Education Occupation Income Lifestyle Choices are largely determined by these factors Social class differences clearly impact upon levels and practices of physical activity and sporting participation Skiing sailing golf tennis fencing riding Upper Class Walking jogging yoga hiking climbing middle class Boxing wrestling working class Bourdieu s classification How can we account for this sporting social hierarchy According to Bourdieu this can be attributed to the differential Social Class Determinants of Sporting Activity Economic Capital financial time resources Social Capital social connections and networks Cultural Capital learned preferences for particular activities Cultural Capital and in particular Bourdieu s concept of Habitus Plays an important role in the distribution of sport forms across the social class groupings Soccer is the default sporting practice for the suburban middle class in the US In the rest of the world soccer is a lower class game Cheap don t need a lot of equipment Can play anywhere So why does the US see soccer as a middle class sport Teach children the right way to act Organized teams nice fields Soccer is heavily racialized in the US and seen as appropriate for whites Not as physical not a lot of physical content Mainly European Fields in the suburbs that aren t in inner cities Racialized Bodies Racialized Activities appropriate whiteness appropriate blackness Each has come to be understood as the appropriate expression for natural race based embodied physical culture Racial Binaryyy 2 Americas Whites associated with suburbia and blacks associated with inner city A common socio historic derivation Historically grounded class race based discrimination restricted educational opportunities and compromised economic opportunities super dome sport and Katrina Basketball is a game inherent to the inner city Don t need a lot of open space Don t need grass or anything Don t need much equipment Not an essentially black pastime rather the game of America s urban working class Although people assume the link between race and basketball it s more geographical The group that dominates the inner city dominates the sport of basketball Urban Basketball More competitive More physical More individualistic
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