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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
- Sports encourage teamwork and unity
- Sport reflects values and social norms
- Sport transcends politics
- Sport speaks a universal language
- Sport is a measure of individual merit
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I believe that playing and participating in sports promotes teamwork and unity as everyone works towards the goal of working as a team to win the game. During many practices, many sports teams practice team-building games and practices to promote teamwork and unity among the team members because that is an important factor to develop while on a team.
In my personal experience, I have found that sports promote teamwork and unity in some cases, and in others it does not. I played hockey growing up and some of my true friends came from my teammates because we built a bond from playing hockey and working together as a team to win our games. Before games, we would always come together and pass a ball around and work on teamwork skills so we could use it out on the ice which really promoted unity amongst our team. Although I did have a good experience one year playing hockey which leads me to believe sports promote teamwork and unity, I also had a terrible experience on my school soccer team which outlines that many different perspectives can occur from the saying sports promote teamwork and unity. On my school soccer team, a lot of the teammates would not pass the ball because they were trying to get a goal to make themselves look good in front of the school audience. After experiencing being on a team like that I did not believe sports promote teamwork and unity.
There are certain to be many different perspectives on sports that promote teamwork and unity, and these perspectives can vary based on personal experience, different opinions, and more. |
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]
In my personal experience, I believe sports can be a leisure activity to participate in. For example, watching sports. Many people like myself and others make sure they watch every game such as myself watching the Leafs game. Watching and participating in sports for many individuals can be a separation from current life. The Leafs play at 7 most nights and it is a perfect time where I can sit and watch the game that lasts 2 hours and I watch the entire game. Instead of me finding something to do to cure my boredom, I often look to see what hockey teams are playing and use watching hockey as an excuse for “doing something”. Many individuals try to watch at least every leaf game such as my boyfriend, we always watch the games together as an activity and it brings us closer aswell as other individuals who cheer for the same team together.
I believe being aware and understanding metanarratives is so important in today’s society as sports are very popular. Many people play/ are involved with sports, watch sports, and in school to do something related to sports making sports involved in people’s lives. Sports also are so involved in children’s lives as they create friendships from being on a team, and they learn valuable life lessons that are important in the future. Many different intersectionalities are also involved in sports such as race, gender, ethnicity and many more that can influence many different things for an individual’s future. |
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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I believe sports is a way where many individuals can engage together and create bonds together. Sports allow a space for individuals to make friends, build trust and have fun while doing something they enjoy. When I think of sports and community engagement, I first think of special Olympic sports and how beneficial it is to individuals. My cousin has Down syndrome and participates in special Olympics basketball, he counts down the days until he has a game, tournament or practice because he loves playing on a team and making friends. I had the opportunity to get volunteer hours helping with games and running practices and what brought me the most joy was seeing everyone having so much fun playing with teammates and playing something they enjoy together not letting anything get in the way. It is important to provide accessible sports that can be accessed by any individual |
C) Social Justice Reading
D) KINESIOLOGY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
Exercise 5:
1) Social justice is a difficult concept to identify because of its:
- it is a process as well as a goal
- conflation with other concerns like multicultural education, critical pedagogy, post-modernism, post-colonialism, and queer theory
- potential for dilution because of multiple definitions
- dynamic nature and meaning
2) How does mainstream discourse construct marginalized populations as “being at risk” for health and fitness issues
- it suggests they lack the capacity for self-discipline
- it suggests they lack the capacity for self-management skills
- it suggests they lack the capacity for self-compliance in health and physical education
3) Healthism constructs members of marginalized populations as deficient, not responsible citizens, and as a “problem to be fixed” and blamed when government-mandated programs fail to meet their goals
4) According to the authors of this article, by making health and fitness a matter of personal responsibility, individual choice, and moralized practices, healthism obscures and glosses over issues of privilege, discrimination, and social inequalities
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?
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The implications of bodies-at-risk discourse and the refusal to understand the health gap from a social justice perspective vary, such as excluding marinized and oppressed populations. It was also stated in the article that bodies at risk are solely the ones to blame for the failure to be healthy and fit due to performance which leads to a failure to understand the health gap which further creates problematic issues.
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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.
I decided to write about this image as it caught my attention first due to the bright colours. I also know a bit of background information about this picture such as it was a poster that became popular during World War II due to the meaning. The meaning behind this poster was to create awareness for women joining the workforce and completing jobs that were solely for men during that time. I like this poster because it focuses on women’s empowerment, women can do anything they like and any job can be done by men or women. This empowerment poster breaks down the stigmatization that certain jobs are for men and women can complete these jobs aswell. To me, feminism means equal rights for all genders. It was obvious that back in time there was a strong focus on patriarchy but as time has evolved, women’s rights have been included more but there is always more room for improvement.
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Exercise 8: Notes Prompt (optional)
Rough notes
Liberal Feminism
- women have tried to assert themselves as being worthy of the same rights as men
- advocates that women are rational beings
- they have the right to choose their political autonomy
- equality through legal reform
- emphasise freedom that can be achieved through law
- add women’s necessity in the law to enable women’s autonomy
- identifying that women are exposed to violence = creating laws = more autonomy so women can stay employed
Socialist Feminism
- Provides a framework that analyzes both economic and gender-based oppressions along with racism ableism and other discriminations
- Aim to fight opression by understanding that class race, and gender are symbiotic issues
- The system that perpetuates problems must be completely reinvented
- needs to be a clear understanding of other systems and institutions
- understand that feminization prevents female autonomy by dictating opportunities for societal roles that women can be assigned
Radical Feminism
- tendency within the tradition of feminism itself and the women’s liberation movement
- defines women as forming a class in a quasi-Marxist sense and considers the gender-class division as the fundamental division within a society dominated by patriarchy
- Ideological perspective within the tradition of feminism, in general, that calls for a radical reorganization of society where patriarchy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts while recognizing women’s experiences are affected by other social divisions
- all women are to be regarded as potential allies
Intersectionality Inclusive Feminism
- theory that explains how multiple things meet and overlap
- concept explains the wholeness of identity and interconnectedness of experience
- explain the reality of intersectionality oppression
- opression can be caused by many different things such as racism or sexism (different intersectionalities)
Exercise 9: Crossword Activity
Exercise 10: Padlet Prompt
This is the word cloud that I created. Instead of an actual word cloud, I decided to add the words into an image with different hands holding each other, I felt this was important as it shows equality within every individual. The article outlined various important terms and concepts that stuck with me such as oppression, rights, gender, race, systemic issues and many more. Many important concepts should be well-known to create equality. The article outlines the various types of feminism such as liberal feminism, radical and social feminism and other types along with explaining the different perspectives and what they believe in. Many terms were outlined within the article that were not outlined within the crossword.
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| I believe there has been a shift in the women’s sports landscape. Although this illustration made people become quite aware and got people’s opinions on women’s sports, I feel there has been an improvement to a certain extent. For example, a famous women’s basketball player, Caitlin Clark, is famous for being outstanding in her college football years dragging in an addition of viewers to women’s basketball, following her journey now into the WNBA she has advocated for women’s rights and feminism within sports. Another example of improvement can be the NBA Skills Weekend where they did skills with both the NBA and WNBA and they did different contests and competitions against each other which broadcasted the WNBA players aswell. The examples are evident that women’s sports have improved with more audience, but there are still more people who watch male sports. I do agree that male sports are viewed more due to the better product that individuals want to see and know what they are about to watch, rather than the newer concept of women’s sports, but to tie it all together, there have been more viewers that watch sports like myself, I love to watch WNBA with my mom.
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