Ok I thought I was going to be able to swing the articles I used in my annotated bibliography but after trying to combine them into an abstract for this assignment I realized that I have good articles individually but together they don’t provide sufficient enough evidence to state my point for my final paper (especially reading through your posts about your paper topics!).
My original plan: discuss the advantages and disadvantages one’s social class has on their participation in athletics. Social class has a huge impact on many aspects of sports in America affecting participants at all levels. Whether it is the lack of money available to purchase the proper equipment that puts you at a disadvantage or the advantages a person gains when participating in a sport at a very wealthy high school; every individual’s success in sports is affected by their social class.
Since social class is such a touchy subject in America to begin with, I had trouble while looking for articles to use for my annotated bibliography. While I found articles that discussed a few ways in which social class affects sports, I was unable to really find any specific examples. I assume this is because no one wants to admit that they allowed someone’s social class to affect their decision in choosing players for their sports team. Since this was to gain feedback from our classmates, can any of you think of a spin I could use similar to this topic or maybe even a subtopic that would allow me to research social class in athletics? Having been an athlete all of my life and in the athletic training program here at NKU for four years I have experienced many situations of social class in athletics. I know it is prevalent, I just believe it lacks significant publication to write a research paper.
I realize this is going to set me back, so your feedback is going to be very benificial! I would rather choose a similar topic that I will be able to obtain ample evidence on to back up my points. If any of you have any ideas similar or can think of another aspect that might be skipping my mind please let me know!
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I would wonder about the specific sports. For instance, are poorer people playing football and baseball while the middle class plays soccer and basketball (or something like that). I grew up middle class, and I mostly played soccer and basketball. I guess the first question I would ask is which sports feature more players from poorer backgrounds, and which feature players from wealthier backgrounds? What social class is watching these sports the most? Is there a correlation?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting topic. Good luck fleshing it out.
as i was reading this, i was getting the same kind of idea that eric was getting. you could look at the different backgrounds of the players who play the different sports. if you wanted to expand on this, you might also want to look at the "highbrow" sports vs. "lowbrow" sports. like polo vs bowling. typically when you think of the sport polo, it's played by people of higher class, and then bowling is considered to be a working class sport. you could look into something along those lines
ReplyDeleteWhat is the role of social class in one's participation in certain sports? Ex: Basketball is much more accessible than hockey. All you need is a ball. Community courts are a dime a dozen. Hockey equipment and rink time is often so expensive that schools can't even sponsor teams; they have to register as individual clubs and families have to put up all of the money for their children to play.
ReplyDeleteA quick search through Google unearthed the following academic articles (you will have to use Steely Library's databases to access the full length articles):
http://irs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/37/1/5
http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405124331_chunk_g978140512433125_ss1-237
http://www.springerlink.com/content/q32t05124737p79w/
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120704148/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
I think that you have a very interesting topic! I agree with Eric and think that maybe you could compare sports to what social class you belong too. If your upper class, does that mean the majority play baseball? You could find out about that. Or, you could compare highschools to different social classes as well. For example, I am from Cincinnati and St. X is a very good school when it comes to athletics, and alot of kids choose to go to St. X because their sports are unbeliveable, but the social class for St. X is upper class. Maybe you could compare highschool sports with class as well.
ReplyDeleteBeing a former athlete at NKU I can relate to you in how you said you were involved in the NKU athletic training program. I'm sure you saw many "types" of athletes coming in and out. I think maybe for your paper you could compare and contrast athletes who play certain sports, what their social status is. For example, I come from the middle class and have been playing soccer since I could walk. I definitely think that you should consider the comments from the classmates prior to my post. Good luck!
ReplyDeletesounds like an interesting topic and I would love to read it! I think you are probably right about having serious problems finding peer reviewed work on it. Maybe something to consider would be the budgets for sport at under-privileged schools. You can go online to some schools or districts and look at the budgets....from this you may be able to draw some conclusions.
ReplyDeleteI like you topic a lot! I think it will be very informative. I think looking at the equipment required is also a factor. If the sport is more expensive. Also with women's sports for example I was a gymnast for 12 years. It is an extremely expensive sport. I think looking at how much it cost to actually participate in the sport would be good. Also some of the larger, higher class schools will offer a wide range of sports. That could be something to look at. Good luck! I think it will turn out great!
ReplyDeleteI think that this topic is a very neat one. The paper should be very interesting! I agree with some of the others who advised to maybe look at the differences in class between sports. For example, how likely is someone from a lower class to play a sport like polo, hockey or golf? How likely is it for a member of a higher class to participate in basketball or bowling?
ReplyDeleteI think that if you narrowed your topic a little, for instance, to focus only on the social differences in basketball and polo - you may have more success in finding sources for your paper. Sounds like it will be really interesting, and as an athlete - I know I would love to read the results that you find.
I think you could use the topics that most of our other classmates have suggested. I believe it is true that most upper class individuals choose different sports than lower class. I believe Dr. B is correct when talking about more equipment means more money, and you may find that some lower class high schools don't have sports like hockey because of the hefty expense. You may want to compair and contrast the amount of sports offered in lower class high schools to upper class high schools, because there may be drastic differences.
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