1
Section One: The Fundamentals
A) What do we know about sport? What are common assumptions we make about sport and society?
Exercise 1: Before we go any further, I want you to take a moment and complete the phrases below:
While these statements might be true on one level, on another, they do not align with many people’s experience of sport, which brings us to our first class discussion forum.
Exercise 2: Padlet response
Speculate on why some of the statements/assumptions above might be untrue for some people or from a certain perspective. Is there anything your peers noted that surprised you? Comment on this as well.
[type below or paste in a screenshot of your padlet participation]
| Sport Builds Character: I’ve grown up playing lacrosse and hockey for a majority of my life. When I am playing these sports, I find that when I get put in tough positions, or given chances by my coach, it builds my character tremendously. It gives me not only a ton of confidence, but also helps me work on my grit and determination. I am very thankful to have coaches that push me hard when I play and are always wanting me to do my best. Unfortunately, I have also had coaches that have completely dimmed the light inside of me. When people have these types of coaches, who are constantly putting them down, yelling at them and even not playing them, it is extremely difficult for someone to build character from the experience and grow as a person, instead, sometimes it feels like they are moving backwards. |
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 that I am familiar with in sport would be injuries. Many athletes have to overcome injuries while playing a sport, and it shows their courage, and confidence to get back up when they have a setback. I added a picture below to portray this idea. This metanarrative matters because it has significance to show society that you should always keep working towards what you want to achieve. This metanarrative, in the subject of sports, can also be a metanarrative in many different aspects of life. The role that sport plays in shaping our childhood, and worldviews, and personality.
|
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.
| Growing up, playing sports at the highest level I could was always what I wanted to do and would continuously strive for. I loved it because I could take my mind off of real life for a few hours a day, and everything felt like it was going to be ok. As I grew up, this concept changed a lot for me. I started hearing of multiple cases within high level sports where young women and men were dropping their passion because they were experiencing mental health setbacks such as depression, anxiety, and eating disorders due to the constant stress of making sure they were performing good enough for their coaches, team and fans. It is important that athletes take their health into consideration when they are performing at high levels of sports. |
C) Social Justice Reading
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?
| According to the authors in this article, many researchers forget to include marginalized people when they are researching health. They explain that privileged people often have a hard time understanding how marginalized people feel, especially when they are feeling helpless and excluded. They explain that teachers need to be developed on social justice to be prepared for teaching personal education to kids, especially marginalized youth. The refusal to understand the gap between health and marginalized people from a social justice perspective is getting better but not there yet. There is a need to learn more about how to reduce sedentary actions, and help enhance marginalized peoples lives so they can live a healthier life and be more understood in a stance of social justice. |
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.
| To me, feminism means to support women with everything they do. I think of feminism as pushing women to do whatever they want to do in life even if it is classified as a “male job”. The “we can do it” picture captures my understanding of feminism because it showcases that women can do whatever they put their mind to and that all women should feel supported while doing so. |
Exercise 9: Crossword Activity
Exercise 10: Padlet Prompt
Create your own word cloud including all of the important terms and concepts covered in the article that were not included in the crossword activity! (Record or screenshot your response below).
|
Exercise 11: Padlet Discussion Prompt (optional)
The illustration featured in this padlet (of a basketball with the word “women’s” eclipsing a basketball bearing the word “men’s” at the time of the solar eclipse) ran last year in a Philadelphia newspaper piece about how athletes like Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark were generating unprecedented enthusiasm for women’s sport. Do you feel the landscape is changing? Do people care about women’s sport?
| I believe there has been a shift to the interest in women’s sports. Female athletes such as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are doing an amazing job in their sport and also the media to bring attention to them and their sport. I also believe that these athletes are giving young women inspiration that one day they could be like them as well. I think that is why there has been so much attention within womens sports recently. I believe that this will stick around and will only get more popular. Take the new PWHL association for example. It is a women’s professional hockey league that has gained a ton of attention in the past two years. With all this attention, the league will gain more profit, and then can expand and make it even more popular. I think the more popular it becomes, people will start to care more as it is fun to watch, and a lot of these women have a true talent. |
