SP0742 Sports Development Assignment Sample
Module Code And Module Title : SP0742 Sports Development Assignment Sample
Essay Topic:
“Impact of sports development policy for social and community changes”
The policy is described as a set of actions to address a particular issue or achieve several outcomes. Sports play a crucial role in developing and connecting every individual for a long time. In simpler terms, sports development can be described as the promotion of sports activities for various communities (Smith et. al. 2018). It can be observed that successful sports development primarily depends on effective partnership and networking among a wide range of service providers, community groups, local authorities, voluntary groups, and National Governing Bodies.
The primary motive for developing sports and their related opportunities is decreasing the barriers to participation, social and community development, and promoting personal. Sports can be recognised as a social policy helping in steering social change and also helping in responding to diverse social issues. The current study primarily focused on the way social change is brought through the means of sports.
Other than that, sports for development programs have become a strong tool for learning and acquiring knowledge. Sports help in promoting inclusion, participation, human values, tolerance, gender equality, teamwork, acceptance of rules, health promotion, non-violence, and many more.
Furthermore, it can be seen that sports development policies are primarily useful in dealing with various societal problems and keeping individuals connected. Additionally, sport is also described as a powerful tool that helps in improving the development and quality of children. Various individuals are there interested in watching sports and being a part of them (Pangtey, 2019). On the other sight, sports can also be defined as a major tool for teaching essential life lessons to all people.
It is because sports have always taught individuals about diversity that further helps in strengthening democracy. The primary idea for using sports as a social and community development tool is that it helps in keeping people united even if they come from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Therefore, a sport is an essential tool for inciting social changes effectively.
Sports have always been an effective tool for bringing positive change in society and communities. As it offers livelihood to bridging the social gap because millions of individuals are involved in watching tournaments irrespective of their age and it signifies the impact of sports on societal change (Kalinina et. al. 2018).
Looking at the historic moment of sports, it can be seen that several positive social changes like inclusion, gender equality, unity, reduced discrimination, and more can be observed. Sports are not only a physical activity but it also helps individuals in learning lifelong chapters that help in creating a positive change.
The primary idea here is to use sports as an effective tool to reduce the various cultural and socioeconomic differences along with uniting people. It can be observed that sports help in bringing people together from different countries and it forms an unknown connection between different individuals.
Sports as a social good
Sports development helps in bringing competition along with teaching morality, ambition, and integrity, amusing and challenging. It can be seen that various sports and curriculum activities are organised all around the world that are watched by millions of individuals (Melsa, 2021). Athletes taking part in sports come from diverse backgrounds and are concerned about social change; it can be observed that they play as a team keeping discrimination aside.
It proves that sport helps in strengthening equality among individuals irrespective of discriminating people based on their caste, religion, colour, sex, and more. They play as a team and the concern of every player is heard describing equality among athletes. It signifies those sports connect people playing in a team and help in reducing discrimination from the entire world. Sports can be used as a tool for bringing social changes and for uniting communities. Various benefits of sports in society are described below:
Sports encourage national unity: It could be Olympics or any world cup tournament, sports help in encouraging people all around the world to come together and support their country. For instance, in every Olympics, many individuals from different countries that are not a part of any sports went to a country organising Olympics just to support their favourite player or team. It can be said that sports are a major tool that helps in enhancing national unity. While supporting, no individuals can think that their team has members belonging to different caste or religion (Kudinova et. al. 2020).
It signifies that without any discrimination, people all around the world support their team. It can be said that sports help in breaking down the racial barriers in society. It can be depicted that people of different age and different groups enjoy sports equally. Therefore, sports are beneficial in encouraging people to national unity.
Sports promote gender equality: Another positive change in society that can be observed is the promotion of gender equality worldwide. It can be observed that whether it is the World cup or Olympics both men and women take part actively and have access to proper resources, active membership, and structure (Coakley, 2021). A sport plays a crucial role in changing the patriarchal mindset of society by offering equal opportunities to females as their male counterparts. Also, females are allowed to watch sports and cheer their favourite team or player as same as males.
Sports bridges social identities: Sport is a primary tool that helps in bridging the gap between people from diverse social identities. It can be stated that individuals playing in a team comes from different identities or religion and they are treated equally without any discrimination. Hence, sports teach individuals with different social identities to play and work together keeping their social differences aside (Pike, 2021).
Bridging the gaps generated from social identities is highly beneficial in strengthening the quality of society. For example, different members coming from diverse backgrounds play in a team and they get support from people coming from diverse backgrounds. This helps in keeping people united and is advantageous in bridging social identities.
Moreover, many of the communities and people organises games for people with some disabilities so they can take part in sports as well. It helps in reducing discrimination among people that are rising due to disabilities (Lang et. al. 2020). It can be observed many of the disabled people are not able to play so, nowadays government policies are developed in support of disabled individuals.
State intervention in sports development policy
State intervention can be described as the formulation of economic policies for promoting export drivers so they can earn more valuable foreign exchange, sometimes also known as economic intervention (Karagiannis and King, 2019). Other than that, it is also defined as an economic policy position in favour of government intervention for correcting market failures and to promote general welfare of the people. During the development of sports policy, sports intervention plays a critical role as different states have formed their national sport policies so they can support foreign and domestic policy agendas.
Moreover, sports play a crucial role in developing the country’s status as well. It helps in improving qualities like determination, discipline, passion for fitness and nation, and teamwork. Many of the sports are organised in such a manner that helps in improving the economic conditions of any country. It is an economic policy position in favour of government intervention for correcting market failures and to promote general welfare for people.
There could be observed various market failures in sports as well and for managing that state intervention is developed. Currently, the world has faced several uncertainties due to the pandemic and it was highly responsible for affecting every sector worldwide (Schnitzer et. al. 2020). The economies all around the world declined to a great extent and it is a primary reason for changing consumer decisions. In the case of sports development policy, it can be said that government interventions were formed to address these market failures.
It can be observed that the lockdowns imposed by the government and ban on foreign travelling were responsible for affecting the economies generated from sports. Looking at these market failures, state interventions were formed stating that sports could be played at places where there are no Covid cases. Regular checkups of all the athletes need to be done to ensure that every participant is safe.
Other than that, state intervention also focuses on raising awareness among countries that individuals won’t be able to watch matches on the ground keeping safety precautions in mind (Escamilla-Fajardo et. al. 2020). Following that, the sports were telecasted on television so they can be watched worldwide. This state intervention illustrates that government implements required sports development policies in favour of athletes and states.
Sports are not only organised at the international level they are also organised at school, college, state, and national levels. Sports are not only about winning but it also helps in building stronger, happier, healthier, and safer communities (Smith et. al. 2018). Many of the corporate sponsors and government bodies take advantage of sports to decrease community pressure and use them to strengthen communities.
It is proven that communities participating in sports are likely to form stronger social bonds. Every individual worldwide has different sports interests and they play sports at different levels. Government bodies also support the sports organization to some extent so they can organize these games and increase the level of participation among individuals.
For example, Greenhouse Sports is a London-based charity committed takes advantage of sports so they can help young people in examining their full potential. The charity provides coaching full-time in schools along with offering them sports programs that help in nurturing their thinking, physical and emotional skills. They have worked with around 35,000 young people since its establishment in 2002. The sports organized include table tennis, basketball, swimming, tennis, volleyball, and judo. In this way, state intervention also helps young teens by encouraging their interest in sports activities (Sporting Future, 2020). Other than that, the UK also believes in involving people from different backgrounds rather than judging people based on their class, sex, and race.
Figure 1: Framework for new sport strategy. (Source: Sporting Future, 2020)
Sociological perspective for sports development policy and practice
Sociological perspective can be described as the perspective or opinion that observes the society through a lens without any personal opinions. The sociological perspective doesn’t only aim at observing the societal patterns but also helps in explaining those behaviours and patterns (Dolata and Schrape, 2018). It can be illustrated that every individual residing in the society has their opinion on any social problems. For instance, public issues are being judged as per diverse opinions and the entire sources lie in the social structure and culture of a society. It is necessary to analyse the sociological perspective before coming to any conclusion.
Furthermore, the sociology of sport also called sports sociology can be described as a discipline of sociology that studies sports as a social phenomenon. It can be said that various sports sociologists critically observe the impact; functions and roles of sports have on diverse societies (Hopper and Weyman, 2019). Sports sociology also encompasses research in diverse fields like history, political science, and anthropology. There are four primary sociological paradigms that can be implemented in sports while formulating sports policies. It includes functionalist theory, interactionist theory, feminist theory and conflict theory.
Functionalist theory: Functionalist theory observed every sport in terms of its contribution to sports worldwide. Concerning the sociological perspective, it can be depicted that sociologists utilising this theory aims at the positive outcomes that sports have on both society and individuals (Cunningham, 2019). Sociologists following this theory primarily optimise the development and growth of organised sports. Other than that, functionalist theory accounts society as a system with integrated parts.
The benefits of this theory in sports development and growth are that it helps in increasing sports participation opportunities to foster individual development. The major downside of utilising this theory as a sociological perspective is that it emphasises more on positive outcomes of sports that have on society as it assumes that every social group acquires similar benefits from the sports.
As discussed above, sport is a powerful tool for improving equality among the world and reducing bridges to social identities; but sports comes with various issues as well. The functionalist theory views sports from a singular perspective of the positive outcomes they have on society. For instance, functionalist theory views that sport is beneficial for each group of society but it is a myth (Gammelsæter, 2021).
Many times, development policies keep disabled people away from sports. Government and sociologists need to identify that disabled people won’t be able to take part in cricket, football, marathon, and other sports. They must organise sports that can benefit a disabled group of people as well.
Conflict theory: The conflict theory suggests that society is surrounded by various economic forces and it states that sports need to be studied in form of economic exploitation and capitalist expansion. Sociologists utilise this theory to highlight the way sports continue the power and privilege of the existing elite group in society (Shcherbakova et. al. 2020).
The primary drawback of utilising this theory in concern with sports is that it only focuses on the economic determination of social life and doesn’t acknowledge that taking an active part in sports can be an empowering experience as well. The primary example defining conflict theory is global capitalism’s effect on power and inequality. Conflict theory signifies the role of equality and power throughout society. In sports, there can be observed various dominant groups like League commissioners, governing bodies, athletic directors, coaches, owners, and more.
It can be observed that in today’s world many of the sports are being controlled by corporations, corporate sponsors, and those that can be labelled as Power elite (Murray, 2018). As per the conflict theory and sociologists, sports is viewed as a tool that intensifies and generates Alienation, sports that are being used by the state and economically powerful as a source of social control and coercion, sports also promote materialism and commercialism and encourage nationalism, sexism, and militarism.
Figure 2: Conflict theory. (Source: Conflict theory, 2021)
Interactionist Theory: The theory primarily focuses on the way people’s identities are developed and maintained because of participation and interaction with sports and cultures. Sociologists viewing sports through the opinion of this theory focus on making sports associations less autocratic and more democratic along with changing the hierarchical sports organisation (Pike, 2021). Unlike the other two theories, this theory focuses on prioritising the relationship between their connection with sport, recreation, physical activity, and culture. With the help of this theory, sociologists can improve or develop a relationship in the community through recreation, sports, and physical recreation through encouraging cooperation and connecting different members of the community.
In doing so, promoting cultural diversity among the community is very crucial. The research done by sociologists with the view of this theory is often anthropological or ethnographic. People studying sports migration from this theoretical perspective will be more concerned about the other’s experience (Furley, 2019). For instance, sport is just a series of letters but while interacting with these letters, individuals see it as a game and play. Every individual will view sports differently as every sport has its definition.
Feminist theory: Feminist research highlights the way sports produce gendered practices in concern with sexuality and physicality. Sociologists use this theory to examine the way diverse sports helps in developing ideas for femininity and masculinity and the way women are represented (Beal, 2018). With the help of this theory, sports development policies can be developed to take social action by challenging several aspects of sports that privilege males over females. Concerning this, exposure to oppressive forms of sexism and homophobia in sports is done.
Based on the sociological perspective and theory described above it can be said that sociological insight as per the gendered realm of sports must have to understand the primary differences between women’s and men’s sports. Many societies enforce gender roles concerning sports at a very young age (Allison and Knoester, 2021). The opinion of society that sports are too masculine has been planned among families and in schools. It can be illustrated by differentiating the importance of male and female cricket in media.
It has to be observed that the importance and appreciation male cricket team achieve is greatly different from female team. On the other hand, men’s sports are more prominent among media and acquire greater viewership in comparison with women’s sports. On the other hand, there could be seen as a major contrast between the types of sports both the gender is expecting to play (Schmidt, 2018).
For example, male sport is majorly coordinated, confrontational, and combative like rugby, wrestling, whereas; female sport is less aggressive and more individualised like figure skating and gymnastics. Therefore, participation in masculine sports results in gender identity conflict for females and it applies to male as well that are planning to take part in traditional feminine sports.
Furthermore, historically, sports were viewed as a political space where players primarily focus on their performance (Chávez and Mitchell, 2020). It can be observed that race and ethnicity have always played a crucial role in social activism in sports. Black Lives Matter was a major protest that is responsible for triggering competitive sports.
Recently, in August 2020, Milwaukee Bucks boycotted against police shooting African-American Jacob Blake. It was primarily responsible for forcing NBA to halt its playoffs and many other teams had walkout. It can be observed that race and ethnicity are there in sports that need to be decreased. Looking at this opinion of sociologists, it can be stated that sports development policies and practices must be developed to reduce discrimination and feminism.
It can be observed from studying the above theories that every researcher or sociologist views sports from a diverse perspective and every theory comes with several downsides. It needs to be noted that policies need to be developed keeping the sociological perspective in mind so the majority of groups can take beneficiary advantage of that particular sports development policy and practice (Elling et. al. 2018).
Other than that, there is room for developing sports development policies and practices that supports the opinion of sociologists as per feminist theory. Still, there is a requirement of promoting female sports activities similarly as men’s sports are appreciated and praised. It is necessary to reduce discrimination and bridges of social identities from sports so every social group can acquire benefits from these policies and practices.
Reflection
Based on the entire research, it can be depicted that the primary role of sports development is to encourage participation in sports. I have seen that sports development can be achieved only and only if there are more opportunities offered to an individual or player (Dowling et. al. 2021). According to my opinion, sports development role and responsibilities are crucial for offering training and coaching to any individual. I have understood that sports are a primary cause for bringing positive social change as it helps in bridging the gap between social identities.
For instance, sports development’s role is to ensure that every individual taking constant part in developing their skills and knowledge must learn about teamwork and equality as it is must understand that wherever they play; they will have to support equality and must not discriminate any player. It is the responsibility of sports development coaches that they train their trainees and staff that they must play and provide training irrespective of any discrimination respectively.
Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the sports development officer to organise various activities and projects so the players and athletes waiting for opportunities can take part and analyse the need for improvement. After organising activities, they must identify the gaps and room for improvement so they can further provide them training accordingly. Sports development is a crucial tool for developing one’s thinking, physical and mental skills. From the sociological perspective, I have examined that sports development is must as every individual looks at sports from a diverse perspective that can’t be changed.
The sports development officer needs to monitor the project and calculate the increased number of participants as it is the primary principle of sports development and growth (Cooke and Snape, 2018). Providing them training is not enough, they have to monitor and record their progress and observe the challenges if they have any in making progress as it helps in developing their growth and career in sports.
It is necessary to provide them training in the sports activity they are interested in or keen to learn. In many cases, I have observed that many parents force their children to learn sports activities they are not interested in. It is the role of the sports development officer to communicate with the students so they can identify if they are interested in learning or they want to capture knowledge about different sports. I believe that without interest no individual can learn and achieve success.
In doing so, I have noticed that sports development has to focus on funding, budgets, and managing resources required to offer training. Without strong finances providing training and organizing activities is not possible. So, sports development and growth must focus on developing a list of resources and budgets required to offer excellent training and opportunities to students (Astle, 2019).
Other than that, they also have to focus on examining all the national and local policies into practice so no legal obligation could be made as it is harmful for the entire sports development and growth organization. They have to also focus on attending meetings and seminars so they can provide names in state, local, and national level competition for the growth of individuals they are offering training.
Furthermore, sports development is also described as the promotion of sports activities for the social community. The sports development and growth must also focus on involving individuals that belong to poor communities as they are not capable of accessing these facilities (Dubinsky, 2021). For using sports as a social good, it is necessary to offer poor communities some training as well so they can learn and gain knowledge as well.
From the entire analysis, I have predicted that sports development and growth can be achieved if they focus on providing effective opportunities to individuals. Even the state intervention needs to focus on implementing sports development policies and practices that support individuals and help them in achieving growth (Mackintosh, 2021).
For this purpose, sports development executive needs to analyse the need for training and the kind of coaching different individual requires. Other than that, they must focus on diverse sociological perspectives to provide coaching adequately. They must initiate the training by offering individuals some theoretical knowledge about different sports, their rules, and the way they would be played so they can relate to the game during practical sessions. Communication needs to be there so they can interact with individuals and capture insights about the issues and challenges they are facing while training.
Therefore, sports development and growth can be described as a powerful tool for bringing positive social changes. Lastly, state intervention needs to frame sports policies and practices keeping the market failures in mind.
It has been concluded from the entire analysis that sports development and growth primarily help in bringing positive social changes in society. It is necessary to develop social development policies and practices that offer numerous opportunities to athletes and players so they can grow. In the current section, various benefits and the way sports development can help in bringing societal changes have been discussed.
It concludes that sports will help in enhancing gender equality, reducing discrimination, bridging social identities, and providing adequate knowledge about sports among different communities as well. Following those various sociological perspectives concerning different theories have been described. It states functionalist, conflict, interactionist theory, and feminist theory. Sociologists have developed policies and practices based on different theories as each theory comes with a different sociological perspective. At last, roles and responsibilities of sports development have been discussed reflectively.
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