: Sport plays a significant role in shaping societal values, identity, and social cohesion, making it essential to understand its cultural impact.

    • Hockey is often connected to Canada

  • Sports and politics

Why study sports?

• Sports are given special meaning by particular people in society

  • The olympics, world cup

  • Lots of money and media focus goes into it

  • National pride, team pride

• Sports are tied to ideology, important ideas, and beliefs in many cultures

  • Connected to gender and class ideology, also race and sexuality, disability

• Sports are connected to major spheres of social life

But wait…

• Isn't sport outside of dominant social norms, social values?

• Isn't sport outside of gender, race, and class inequality?

- Isn't sport free from ideologies? Has nothing to do with politics or social issues?

But wait…

• Isn’t sport outside of dominant social norms, social values?

• Isn’t sport outside of gender, race, and class inequality?

• Isnt sport free from ideologies? Has nothing to do with politics or social issues?

• Sport is not just about pure competition and skill

# Sport is not neutral

# 13

Lia Thomas and other examples (visuals/cases)

• Lia Thomas

• 88

• 25

• TYR

• 19

• Imane Khelif

• 899

• PARIS 2024

• CHICAGO

• Chicago

• icine

• CANADA

• BlackArt

• Angel Reese

• Brent Lakatos

Sport and Gender

• Fairness and equity issues

  • Inequities in participation opportunities, support for athletes, and jobs in sports

  • Huge drop out in girls around 10-11 years old

  • Womens sports is dominated by men in coaching and administration

• Ideological and power issues and gender relations

  • The production and reproduction of gender ideology

  • The ways gender ideology constrains people’s lives

  • Sport is both gendered and gendering

Race and Racism

• Racism and racist ideology allows for some groups to be assigned lower status and permits others to have privilege, power, and wealth

• Sport is not immune to racist ideology

  • It impacts the lives of athletes, fans, admin, coaches, venue managers, sports journalists, etc

Caster Semenya / Jackie Robinson / Wayne Simmonds / Serena & Venus Williams (Racism in Sport)

• 8

• Waynes Simmonds

• VORACEK

• R

• Serena and Venus Williams

• 101.9FM

• TS RADIO

• REDSKINS

• Indians

• CLEVELAND

Consider the following

• How does economic inequality impact sport?

  • Cannot participate like hockey programs due to high costs associated with equipment and travel, leading to a lack of access to sports for lower-income individuals, thereby exacerbating existing social divides.

• How much does it cost to play/watch sports?

Class and Sport

• Involvement in sport goes hand in hand with

• Money

• Power

• Privilege

• Sport participation is a luxury

Politics: Common Ideas

• “Sports has nothing to do with politics”

• “Sports should be kept pure”

• “Athletes should stick to sport”

Assimilation - Canada

• Ermineskin Indian Residential School team, circa 1945

• ELEFEE

• SEENE

• Prach

• F E

• E E

• E

The Nazification of Sport

• 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics

  • Hitler wanted to show the world how strong Germany was by showcasing its athletic prowess and promoting the idea of Aryan superiority through carefully staged events.

• Sport used to train Nazi youth

ASSOCIATION N NATIONAL BASKETBALL

• Politics and Nationalism

• LOS ANGELES

• LAKERS

• WORLD CHAMPIONS

• 2010

• 74

• TOGET

• WET

• NADA

Politics and Nationalism

• 95

• S

• EM

• W

• MATIONS

• CANADA

• A

• 19

• Justin Trudeau

• @JustinTrudeau

• You can't take our country and you can't take our game.

• staZene

# Thinking Sociologically

What is Sociology?

• $ext{Soci: society}$

• $ext{Ology: the study of}$

• $ext{Sociology: the study of society}$

What is Sociology

• The study of society

  •    The study of the people that make up society

  • The study of institutions that make up society

• The systematic study of human behaviour in social context

  • Sociology is a social science

Sociology examines what influences our lives

• Social Class

• Race & Ethnicity

• Education

• Gender

• Sexuality

• Disabilities

• Religion

• Family

• Immigration Status

• Employment Status

• Language Spoken

• Housing

What is Sociology

• General insights:

• Who we are is impacted by the groups we belong to

• Interactions take place in patterned ways

• Important questions:

• Why do people behave how they do?

• Why are people’s social situations the way they are?

Sociology helps you think (and be critical) about the society you live in

• Thinking critically about society (and sport too):

• Are there issues with racism?

• Are there issues with sexism and misogyny? What about patriarchy in general?

• Is sport ableist?

• How does colonialism impact sport and Indigenous athletes?

• Is sport equal?

Sociology of Sport

• Study humans/agents involved in sport

• The institutions and social institutions that affect the sporting experience

  • The government and media

• Social processes

  • Violence and inequality

Defining Sport

• Sport as a social construction

  • Sports are given form and meaning

  • The values and meanings of sport have been created and recreated

  • Sport is shaped by and is the result of our social interactions

  • Sport can be changed

  • This means that sport is part of culture

    • Sport has forms and meanings that vary

The Sociological Imagination

• C. Wright Mills (1959)

  • The ability to see the connection between personal troubles (individual experiences) and public issues (social structures, social factors)

  • Make connection between how society works and impacts our personal lives

  • Help us to understand connections (links) between the political and personal, social factors and the personal

The Sociological Imagination

• Personal troubles: Individuals

  • Financial problems

• Networks of people one associates with on a regular basis

• Public issues: matters beyond an individual's control

  • Poor job market

• Caused by problems originating at societal level

Consider the following

• Example: Families struggling to have kids playing minor hockey

• Personal troubles?

• Public issues?

Sociology and Theory

• Various theories in sociology

• Some key theories:

  • Functionalism

  • Conflict Theory

  • Symbolic Interactionism

  • Critical Social Theories

    • Feminist Theory

    • Critical Race Theory

Functionalism

• Views society as a complex system of working parts moving together to create and promote social solidarity and social stability

  • Think: machine, human body

  • Social norms, institutions, ideology, if something exists its because it serves a purpose to society

Functionalism

• Human behaviour is governed by stable patterns of social relations ("social structures")

• Social structures can either maintain or undermine (stable or unstable)

• Shared values or preferences (focuses on crime)

• Re-establishing equilibrium is the best way to solve most social problems

• Key theorist in sociology: Emile Durkheim

Functionalism

• Family

• Religion

• Primary Socialisation

• Social Order

• Collective Conscience

• Meritocracy

• Social Regulation

• Education

• Crime

Functionalism and Sport

• Sports are studied in terms of their contributions to the system

  • Sports unite people

  • Sports create social cohesion

  • Sports create rules in society

Functionalism and Sport

• Assumes that shared values and agreement are the basis for social order

• Sport can be used to justify and preserve the status quo

• Heavily critiqued theory of sport (and in sociology generally), not very popular view

Conflict Theory

• Relations between classes including domination, submission and struggle

• Major patterns of inequality produce social stability

• Members of privileged groups seek to maintain advantages

• Members of subordinate groups struggle to increase theirs

Conflict Theory (Karl Marx and Marxists)

• Class conflict: the struggle between classes to resist and overcome the opposition of other classes

• Conflict is due to economic inequalities built into capitalist system

• Owners (bourgeoisie) have the goal of profit; profit driven decisions harm workers, consumers, environment

Conflict theory and Sport

• Economic exploitation and capitalist expansion

  • Examples? Think commercial sports!

• Power and privilege

  • Think: who has access to organized sport? Who owns teams? Who benefits from sport the most?

Conflict theory and Sport

• Class inequality and sport

• Athletes and spectators are used for the profit

• Play vs. commercial spectator sports (more emphasis on play and less on the commercial or spectator aspect)

• Critique: emphasize class but other identities are often ignored

Symbolic Interactionism

• Focuses on interpersonal communication

• Emphasizes social life is possible only because people attach meanings to things

• People help to create their social circumstances

Social Interactionism and Sport

• How they are created and given meaning by people

• How people experience sports

• How identities are related to sport participation and sport cultures

Feminist Theory

• Focuses on various aspects of patriarchy

• The patriarchy and gender roles is not based on biological necessity, but by structures of power and social convention

• Examines the operation of patriarchy

• Social change

Feminist Theory and Sport

• Sports are gendered activities

• Sport as a male preserve

• Sports reproduce gendered ideas and practices

• Think about an athlete – what do they look like?

Feminist Theory and Sport (continued)

• Examines how sports are involved in the production of ideas about masculinity and femininity

  • How women are represented in media coverage of sports

  • Strategies used by women to resist or challenge dominant gender ideology

  • The gendered dimensions of sports and sport organizations

  • Homophobia and transphobia in sport

• Critiqued for not always being intersectional

Critical Race Theory and Sport

• Racism is systemic and is embedded in social institutions

• In sport, CRT is interested in:

  • How sport plays a role in the development of cultural beliefs and heritage

  • How ethnic traditions are privileged at the expense of others

  • How sport reinforces ideas, norms, and beliefs about race

Why critically analyze sport?

• What is possible and what needs to be improved

• Allows us to make sense of the world around us

• Allows us to see how social and cultural forces shape our lives and the lives of others

• Allows us to make connections between the personal and public

See you next week!

• Reminder: Tutorial A is on Wednesday