Essay on Social Influences on Sport Participation

Firstly gender has a marked effect on Australian sports playing and spectating. At the very start of the century woman played few sports because sports were too physically demanding for the body. The widespread acceptance of medicalised perspectives on female bodies served to limit female sporting involvement for a very long time. International Review for the sociology of sport 50 (4-5)pp.430-436. In todays society, there is still continuous inequality throughout the sporting industry amongst athletes and sporting teams. With sport being a strong influence, there are many ongoing consistencies.

Current society is built upon stereotypes and constructions that are predetermined by previous generations’ views. One of the most recognised historical constructions is the patriarchal theory, that the female is subservient to the male. However, this construction of gender power is slowly equalising, with the rise of feminist groups in the latter part of the 20th century giving reason for this occurring. Nevertheless, gender battles are still occurring, particularly in the sporting industry, which remains male dominated. Female sport has been given much notoriety over their uproar in the past decade, but is finding in a male controlled industry it is difficult for women to receive help from governing bodies. Female sport is

Similarly, there is a failure by the male dominated leadership to revise and address the structures which suppress women giving an unfair advantage to male athletes (Talbot 2002:282). Male dominance has immensely influenced

Gender in sport has been an ongoing issue, especially for women, with many factors influencing their participation in sport

It is a clear fact that men receive much more media attention and coverage than

This source is reliable because the author provided quotes from people in the sport and social media who install stereotypes to female athletes and provided their name and occupation. The goal of this source is to inform the audience about the distinctive views of people in society about women playing a male sport and contradict those views with facts. This source helps shape my argument by providing contradicting perspectives from people in the sport media about women being part of a male dominated sport instead of encouraging them. I’ll be using this source to prove a counter argument about why society is segregating men from women in sports to have an idea of their perspective on the

Americans have always loved sports; although the sports early Americans practiced may not still today be what the majority of people enjoy. For example, early Americans hunted, swam, ran, rode horses and played competitive games such as tug of war. They also participated in military skills contests, which have always been seen as an acceptable form of leisure time activity across many cultures. Sports have always been part of the American culture and identity. In her book “More than just a game: Sports in American Life since 1945,” Kathryn Jay states: “In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sports remained an important cultural venue for many immigrants, serving as a public ritual of inclusion as well as a space in which minority groups could prove their worth to themselves and to a white, Anglo-Saxon majority” (35). Although sports, as Jay mentioned, presented a venue for inclusion, it did not extend to all Americans. It is only over time that minority classes were able to get social justice and truly find a common ground. Women and African-Americans are a perfect example of this. This in turn reveals the underlying hypocrisy in the culture of American sports until recently.

This article will briefly discuss the three main theories of sociology, which are the structural, the social conflict, and the symbolic interaction approach and how it applies to sports. It can be said that through the views of the Structural approach, sport actually help society to operates, and it has both dysfunctional and functions consequences. The structural function approach can be defined as a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability(Macionis, 2010). In a sport team or in any given team, as we all know in order for them to succeed each individual must perform together. For example, with in the various football team’s in Belize different players play different position, such as forward, midfielder, defender, and goalkeeper.

In the book entitled A Sociological Perspective of Sports, Wilbert Marcellus Leonard II says, “Many of us have strong opinions as to the value of competitive sports. Some of our beliefs are based on personal experiences, others are not” (219). I have my own strong opinions about the value of sports, most of which are based on personal experiences. I have been surrounded by, and involved in, competitive level sports my entire life.

Many in the community are not aware that the class of Sociology of Sport is offered in the school. Many who do recognize that the class is being offered in the school may also question the value and academic merit of such a course. What people don’t see is that the world of sports is closely linked to the social world. Social attitudes are reflected in the world of sports. These attitudes can be seen in different ways such as the social atmosphere affecting sports, the ways in which we define sports, exempting the world of sports from the world of citizenship and deviance in sports. Through these ways we can see how such a class can enlighten a person on sports and the real world.

Sports we support, follow and play today are part of our day-to-day lives and we forget that over 250 years ago the sports established today did not yet exist and the few that did would be unappealing and unrecognisable to the sports fans of today. Looking back to the history of sports we see a story of evolution, starting off as physical activities for survival; man hunting for food and rowing for

Statistic which was taken in 2008 revealed that about 64% of Aboriginals between 4-14 years involved in some sort of sports/PA with 12 months (Gray et al., 2013). Male indigenous Australians between the age of 4 & 14 took part in some sort of PA more than female indigenous Australians at 65% for male and 63% for females respectively (Gray et al., 2013). In the year 2008, only about 30 percent of Indigenous Australians 15 years or more identified to have engaged poorly or not engaged at all in any PA/sports over the course of one year (Gray et al., 2013).

Dino Franco Felluga (2002) states that hegemony or hegemonic power is “The process by which dominant culture maintains its dominant position.” Powerful sources, such as the media, are able to manipulate an individual’s thoughts and brainwash them into believing that males and females have certain traits which separate them from each other. These sources also convey dominant messages and persuade the audience to perceive that masculinity and physical activity are associated with being male, whereas females are associated with being delicate and unable to participate in large amounts of physical activity as it affects their ability to reproduce effectively. The NSW Sport and recreation information sheet (2014) states that “Women have made a consistent and significant contribution to Australian sport at all levels, yet their achievements on the whole receive limited coverage by the mass media”. It covers recent statistics on media coverage for male and female athletes for radio, television and newspaper broadcast. Radio statistics state that women make up 1.4% of radio time, 2.0% of television time and only 10.7% of newspaper coverage (NSW Sport and Recreation, 2014). Evidently, this displays how men dominate over females in regards to physical activity and sport in the media. If female sports are not exposed to the population, how are female athletes expected to be socially

In today's world, sports play a huge role in society. Through sports we find people being physically active through first hand participation. We also find a united community as people band together with fellow fans to cheer on their favorite teams. Professional and college sports also allow economic impact by providing jobs, from the janitor at the stadium to the general manager of the team. Through close examination and research we can show that sports have a positive effect on many aspects of society.

The fact that sport has undergone radical changes in the course of its development to become a multibillion dollar industry can be blamed entirely on the social, political and economic transformations that have accompanied it. Some of the major sporting events such as the Olympics and the World Cup best showcase some of the radical changes created by sports as well as some of the economic impacts they usually have in the host