Transcript Race, Culture & Sport

Race, Culture & Sport
Definitions
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Race : The physical characteristics of a person e.g. skin colour
Ethnicity: Cultural Aspects, belonging to a particular group –
religion, traditions etc…
Racism: The practice of oppression by ‘others’ due to physical
differences i.e. a set of beliefs or ideas based on the
assumption that races have distinctive cultural characteristics
determined by hereditary factors, and that this endows some races
with an intrinsic superiority.
Ethnocentrism: Assumption that culture is inferior e.g. ….
Discrimination: section of community is disadvantaged
Stereotype: Belief, but usually little fact e.g. ..
White men cant jump . . .Or run
Race
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Look at the following pictures
What do you notice?
Race – West African
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There are some physiological reasons:
Physique of black athletes better suited to sprinting.
Low body fat
Longer legs
Narrow hips
Greater muscle mass
Higher bone mineral density
Higher levels of testosterone
Higher percentage of fast twitch muscles fibres
Higher percentage of anaerobic enzymes
Race – East African
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Kenyan athletes come from a region of Africa
(Kalenjin). This area of East Africa is at high
altitiude.
Scientists believe that over the years living at altitude
has enhance the Kenyan’s ability at endurance
events.
These athletes have been shown to have
Greater numbers of red blood cells
Larger lung capacity
Greater proportion of slow twitch fibres
Race - Caucasian
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More natural upper body strength
Mesomorphic body build
Excel at weightlifting, field events, swimming
Stereotyping & Stacking
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Racial discrimination has excluded black
people from achieving in the work place.
Therefore many black people entered sport
as a way of improving their life chances.
This has led to many black people spending
more time improving their sporting ability
rather than their academic ability.
Stereotyping & Stacking
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This has produced two stereotypes:
Black people are naturally good at sport
Black people are not intelligent
Stacking
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This theory suggests that different people be
guided into different sports due to their colour
or their ethnicity.
Examples of this are that there are a lot of
black sprinters. This is not to say that only
black people can sprint.
Stacking
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Due to ideologies and beliefs that are deeply
rooted in society, people believe that certain
types of people can only play specific sports.
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The result of this is that they get channelled
into these sports and thus reproduce the
inequalities in sport and society.
Stacking
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How does racism through stacking / stereotyping
occur in the following sports in the UK?
Cricket
Tennis
Golf
Athletics
Swimming
Rugby Union
Theory of centrality
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This theory believes that the people who are
academically superior play the central
positions on the sports field.
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It is believed that these are the decisionmaking positions on the centre of the field of
play whereas the peripheral positions are the
ones that require the physical attributes such
as speed and strength.
Theory of centrality
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Through numerous studies it has been
recognised that primarily white players play
the central positions.
A prime example of this is the number of
white quarterbacks in American football
compared to the number of black ones.
This theory believes that the black athlete is
praised from the toes up and white ones are
praised from the brain down.
Theory of Centrality
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Can you think of examples of centrality in UK
sport?
Football
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A survey on the racial origin of players in the English
premiership found that:
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20.3% of players were black or black British; 4.1%
were mixed race, 0.4% were Asian, 0.7% Chinese or
other, and 74.5% white.
There are four British Asian professional players in
the English leagues: Zesh Rehman (Fulham),
Michael Chopra (Newcastle), Adnan Ahmed
(Huddersfield) and Harpal Singh (Stockport County).
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Football
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The same study has also revealed that black
players dominate certain positions.
Goalkeepers – 15%
Fullbacks – 13%
Centre Backs – 28.7%
Midfielders - 21.5%
Forwards – 47.9%
Observation of figures
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Majority of black players are forwards
Few black players have captained Premier
league clubs, and none have yet managed
one, despite many now being in retirement.
Paul Ince was the first black player to captain
England.
Very few black players play pivotal roles.
Self Fulfilling Prophecy
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This is basically a theory that states that if
you are told something or grouped / labelled
as something you will end up as it.
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Can you think of ways in which this occurs in
sport in the UK?
Initiatives to Combat Racism
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There are many instances of racism in sport in the
UK. For this aspect of the task you should research
newspaper articles and websites and comment on
your findings.
In particular football in the UK has had a number of
incidents related to racism. Find out about them and
also comment on what is being done about it.
Look up these websites
www.kickitout.org
www.furd.org