social class within physical activity

How Social Class Effects Children’s Participation In Physical Activity

When I was teaching physical education during my second year school placement, all my classes had a variety of different social classes. Many of the students were from the middle class or lower class. Almost everyone in the school played football or some team based sport as the school was a very football orientated school. However, students from a lower socio-economic background often only participated in these team based sports in the school. I noticed that when I was doing invasion games with my students that they were all familiar with the games. In contrast, when I was doing dance there were only two students who had done dance before outside of school. These two students were from a very wealthy background. When doing dance all the students enjoyed dance. One student came up to me and said to me that he really enjoyed dance and that he would like to do more of it. I asked if he would join a dance club and he said that there were none close to him. His social economic had interfered with him taking part in dance outside of school.

The main findings around children’s social class and their participation in physical activity, indicate that students from a “higher socio-economic status take part in more physical activity.” (Wanless, 2004, p.99). This is to do with them having more opportunities to part take in physical activity. It also states that “people with a higher level of final education were less likely to drop out of sport, having been more likely to take it up in the first place” (Kay 2003, p.248). An interesting study that you can look at here   http://repository.edgehill.ac.uk/8962/1/Wheeler,%20Green%20and%20Thurston.docx shows clearly that the higher social class bracket you are in the more sports are available to you. The middle class in this study have more sports available to them. They are also introduced to a wide variety of sports by their parents who invest in their children’s physical activity opportunities. “This inevitably gives the sons (especially) and daughters of the middle-classes a head start in curricular and extra-curricular PE and further-reinforces the already greater social and cultural benefits of being middle-class” (Green, 2008, p.164) according to a study by Philip White (McMaster University) 

William McTeer (Wilfrid Laurier University) “As the child grows older, however, the presence of specialist teachers in middle and high schools and the availability of more and better sports opportunities and facilities may create more and less costly opportunities for involvement. This would suggest that SES effects on sport involvement would decline with age.” (White and McTeer, 2012) This tells us as physical educators that it is our job to close the social class gap and introduce all students to a wide variety of sports.

In the future, I would start teaching physical education through football as it is classless in regardless of social class. This would build relationships within my class and form a common ground amongst the students. then I would quickly move away from the traditional sports such as soccer, basketball and rugby. I would move more towards gymnastics, dance, volleyball, badminton and HRA to give the students a taste of the wide variety of sports there are out there. This might allow a student from a lower socio-economic background gain experience in a sport they might not have otherwise been exposed to. I would also include how to adapt games so the students could play them at home or with their friends if they didn’t have all the equipment needed. I think I will set up an after-school activity class for my students once a week and each week we will introduce the students to a new sport or activity.

References

White, P. and McTeer, W. (2012). Socioeconomic Status and Sport Participation at Different Developmental Stages during Childhood and Youth: Multivariate Analyses Using Canadian National Survey Data. Sociology of Sport Journal, 29(2), pp.186-209.

Wheeler, S., Green, K. and Thurston, M. (2017). Social class and the emergent organised sporting habits of primary-aged children. European Physical Education Review, pp.1356336X1770609.