Exploring Oneself

Another example was the first time stepping on Haskell’s campus. My youngest had went off to college himself. I was well received by professors, staff and the students. An occasional snicker here and there because of my age. I assumed that I would get a few of those. But, was so excited that I was here and part of it all. Over lunch in Curtis one afternoon I listened to students talking about the prejudice they had experienced at Haskell because of their native color. They were being told they were not part of the In-group. How could that be? I was really surprised until I had experienced it myself. I had a teacher that would use all of my work as examples but then would not give me any credit. Not that I required attention, but, felt I should had some recognition. Our little group would meet for lunch a few times a week and on this particular day my little world opened up to the In-Group Out-Group world. After lunch was over my friend, who shall remain nameless as everyone will know who he is, were walking to our next class when out of frustration I had mentioned my teacher’s attitude towards me. Being a true friend and not thinking before he spoke he said “Well, if you didn’t look so white maybe she would act differently towards you”. So, there I was, in the Out-group when I thought I was in the

Consider sitting in your high school with multiple different groups of people around. You hear numerous conversations coming from every direction and laughter filling the halls, but you are left standing in the hallway alone, feeling outcast, because you have no connection with those people. Having desolate feelings comes in response to this situation, and overall, it takes away from that sense of belonging. The unspoken rules present in these groups are responsible for the loss of belonging. People that do not fit the requirements within the rules often find themselves feeling as though they are outcasts in society. Individually, they will perceive themselves to be outsiders without a belonging in the social order because their traits do not match the desired ones in society. Additionally, the people in each specific group will begin to exclude the said outcasts because they do not belong in the clique. As a result, social events and conversations become more exclusive to those who fit the unspoken rules. This unfortunately can lead to bullying, for the exclusive people will make the outsiders feel unwelcomed and criticized. One who does not “fit in” with others will find themselves feeling insecure about their life and role in the community. Therefore, the unspoken rules of society affect each individual’s sense of belonging in both a positive and negative

The first time I realized I was other was when I was in high school. I always excelled as a student. During my senior year, I was

It is a blessing and a curse to have such hefty family members in my community to watch over me. It was always neat to have teachers who also taught my mom and aunts. I enjoy going to school with my five cousins, all Beavercreek Beavers. My cousins played football, basketball, baseball and Wrestling, I ran track, cross country, and am on the swimming team. My family was always there to cheer us on, we bleed orange and black. I am a member of an in group, an in group, “A group with which an individual identifies herself or himself” (Ronald Adler, 2015).

Have you ever walked into a class and it seems like everyone has already formed their friend groups and you are excluded? Do ever feel like you’re not a part of the crowd just because you don’t have the newest trendy shoes? Most would describe this as feeling like an outsider, and it is a very common thing. The experience of feeling like an outsider is universal because everyone is different in terms of appearance and life circumstances, new experiences are unavoidable, and society tends to alienate people if they stray from the social norm.

In this analysis I will cover the different aspects of sport subculture and what it means to be a recognizable member within a group. I will give examples of what it means to be a part of such subcultures. For example, shared ways of dressing, group status and credibility, as well as some of the groups norms and rituals. The specific group I will discuss will be my basketball team and the role I play within it. Because my team is at highly competitive level, our norms may be unlike to other teams’ especially those of less competitive teams. Each and every team has their own culture and practices, and it is through these that they identify themselves as being different from other teams along with giving them an identity and a

While looking through the three lenses of family, biogenetic, sociolegal, and role lens, it is very hard to limit yourself to only agree with one. However, while studying these three ideas I have come to the consensus that the most prominent and practical lens to look through is the sociolegal lens. Although one cannot discredit the family values of others, throughout my lifetime I have experienced sociolegal family lifestyles. An area in my life that I have seen this lens play a huge role is throughout my tennis career. A unique experience that I have been able to be apart of throughout my college adventure revolves around Mizzou athletics. Playing tennis here at the University has been one of the most rewarding

I recently saw the film, 42, and I found many connections with our Sociology of Sport class. First and foremost, the movie was about the baseball legend, Jackie Robinson. Jack broke the baseball color barrier and was the first African American player allowed in Major League Baseball. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers beginning in 1947. Jack was a strong, talented player, but he also had a mind of his own. He played with an attitude that would be taunting to other players. When he made it to the Montreal Royals in 1946, he had to quickly get rid of this taunting, smart attitude. He was the only black player in a time of hatred and prejudice in the United States. Although he

Athletes may receive preferential treatment when being on a sports team can bring them prestige amongst peers, rewards from the school, and recognition from teachers, administrators, and people in the local community. Some athletes may use their status to interact and socialize with others, since they are popular, where some unknown students may have trouble interacting due to their lack of popularity. Some athletes, who feel they are privileged, may take advantage of the system, due to their status. If athletes are treated differently from the rest of the student body, resentment can arise where non-athletes might feel some way towards being mistreated by athletes and consider outcasts where tension can exist between both parties. A feud between athletes and non-athletes can lead to a tragic event like the Columbine shootings in Littleton, Colorado back on April 20, 1999 where 14 students and one teacher were killed. The two shooters who were non-athletes felt resentment towards athletes were shouting rants and had a vendetta to shoot athletes for past mistreatment.

Throughout my five years continuing on my sixth; I had never became so close to any sport/club offered at my school. Our team is considered a “family.” We stand by eachother through times of doubt and reminisce on our good memories. We enjoy the company of one another. Every Friday night before our Saturday morning races, the team would all sit down together and have a nice meal together. The team is a close knit group even with students joining and graduating from the

The need to feel a sense of belonging is a powerful and universal one. This sense is formed from connections made with others. The result can be a range of emotions, from an increase in the feeling of security and self esteem, to feelings of unhappiness and loneliness. When someone does not fit in, often because they are different, the negative emotions that they feel can be very harmful.

Sports participation is something that is looked at closely in todays society because of the amount of participants there are in sports today. Social classes and participation is heavily influenced by the way people live their lives, where they live, what country they live in , and perhaps most importantly, the socioeconomic class they may fall into. In some understatements, sports may serve as an identifier of what social class a family or individual may fall into, simply by looking at who we are dealing with and what sport this individual may play. As a student in a sport sociology class we find trends in countries worldwide when comparing certain sport involvement and social class. Throughout this essay I will have three arguments that will support my point about social class and participation in sports. My first point will be how economic resources affect the middle-class, second will be how social capital affects middle-class sports, and lastly lower-class and participation in sports.

People who are in a group or belong to and even assigned to the group, they would naturally think of the member within that group as the in-groups while others outside the group would be the out-groups. This can be explained by social categorization. People would normally categorize other people into different categories, including themselves. And bond between the in-groups would form. This however, would develop a discrimination between the in-group and out-group where people would favor the in-group more. Social categorization can be seen in the study done by Cialdini et .al (1976). The main purpose of the study is to find out whether people would favor their own “in-group” members more than the other people, the “out-groups”. Researcher uses two methods. First, researchers find fans from 7 different large United State prestigious football universities in a field experiment. Researchers then observed the student’s

Sports, admittedly, have had a huge impact on our culture. Some of us even use sports as an excuse to gather our family for some quality time with each other, whether they just hangout for the sake of entertainment or engage in a meaningful conversation full of fervid passion when discussing spectacular plays, athletes, and coaches. However, people talk about the multitude of positive traits that sports are associated with, one must be informed about the abundance of issues that sports face; issues that keep sports from being what we want it to be- free from malicious intent and more along the lines of a peaceful collaboration perpetuated by authentic equality; coming together to proclaim our love for the game. Inequality, for example, is

“In matches between the two groups of football teams, the teams from the same state as the umpires received more favorable decisions than the other teams did by a margin of 11% for the 171 games studied.” In situations where the umpires had to allocate rewards to members of a group they identified with competing against a group they did not identify with they clearly favored their ingroup. This study helped proved the theory that intergroup competition is a prevalent reason why ingroup favoritism is often exhibited in society. This idea is completely embedded into the entire sporting culture of our society today. We group ourselves together with the “home team” or the ingroup. We prefer for that group, as well as ourselves by association, to be successful. The second explanation that is usually offered is the idea that people will have a better opinion of people in their ingroup in order to boost their own self-esteem by association. Robert Cialdini conducted a very interesting study on a concept called Basking in Reflected Glory (BIRG) at several different universities. In order to study how self-esteem was a determinant of ingroup bias, Cialdini and his team researched the behavior of students after victories and losses of the school’s football teams. Their results “Demonstrated the BIRG phenomenon by showing a greater tendency for university students to wear