The Role Of Sports In Sports And Sports

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Social class is defined as categories of people who share a place in society based on their wealth, education, occupation, earnings and social connections. (Coakley and Pike, 2009, pp. 350 – 351). People in a certain social class are also perceived to achieve similar life opportunities for accomplishing status, power and economic success in society. Sport is portrayed to civilisation as open to everyone; every person in the country can achieve success if they put hard work into it. Nonetheless, money for the resources and coaching to achieve great sporting status has to come from somewhere, consequently meaning that athletes with a higher social class who will receive individual resources from families, government, individuals or organisations will excel in their sport in oppose to athletes with a lower socio-economic background with less material resources. (Coakley and Pike, 2009) Bourdieu (1978) defined cultural capital as shared …show more content…

(Taniguchi & Shupe, 2012). In lower and working class families, women are less likely to get involved in sports due to time spent being a parent. Although women aren’t now expected to stay at home and rear a family, due to childcare costs this is usually the case, so there is seen to be a higher participation rate for women in sport from an upper class background who are able to fund childcare costs and sports equipment. (Coakley and Pike, 2009) Children from wealthier families like these are more likely to participate in Sport from a young age, as they will have an advantage of their own bought equipment, paid coaches, and more access to sports clubs out of school time where parents can drive them to and from. However, this doesn’t mean that children from working class backgrounds are less likely to succeed in sport, with provisions such as Sporting Chance, Street Games and School Games, there are opportunities in place for success that any child can

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