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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?
Sport builds: character
Sport provides opportunities for: social mobility
Sport encourages: teamwork and unity
Sport reflects: values and social norms
Sport transcends: politics
Sport speaks: a universal language
Sport is a measure of: individual merit
| Sports promote teamwork and unity:
Being apart of a sports team or playing a sport during your life will help promote teamwork and unity for many people. When joining a new team for the first time everyone has their own skills and strengths needed to help the team to be successful. In order for these skills to be used everyone on the team needs to get along with each other and find common ground. The players must learn how to trust each other, support each other and how to communicate well playing the game. During the process of learning these skills teamwork and unity come along. Growing up playing sports it was always emphasized that we are a team and must work alongside each other in order to do well. This idea of teamwork was always talked about no matter the sport I was playing or how long I has been on the team. |
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]
| Within sports there are different metanarratives that are important due to the role they play in our society and our everyday lives. Above I have included a picture to help better explain how metanarratives within sports can be relayed back to our everyday lives within society. In the picture it shows some NBA players kneeling during the national anthem. Over the course of the last couple years we have started to see athletes take a stand and show support for social justice issues. Starting in 2020 on there have been case of athletes kneeling during the national anthem as a sign of support for black individuals who have been affected by racism, police brutality, and discrimination by because of their skin colour. Although this act can seem small and meaningless it shows how sports can relate back to our daily lives. These individuals have a harder time joining sports, being successful, and taken seriously based on the colour of their skin. The bias placed against black individuals is one that can be covered up by whiteness in sports easily. The CEO’s of these sports teams and owners of the league called for punishment to be placed against players who were kneeling during the anthem. A question that I always had with this is why should they be punished. The anthem talks about freedom for everyone yet their freedom is being taken away just because of the colour of their skin.
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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.
| Health and Wellness:
Sport and social justice can co-exist when looking at health and wellness. Many people use sports as an escape from reality when stressed or going through difficult times. The escape that sport provides ends up helping people experience better mental health well also helping improve their physical health. Growing up playing soccer helped my mental and physical health in many ways. Soccer was the one place I knew I fit in and that I could freely express myself without being judged. This made me push myself to always improve my skills and my physical health so I could be the best player. Although after a while of putting pressure on myself to always be the best I started to feel run down and like I was not preforming in the ways I knew I could. This is when I knew it was important to take a break before I lost the passion I had for soccer. Playing sports will always be the time i feel best mentally and physically. |
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?
| In the article they discuss the implications of bodies at risk within sports and how this can show the health gap. In the article they talk about this idea of an ideal body needed for sports. This idea of ideal bodies in order to be successful when playing sports stems from societies ideas on white people’s bodies and how they work. The ideal body would be a slim, fit, average height person however, this idea comes from the study of white bodies and not those who are outside of the whiteness. People who do not fit within this category were seen as not have able bodies for sports an example would be people who are overweight, people with disabilities, and people who are not the idea body type for that sport. Although people who are overweight and have disabilities can play sports and be just as successful the idea within society is that they can not. When you are outside the ideal body there are more barriers for you to play and be successful within sports. |
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.
| The idea of what feminism is varies based on who is giving the answer and what type of feminism they believe is the “right one”. There are many different ideas and concepts on feminism within society. For myself I have pasted a photo above that I believe best shows what feminism means to me and what it should mean to society. When thinking about feminism and what it means for society many ideas are based on the values and beliefs that best impact white women. I believe that this should not be the case as there is more then just white women within our society who deserve to have rights. In our society we should value the voices and beliefs for all women including women of colour, women with disabilities, and trans women. They are all women as well which means their voices, rights, and values should be included in the fight for a better society. |
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
Across
3: Relativism
5: Essentialism
9: Serena
10: Fluidity
12: Performativity
Down
1: Capitalism
2: Underrepresentation
4: Socialization
6: Malestream
7: Heterosexy
8: Invisibility
11: Rich
13: Reform
Exercise 10: Padlet Prompt
| Words used:
Women Sport Feminism Gender Inequalities Queer Theory Social Justice Discrimination Social Change Class Gender Black Feminism Race Marxist Intersectionality Stereotypes Power |
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