Abstract
The article of Thomas C. Wilson (2002) will be critically analyzed in this thesis. The study in that article was to establish the role of sports involvement in the creation of social classes within the society. The author opined that high educational level or the income distribution of participants increases people’s tendency of involving in sports.
However, the higher these elements are, the more of a deterrent it is for them to engage in ‘prole’ sports. This, according to the writer is a paradox and which the writer has to a great extent helped us to understand except for a few limitations.
This article will try to analyze the various strong points formulated by the author, the weaknesses as well as the limitations of the study.
Introduction and review
The author presents a case study of the relationship where he argues that social classes of individuals plays a big part in shaping the pattern of sports involvement and participation.
This may have been true in the past, where, “sport [was] analyzed as a reflection of the way of life. Social inequalities are reflected in the use of sports and they are also a means of group and class values affirmation,” (Ohl 1999, Pp. 148).
The author, however, did not make any reference to recent study. The current trends shows that: ‘individuals of higher managerial and professional occupations attend cycling in larger numbers as opposed to people of lower supervisory and technical occupations, semi-routine occupations, routine occupations and unemployed individuals” (Sports England 2010 P. 5).
Further, the classification between the so-called ‘prole’ sports and high-class sports is not clear. He does not tell us how he reaches to the conclusion that golf is higher class than football. The Gallup polls conducted between December 11th and 14th 2006, shows that football is Americans favorite sport (43%) while golf is relatively less preferred (3%) but such games as boxing receive the list popularity (2%), (Carroll, 2007).
This seems to differ with the writer’s conclusion that middle class people are more likely to attend boxing than golf. It also casts doubt to his conviction that the reason why people do not attend such games as golf is solely because of resources.
The statement of the problem is not very clear, for example the effect of education on sports. There is ambiguity on how exactly education affects sports participation.
For example, in a study conducted in Scandinavia institute of education, “showed no effect to sport spectatorship in Denmark, slightly positive effect in Norway and a negative effect in Sweden” (Thrane 2001, Pp. 158). Further, the writer himself agrees that economic capital itself is not an effective method of supporting this argument.
The author’s argues that the cultural and economic capital settings deter individuals from engaging in other lower class sports. This argument does not explain why participants continue being in such lower class sports long after they have gained enough wealth and worldwide recognition and quite evidently acquired a higher social milieu from their previous one.
The most logical thing for them to do, according to the author’s argument, would be to abandon their current sports they are involved in and join the ones matching with their current social standing in the society, but this does not happen.
Further the author overlooked on the role of other demographic factors, such as age and gender, to sports involvement. For example, there are sports which are more likely to attract young people as opposed to the aged.
Sports such as car racing are most common with the youths while golf playing is more prevalent among the older generation. This is so even for sports like football where players retire from their teams at their early 30’s.
Further few women are associated with sports like wrestling and rugby, which involve physical strength, as compared to sports such as swimming and tennis playing. Failure to take into consideration of these factors leads to a denial of their significant contribution to sports involvement, a fact that is very obvious.
Methodology used
The writer uses a representative sample of people who attend certain specified sports. While this shows some evidence of positive relationship between economic capital and sports participation, the research has relied on a very small proportion thus compromised on generalization of the outcomes.
Further, the research only considered the duration of one year only. Such a short span does not warrant the writer to jump to the conclusion that “education transmits class-based culture intergenerationally…” (Thomas 2002, P.3).
There should be a range of sports dealt with by the research to facilitate conclusive decision without bias. In his research on participation on ‘prole’ activities, the writer only deals with auto racing, which according to him is a middle class sport. This gives a very narrow basis to make any general conclusion.
Further, there is no big difference in participation in this sport between the middle class people and the upper class participants. The writer only analyses the those elements confined to his argument and simply ignoring the other aspects which are equally important to the outcome of the discussion.
Results
It is in fact true that income and education bears on an individual’s tendency to participate in sports, and the writer research has in a way, depicted this principle. But there is no major difference in frequency of sports involvement between people who attend such high class games as golf, skiing, tennis etc and those that attend such prole sports as auto racing etc for both men and women (2.3% for men and 3.0% for women) (Tb. 1). Thus the research is not based on convincing grounds.
The writer does not explain why individuals earning $30000-39999 participate in sports more than those earning $40000-49999 if the economic capital principle applies, (Tb. 2) and generally there is no major difference in sports participation for respondents earning $30000-3999, which is a middle class, to those earning $60000-74999, which can be classified as a high class, (Tb. 3).
Discussion
The writer explains the results by arguing that the reason why there are less people with high income attending auto-racing is because tastes and preferences are determined by social class. This is a bit farfetched and there is no evidence on it. The researcher did not ask the respondents why their attendance of sports was that way.
Probably this would have enlightened us on other matters that affect their decisions which the writer has overlooked. With these defects in the writers research, to say that sports participation creates social stratifications would be wrong and inappropriate, but to say that income distribution causes individuals to attend some sports and not others would be indeed, very true.
One can adopt Bourdieu’s concept of habitus; which he explained as ‘‘a set of basic, deeply internalized master-patterns which may govern and regulate mental processes without being consciously apprehended and controlled’’ (Bourdieu 1984)
Conclusion
The analyses by the writer of the relationship between education and income on one side and how different groups engage in sports on the other side helps us to understand why various sports involve more people such as football, while others have relatively few spectators.
However, the analogy on how sports involvement contributes to social inequality did not come out clearly. All in all, the author’s ideologies and arguments are fairly practical and relate to real life and portray a brilliant mind.
References
Bourdieu, P. D. (1979) A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carrol, J. (2007), Football Reaches Historic Popularity Levels in Gallup Poll: Gallup News Service. Web.
Ohl, F. (1999) Are social classes still relevant to analyse sports groupings in‘‘postmodern’’ Society? An analysis referring to P. Bourdieu’s theory: Lab. APS et Sciences Sociales, Universite´ Marc Bloch, Strasbourg.
France Thomas C. W. (2002) The Paradox of Social Class and Sports Involvement: The Roles of Cultural and Economic Capital: International Review for the Sociology of Sport. Web.
Thrane. C. (1999) Sports Spectatorship in Scandinavia: A Class Phenomenon? Norway Lillehammer College.
Sport England (2010), Active People Survey (APS) Results for Cycling. Web.