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Sports Participation as a Builder of Character?
| Article
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14913 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1988 |
4,485 Words |
| Author
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George H. Sage
George H. Sage is professor of kinesiology and sociology at
the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado. |
"Sports builds character!" This assertion is frequently made by community leaders, school officials, parents, and even average citizens when a discussion turns to the social functions of organized sports programs. Sports, it is argued, provide a social environment whereby culturally valued personal-social attitudes, values and behaviors are acquired; moreover, it is implied that what is learned in the sport setting transfers to other spheres of an individual's life. So the slogan that "sport builds character" canonizes a widespread faith that many people have in sport as an agent of social development.
There are several perspectives one can take in assessing the purported character-developing premise about sports participation, but space limitations demand that I delimit my commentary. Accordingly, I shall restrict my remarks to two levels of analysis, namely the empirical evidence for this conviction about sport and the ideological foundation underlying the type of character that sport is envisaged to build.
In spite of the taken-for-granted trust in the slogan about sport building character, there is no well-conceived and conducted empirical research on the effects of organized sports involvement on social development. There are several reasons for this. First, the word "character" is extremely vague; it can actually have many meanings, but when left unspecified there is no way of knowing which one is implied. When it is anchored to a set of attitudes, values, and behaviors--which it must be to make any empirical sense--those attitudes, values, and behaviors that constitute character denote only one meaning of the concept. There are widespread cultural differences in what are considered valued beliefs and actions in various situations, so the exhibition of a particular behavior--or character trait--in a specific situation in one culture might be considered a demonstration of good character, whereas in another it might be considered a demonstration of bad character. Regardless of the meaning imputed to the word "character," it is a socially constructed concept that is amenable to a variety of interpretations.
A second reason that empirical research on the assumed character-building property of sport is scarce is related to the first. It is extremely difficult to empirically verify the character-building effects of sport involvement. Traditional experimental designs are impractical because it is almost impossible to arrange the necessary controlled conditions for collecting the relevant data. Cross-sectional research designs can only provide data about relationships, so they are worthless as far as
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