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Section One: The Fundamentals
A) What do we know about sport? What are common assumptions we make about sport and society?
| The promotion of teamwork and unity may not be true for everyone involved in sports as there is always a chance of othering. There are always factors that unfortunately are used against individuals in teams such as gender, race, and even skill level which can cause your teammates to set you apart from them. For example, I played on a coed soccer team, which had two rules related to gender. One was that you need to have at least two women playing on the field at all times, and the second was that you needed to pass the ball to a woman before you could score a goal. These rules had been implemented due to the lack of passing to and even including women on the teams. |
Exercise 3: Notebook prompt
What are some other metanarratives about sport that you are familiar with? Find an image or video clip or draw something yourself that captures this idea…
So what? Why does any of this matter? Does it matter? As something we grow up with – live with – play through – we don’t often interrogate the meanings of sport, and perhaps we don’t want to.
But being aware of these assumptions and metanarratives is especially important, I would argue, because of the centrality of sport to our everyday lives, the role that sport plays in shaping our childhood and worldviews and….. [finish that thought]
| Another metanarrative could involve the glorified sports teams in schools, they are known as popular, hardworking at their sport, and favored by schools who provide scholarships to those who excel in sports.
This only matters in terms of fitting in with society’s ideas and behaviours. Realistically you don’t have to follow these ideas, as they are just opinions from the general public. Not everyone believes in these metanarratives but the majority may follow these ideas. There is also a large majority that don’t even recognize they are following narratives or social constructs as they are just a way of life for most, or this is how they have always acted. People that simply follow along may not be analyzing how they are behaving and aren’t recognizing that they aren’t required to follow these ideas. This largely depends on your world experience and the people you live around and the opinions and ideas you take in from the vast amount of information and media we consume. But being aware of these assumptions and metanarratives is especially important, I would argue, because of the centrality of sport to our everyday lives, the role that sport plays in shaping our childhood and worldviews and….. the way we act in society and ultimately treat others. So if this is what we follow and allow to shape us, we need to analyze how were are acting as a society towards each individual and make sure we are treating everyone with respect and fairness.
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B) What is social justice?
Exercise 4: Padlet Prompt
Think back to the last section and try to look at some of the ideas we discussed differently. How might sport and social justice actually co-exist?
Record any images, video clips, or gifs you added to the padlet and identify a point of intersection between sport and social justice (can be an issue or a barrier or a debate or something you would like to explore in more depth in this course) . Screenshot or paste in your response below.
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The coexistence of sport and social justice can be seen in the opportunities given for health and wellbeing. Any level of sport or any type of team you join will at least provide you with some level of exercise and help with your mental health. You don’t need to have the highest skill level or best equipment to gain these benefits from participation in sports. You can improve mental and physical health as well as get some socialization in through participation of sports. Access to these benefits can range from playing with people from your neighborhood or friends for free at a a local park occasionally or joining a league that plays frequently throughout the week. Even if you play a solo sport you still gain the benefits of activity and exercise physically and mentally.
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C) Social Justice Reading
(note: this activity is optional!)
D) KINESIOLOGY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
Exercise 5:
Exercise 6:
What are the implications of bodies-at-risk discourse and the refusal to understand the health gap from a social justice perspective, according to the authors of this article?
| the implications of bodies-at-risk include the idea that these are “problem groups” and are identified as an “economic burden” to society and mainly as a problem to be solved. These groups are only disadvantaged and are “bodies-at-risk” because they are discriminated against and oppressed by the current systems in place. The solution that was proposed was a health model for all, but whiteness is still the dominant culture, and the marginalized groups are still oppressed and disadvantaged by the system. It continues the othering that occurs with minorities characterizing them as having deficiencies and being different compared to white counterparts. Another important part is that those that have been discriminated against are pushed to the side during all of the attempts to level out opportunities when they should be at the center of these discussions. Involving those who are being disadvantaged would provide the correct perspectives in order to start fixing the problems of equality. When those being mistreated are simply kept on the sidelines this furthers the treatment of othering as they aren’t even given a say in how issues could be resolved. There is also the fact that most of the attention is given to minorities like lower class communities of people of colour and not much to those with disabilities, especially when living as a person of colour with a disability. Overall, we need to move away from the implications being made that those that are disadvantaged by the system are a problem that needs to be resolved. We need to have them at the center of finding a solution to allow these perspective on the issues to be heard and taken into account.
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Section Two: Sport Feminism
Exercise 7: Notebook Prompt
What is feminism? What does it mean to you? Choose one of the images below and explain how it captures your understanding of feminism (or find one that does speak to you and paste this into your pressbook with an explanation of why it matters to you.
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feminism is the idea that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men. To me, feminism is an important concept and is about raising women up to be equal with men, not about lowering anyone. It’s not against men, it’s about providing equal ground. There is sometimes a misconception of feminism in the idea that these women are against men and the opportunities and advantages they have. There also may be the idea that we have to take these benefits away from them to bring them to the level women are at. The idea of equality is there in this thinking, however, the better idea, instead of lowering men, is to bring women up to their level. Things like equal pay in the workplace is an excellent and common example of this, as instead of lowering men’s pay we could raise women’s pay up. This image captures my understanding of feminism as it shows a strong woman, which relates to the point of empowering women I was mentioning. The woman, Rosie, is flexing her arm and saying the encouraging line “we can do it” to represent strength. The background of this photo relates to women in the workforce in WW2. Women were entering the workforce to fill in for the men who had left for war. This is an excellent example of feminism as it displays the equality in gender I was mentioning earlier, with women filling in the gaps in the workforce, it shows that they are capable and willing to do the same jobs as men. (word count = 260)
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Exercise 8: Notes Prompt (optional)
NB: Cornell notes is a great resource that teaches effective notetaking. Unfortunately, our system can’t save notes taken in the H5P app, so this is fully optional.
Exercise 9: Crossword Activity
Exercise 10: Padlet Prompt
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