Sport in Society: Issues & Controversies

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Sport in SocietyIssues Controversies

• Sports and Children
• Are Organized Programs Worth the Effort?

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Origins of Organized Youth Sports

• Organized youth sports emerged in the 20th
  Century
• The first programs focused on masculinizing
  boys
• Organized youth sports grew rapidly in many
  industrialized countries after World War II
• Programs in the U.S. emphasized competition as
  preparation for future occupational success
• Girls interests generally were ignored

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Social Changes Related to the Growth of Organized
Youth Sports

• Increase in working families
• New definitions of good parent
• Growing belief that informal activities lead to
  trouble for kids
• Growing belief that the world is dangerous for
  children
• Increased visibility of high-performance and
  professional sports in society

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Major Trends in Youth Sports Today

• Organized programs have become increasingly
  privatized
• Organized programs increasingly emphasize the
  performance ethic
• An increase in elite training facilities
• Increased participation in alternative sports

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Youth SportsTypes of Sponsors

• Public, tax-supported community recreation
  programs
• Public non-profit community organizations
• Private nonprofit sport organizations
• Private commercial clubs

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Privatized Youth Sport Programs

• Growth is associated with the decline in publicly
  funded programs
• Most common in middle- and upper-middle income
  areas
• May reproduce economic and ethnic inequalities in
  society
• May not be committed to gender equity
• Private programs are not accountable in the same
  way as public programs

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The Performance Ethic

• Refers to emphasizing measured outcomes as
  indicators of the quality of sport experiences
• Fun becoming better
• Emphasized in private programs
• Related to parental notions of investing in their
  childrens future

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Elite Sport Training Programs

• Most common in private, commercial programs
• Emphasize the potential for children to gain
  material rewards through sports
• Children often work long hours and become like
  laborers, but programs are not governed by
  child labor laws
• Raise ethical issues about adult-child
  relationships

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New Interests in Alternative Sports

• A response to highly structured, adult-controlled
  organized programs
• Revolve around desires to be expressive and
  spontaneous
• May have high injury rates and patterns of
  exclusion related to gender and social class
• Are being appropriated by large corporations for
  advertising purposes

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Different Experiences

• Formal Sports Emphasize
• Formal rules
• Set positions
• Systematic guidance by adults
• Status and outcomes

• Informal Sports Emphasize
• Action
• Personal involvement
• Challenging experiences
• Reaffirming friendships

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Different Outcomes

• Formal Sports Emphasize
• Relationships with authority figures
• Learning rules and strategies
• Rule-governed teamwork achievement

• Informal Sports Emphasize
• Interpersonal decision-making skills
• Cooperation
• Improvisation
• Problem solving

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When Are Children Ready to Play Organized,
Competitive Sports?

• Prior to age 12, children dont have the ability
  to fully understand competitive team sports
• They play beehive soccer
• Children must lean how to cooperate before they
  can learn how to compete
• Team sports require the use of a third party
  perspective
• Role Taking Ability
• Game Stage Developmental level

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What Are the Dynamics of Family Relationships in
Youth Sports?

• Sports have the potential to bring families
  together
• Being together does not always mean that close
  communication occurs
• Children may feel pressure from parents
• Parent labor in youth sports often reproduces
  gendered logic ideas
• work
• family

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How Do Social Factors Influence Youth Sport
Experiences?

• Participation opportunities vary by social class
• Encouragement often varies by gender and
  ability/disability
• Self perceptions and the social consequences of
  participation vary by
• social class
• sex
• race/ethnicity
• ability/disability
• sexuality

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Recommendations for Changing Informal
Alternative Sports

• Make play spaces more safe and accessible to as
  many children as possible
• Be sensitive to class and sex
• Provide indirect guidance without being
  controlling
• Treat sport as a worthwhile site for facing
  challenges
• developing competence

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Recommendations for Changing Organized Sports

• Increase action
• Increase personal involvement
• Facilitate close scores and realistic challenges
• Facilitate friendship formation and maintenance

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Recommendations for Changing High-performance
Programs

• Establish policies, procedures, and rules to
  account for
• the rights of children participants
• the interests of children participants
• Create less controlling environments
• to promote growth
• to promote development
• to promote empowerment

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Prospects for Change

• Often subverted when priority is given to
  efficiency and organization
• over age-based developmental concerns
• May be subverted by national organizations
  concerned with standardizing programs
• May be subverted by adult administrators with
  vested interests in the status quo

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Coaching Education Programs

• Are useful when they provide coaches with
  information on
• Dealing with children safely and responsibly
• Organizing practices and teaching skills
• Are problematic when they foster a
  techno-science approach to controlling
  children
• Creating sports efficiency experts should not
  be the goal

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Deviance in SportsIs It Out of Control?
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Problems Faced When Studying Deviance in Sports

• Forms causes of deviance are diverse
• No single theory can explain all
• Sports behavior may be deviant in other settings
  (All Star Wrestling)
• Sports often involves unquestioned acceptance of
  norms
• rarely the rejection of norms
• Training performance have become medicalized

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Using Functionalist Theory to Define Deviance

• Deviance involves a rejecting of accepted goals
• Or rejecting the means of achieving goals in
  society
• Conformity is equated with morality
• Deviance is caused by faulty socialization
• By inconsistencies in the social system
• Deviance is controlled by getting tough
• By enforcing more rules more strictly

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Using Conflict Theory to Define Deviance

• Deviance involves behavior that interferes with
  the interests of those with economic power
• The behavior of those who lack power is more
  likely to be labeled as deviant
• Those who deviate often are victims of
  exploitation in a system characterized by
  inequalities
• The problem of deviance will be minimal when
  power is equally distributed in society

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Using Interactionist Critical Theories to
Define Deviance

• Most deviance in sports is not due to the moral
  bankruptcy of athletes
• Much deviance in sports involves over conformity
  to established norms in sports
• Sport deviance must be understood in terms of the
  normative context of sport cultures and the
  emphasis on the sport ethic

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• Deviant Over- Conformity

• Deviant Under- Conformity

• Normally Accepted Range of Behavior

• Deviance based on unquestioned acceptance of norms

• Deviance based on ignoring or rejecting norms

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The Sport Ethic

• A cluster of norms that represent the
  accepted criteria for defining what it means to
  be an athlete.

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Four Norms of the Sport Ethic

• An athlete makes sacrifices for the game
• An athlete strives for distinction
• An athlete accepts risks and plays through pain
• An athlete accepts no limits in the pursuit of
  possibilities

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Why Do Athletes Engage in Deviant Over-
Conformity?

• Two reasons for over-conformity
• Sports are so exhilarating and thrilling that
  athletes want to play, and they will do almost
  anything to continue to do so
• Being selected by coaches and managers is more
  likely when athletes over conform to the sport
  ethic

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Athletes Most Likely to Over- Conform to the
Sport Ethic

• Those who have low self-esteem
• Eager to be accepted by their peers
• Willing to sacrifices what they think others want
  them to
• Those who see achievements in sport as their only
  way to get ahead
• make a name
• become important in the world

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Deviant Over-Conformity and Group Dynamics

• Following the Norms of the Sport Ethic
• Special Bonds Among Athletes
• Hubris (arrogance)

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Social Processes in Elite Power Performance
Sports

• Bond athletes in ways that normalize over
  conformity to the sport ethic
• Separate athletes from the rest to inspire awe
  and admiration among community members
• Lead athletes to develop HUBRIS (a sense of
  arrogance, separateness, and superiority)

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Hypotheses About Deviance Among Athletes

• Deviance becomes more likely when
• Social bonds normalize risk taking
• Athletes are separated from the rest of the
  community
• Athletes develop extreme degrees of hubris
• When people in the community see athletes as
  being special

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Controlling Deviant Over-Conformity in Sports

• Four ways to control deviant over-conformity
• Learn to identify the forms and dynamics of
  over-conformity among athletes
• Raise critical questions about the meaning,
  organization, and purpose of sports
• Create norms in sports that discourage over-
  conformity to the sport ethic
• Help athletes to learn to strike a balance
  between accepting and questioning rules and norms
  in their sports

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Research on Deviance Among Athletes

• On the Field Deviance
• Cheating, dirty play, fighting, violence are
  less common today than in the past
• This historical finding contradicts popular
  perceptions.
• Many people think deviance is more common today
• More rules than ever before
• Expectations for conformity are greater.

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Research on Deviance Among Athletes

• Off the Field Deviance
• Athletes do not have higher delinquency rates
• Data on academic cheating is inconclusive
• Athletes have higher rates of alcohol use
• Felony rates among adult athletes do not seem to
  be out of control
• BUT they do constitute a problem (see Ch. 7)

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Is Sport Participation a Cure for Deviant
Behavior?

• Research suggests that organized sport might
• reduce deviance if
• A philosophy of nonviolence
• Respect for self and others
• The importance of fitness and control over self
• Confidence in physical skills
• A sense of responsibility

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DONT FORGET

• Athletes are not the only ones in sports who
  engage in deviant behavior. Think of other
  examples involving
• Coaches
• Parents
• Spectators
• Administrators
• Team owners
• Agents

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Using Performance Enhancing Substances in Sports

• The use of performance enhancing substances
  occurs regularly in high performance sports
• Many cases of usage constitute a form of deviant
  over conformity
• Such substances will be used as long as athletes
  believe they will enhance performance

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Defining and Banning Performance Enhancing
Substances

• Defining what constitutes a performance
  enhancing substance is difficult
• Defining what is natural or artificial is
  difficult
• Defining what is fair when it comes to the use of
  science, medicine, technology in sports is
  difficult
• Determining what is dangerous to health is
  difficult
• Studying and testing for substances is
  constrained by ethical and legal factors

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Eight Reasons Why Substance Use So Prevalent
Today?

• The high stakes in sports have fueled research
  and development of substances
• Fascination with the use of technology to push
  human limits
• The rationalization of the body
• Heavy emphasis on self-medication
• Changing sexual relations

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Why Is Substance Use So Prevalent Today?

• The organization of power and performance sports
  (must win to continue to play)
• Coaches, sponsors, administrators, and fans
  clearly encourage most forms of deviant
  over-conformity
• The social structure of elite sports (control
  over body and conformity to demands of coaches)

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Arguments Against Testing

• Testing will never be able to identify all
  substances athletes use to enhance performance
• Athletes and substance manufacturers can stay one
  step ahead of the testers
• Mandatory testing, testing without cause, and
  using blood and tissue violates ideas about
  rights to privacy in many cultures

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Arguments for Testing

• To be meaningful, sport performances must involve
  natural abilities
• Drug use destroys the basis for competition by
  subverting fairness
• Drug use threatens the health and well-being of
  athletes
• Drug use is immoral and must be stopped

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Controlling Substance Use Where to Start (I)

• Critically examine the hypocrisy in elite sports
• Establish rules indicating that risks to health
  are undesirable and unnecessary in sports
• Establish rules stating that injured athletes
  must be independently certified as well before
  they may play
• Educate young athletes to define courage and
  discipline in ways that promote health

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Controlling Substance Use Where to Start (II)

• Establish a code of ethics for sport scientists
• Make drug education part of deviance and health
  education
• Create norms regulating use of technology
• Critically examine values and norms in sports
• Redefine meaning of achievement
• Teach athletes to think critically
• Provide accurate and current information to
  parents, coaches, and athletes

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• Violence in Sports
• How Does It Affect Our Lives?

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Definition of Violence

• The use of excessive force that causes or has
  the potential to cause harm or destruction
• Violence is not always illegal or disapproved
• It may be praised and lauded as necessary
• When violence involves widespread rejection of
  norms, it may signal anarchy
• When violence involves extreme over-conformity to
  norms, it may signal fascism

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Definition of Aggression

• Verbal or physical behavior grounded in an
  intent to dominate, control, or do harm to
  another person
• Aggression is not the same as assertiveness,
  competitiveness, or trying hard
• Intimidation refers to words, gestures, and
  actions that threaten violence or aggression

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Violence in Sports History

• Figurational research shows that violence was
  more severe in the past
• On the field off the field
• Rates of sports violence have not automatically
  increased over time
• Violence in sports remains a crucial social issue
  today
• Sports violence can serve to reproduce an
  ideology of male privilege

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Types of On-the-field Violence

• Brutal body contact
• Hits, Tackles, Blocks, or any forceful body
  contact
• Borderline violence
• Brush Back Pitch, Elbow, the Bump in running,
  Fight in hockey, or any force with the intent to
  cause bodily harm
• Quasi-criminal violence
• Cheap Shot, Late Hits, or any use of force that
  violates the rules
• Criminal violence
• Physical Assault that usually brings criminal
  charges

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Violence As Deviant Over Conformity to the Sport
Ethic (I)

• Coaches may expect players to use violence
• Violence often attracts media attention
• Players may not like violence, even though most
  accept it as part of the game
• Quasi and criminal violence are routinely
  rejected by athletes and spectators

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Violence As Deviant Over- Conformity to the Sport
Ethic (II)

• Violence may be related to insecurities in high
  performance sports
• Expressions of violence are related to gender,
  but not limited to men
• Physicality creates drama and excitement, strong
  emotions, and special bonds among all athletes,
  male and female

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Commercialization and Violence

• Some athletes are paid to do violence
• Commercialization and money expand the visibility
  of violence in sports, and violent discourse in
  and about sports
• Violence is not caused by TV and money it
  existed long before TV coverage and big salaries

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Violence and Masculinity

• Violence is grounded in general cultural norms
• Violence in sports is not limited to men
• Playing power and performance sports often are
  ways to prove masculinity

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Violence, Masculinity, Social Class, Race

• Among men from low-income backgrounds, violence
  may be a tool to bring respect
• Black men may use violence to exploit white
  stereotypes

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Violence Is Institutionalized in Some Sports

• In non-contact sports, violence is usually
  limited to using violent images in talk
• In contact mens sports, players learn to use
  violence as a strategy
• Enforcers goons are paid to do violence
• In womens contact sports, violence may be used
  as a strategy, but not to prove femininity

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Pain and Injury As the Price of Violence

• A popular paradox in todays sports People
  accept violence while being concerned about
  injuries caused by violence
• Disabling injuries caused by violence in some
  sports are serious problems
• Dominant ideas about masculinity are related to
  high injury rates in mens sports

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Controlling On-the-field Violence

• Brutal body contact is the most difficult form of
  violence to control
• Most injuries occur on legal hits
• The most effective strategies might involve
• Suspensions for players
• Fines for team owners

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Off-the-field Violence

• Carryover data are inconclusive
• Assault and sexual assault rates among male,
  heterosexual athletes are a serious problem
• These behaviors are a serious problem in society
  as a whole
• Debates about whether rates are higher among
  athletes distract attention from the problem of
  violence in culture

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Hypotheses About Male Athletes Violence Against
Women

• Violence is related to
• Support from fellow athletes for using physical
  force as a strategy
• Perceived cultural support for domination as a
  basis for status identity among men
• Deviant over-conformity to the norms of the sport
  ethic

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Hypotheses About Male Athletes Violence Against
Women

• Violence is related to
• Support for the belief that women constitute
  groupies in sport worlds
• Collective HUBRIS and the notion that outsiders
  do not deserve respect
• Institutional support for elite athletes
  regardless of behavior
• Institutional failures to hold athletes
  accountable for deviance

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Learning to Control Violence in Sports

• Control may be learned if
• The social world formed around a sport promotes a
  mindset norms emphasizing
• Non-violence
• Self-control
• Respect for self and others
• Physical fitness
• Patience

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Violence Is Most Likely When

• Sports are organized in ways that
• Produce HUBRIS
• Separate athletes from the community
• Encourage athletes to think that others do not
  deserve their respect

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Violence in Sports Gender Ideology

• Doing violence in sports reproduces the belief
  that men are superior to women
• Power performance sports, when they encourage
  violence, emphasize difference between men and
  women
• Sports violence reproduces an ideology of male
  entitlement

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Violence Among Spectators

• No data on how watching sports may influence
  violence in everyday relationships
• Spectators at non-contact sports have low rates
  of violence
• Spectators at contact sports have rates of
  violence that constitute a problem in need of
  analysis and control
• Rates today are lower than rates in the past

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Celebratory Violence

• This form of violence has not been studied
  systematically by scholars in the sociology of
  sport

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General Factors Related to Violence at Sport
Events

• Action in the sport event itself
• Crowd dynamics the situation in which
  spectators watch the event
• Historical, social economic, political context
  in which the event is planned and played

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Crowd Dynamics Situational Factors

• Crowd size
• Composition of crowd
• Meaning and importance of event
• History of relationship between teams
• Crowd control strategies at event

• Alcohol consumption by spectators
• Location of event
• Motivations for attending the event
• Importance of teams as sources of identity for
  spectators

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Controlling Crowd Violence

• Be aware of the following factors
• Perceived violence on the field is positively
  related to crowd violence
• Crowd dynamics and conditions
• Historical, social, political issues underlying
  spectator orientations