Using the concepts of class, gender and ‘race’, show how sport in Britain is affected by patterns of social inequality

Each society established its own regulate of norms, values and beliefs. It is these that curb caused societies to change and develop over clock creating ideologies of inequality, diagonal and segregation. Often the beliefs of a population stem from the hegemonic group within that society, and others possessing less(prenominal) genial status are pressured into conforming as a result. This serve up is unmingled within the sporting world as society repeatedly forces discrimination and segregation based on socio-economic or physical differences as dictated by the hegemonic group. Class is possibly the grea runnel creator of inequality.We micturate seen how several mainstream sports can be analysed in terms of shifts and continuities in the social context in which they have emerged, prospered or declined. Their fate has been determined fundament wholey due to material social and economic factors, and the human heathen resolution to those influences (Horne, Tomlinson & Whannel, 1999). Sports companionship is not a matter of personal choice, of individual preference. It depends upon the pecuniary resources available to the potential participant, the social status of those prominent in that activity, and the ethnic meaning of a sport and the individuals relationship to those meanings.The recruitment and induction processes into, say, golf game and tennis clubs bear testimony to this. Take the plainly open-minded and syndicateless basis of a newcomer presenting herself at a tennis club. In order to do this the aspirant must communicate competently with the gate-keepers of a club read the social interactions and etiquette and conventions of a club comply with the primp code be equipped with relatively sophisticated technology (she would be unlikely to get far with a wooden Dunlop Maxply in 2001) and be able to play at a aim of acceptable competence (Horne, Tomlinson & Whannel, 1999).While it is evident that upper classes thrive on being members of s coop clubs that for others were financially inaccessible such as the England Tennis Club at Wimbledon (Sleap, 1998). The middle classes established their own clubs, although they experienced less vacant eon in which to enjoy the activities. However, they did receive subsidised sporting access via the ancient boy network. The working class endured the roughest deal. For them the term meritocracy never existed. They had no time or money to be involved in sports or leisure activities, and therefore tended only to enjoy sport at festivals and fetes.The games they played were a complete contrast to the upper classes, they has no organisation or codification and were violent and aggressive. The complex relationship between class cultures, or habitus, and testicle sports institutions has been further analysed, at a theoretically more sophisticated level by John Hargreaves (1986). He shows how the practises and technologies of training and sport have served as instruments of class dom ination, and have contributed to the cultural reproduction of class difference and social inequality.The rigid distinctions erected between the amateur and the professional were in the end root in class domination. The formation of these institutions on the base of public school and university sport made them as well as an expression of the domination of social career by men. This does not mean that no women or working class people were involved in sport. But such involvement was unceasingly within the bounds of authority exercised by men of the bourgeoisie (Horne, Tomlinson & Whannel, 1999). The do of modern sports has been a predominantly masculine narrative, with women marginalised or disenfranchised at most stages of the narrative.Womens involvement in cricket too, was marginalised early on, and Sandiford (1994) notes that cricket was seen as too much a manly sport even for the tennis and field hockey playing women students at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford in the late nineteenth century. It was not until 1926 that the British Womens Cricket Association was founded, by hockey and lacrosse players from Malvern College (Hargreaves, Jennifer. 1994). Colley et al (1987) supported that participation of 16-18 year old males an females suggested that sports are legato strongly sex typed.This enforces inequalities in society as people have images and expectations to live up to, or risk being ridiculed. Before the era of mass media, the recording of cultural imagery was firmly linked to the power of the church and the aristocracy. Painters were commissioned to fol execrable the material wealth of owners. Sporting paintings portrayed the horses and dogs of the land -owners (Goldman, 1983). There were also paintings of scenes of carnivalesque celebration, such as the famous Derby Day painting, and of everyday low life showing cock-fighting or dog-fighting.The sporting press began to emerge in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. The 1870 E ducation Act had helped produce a new reading public. The first sports pages began to emerge in 1896 with the launch of the day-by-day Mail. This initiated the modern era of mass circulation of popular newspapers (Horne, Tomlinson & Whannel, 1999). Instead of having a overbearing effect on the portrayal of women in sport, the hegemonic group who have reign sport for all time, are still dictating what images get published.During the 2000 Olympic games, the free-and-easy Star published no less than 70% of photographs of sporting males. However, outdoors the sports pages during the games 70% of the photographs were of the Olympic women. These shots did not show them in the same visible radiation as their male counterparts, who were obviously of the same world class standard. They sexualised the athletes, exposing flesh. Would this have been the case if the Olympic moto had been constructed as Balance, Flexibility and Ultra Endurance, instead of Faster, Higher, Stronger ? (Lines, 2001).These issues are not restricted to prejudice in womens sport, but create disadvantages for races who do not conform to the hegemonic groups system. For example, in the relationship between sport and interior(a) identity, cricket is invested with more significance than any other sport in India. Even although India dominated inter depicted object hockey for decades (not losing a match in the olympics from 1928 to 1960) (McDonald, I. 1999). However, the low inter study prestige associated with success in hockey, has divested hockey in India of significant political importance.The widespread popularity and therefore, the commercial nature of international test and one day cricket in India can be discerned from a comparison with the game in England. Whereas the sponsors of English cricket have traditionally been banks and insurance companies, Pespi and Coca-Cola vie for predominance amoungst the benefactors of Indian Cricket (McDonald, I 1999). This just now confirms the class an d race inequalities established in Britain. Class, gender and race are all inter-linked, they coincide and share some similar issues.It is clear from studies in inequality in society, that financial, racial and sex-typing have influenced British sport for many years. It is because of this that often when it comes to international contest and World championships, Britain regularly illumines short of other countries. Although the introduction of the national curriculum in 1991 saw one of the first major attempts to disregard inequality no separation between class, gender or race, with everyone fighting(a) in the same activities with the same opportunities.However, private schools are exempt from the national curriculum and thus are geared to more affluent games, reinforcing the polarization of the classes. While Gruneau (1983) argues mass participation in sport during the second half(a) of the twentieth century has meant that class inequality in sport has apparently declined an d there is now a leisure mass instead of a leisure class. Ruling class ideology is still evident today and although there have been attempts to reduce its effects, people are still influenced.The prevention or reduction of inequality is a large and grave issue. Attempts by the womens liberation groups and the government to establish schemes that allow access to equipment for all 1997 Sport for All campaign. However, strong inequalities still exist in the form of burdensomeness by the ruling classes, stereotyping of women and racial discrimination. Until these are reduced and controlled Britain will remain to fall behind on the athletic stage.