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Unit 4 Social Institutions
Section 3
Social Issues in Sport
Key Term
• stacking Section
Section
Sport and Social Mobility
The autobiographies of star athletes often point to sport as their way out of poverty. One educator once predicted that “football would en- able a whole generation of young men in the coal fields of Pennsylvania to
turn their backs on the mines that employed their fathers” (Rudolph, 1962:378). Many athletes do use sport as a means out of their equivalent “coal fields,” and many minority members work their way out of poverty through sport. It is also true that the average salaries of professionals are very high (Leonard, 1998). Even so, let’s examine this alleged relationship be- tween sport and social mobility.
Does sport really promote social mobility? Participating in sport in- creases the likelihood of improving a person’s place in the stratification struc- ture. Whatever sport they play, college athletes tend to be better educated, earn more money, and have higher occupational prestige than their fathers. This is the very definition of upward social mobility. And in these terms, col- lege athletes as a whole are more successful than college students who do not participate in sports (Leonard, 1998). Although this finding is meaning- ful, it has not settled the debate regarding how much sport promotes upward mobility for minorities.
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Sport contributes to up- ward mobility among col- legiate athletes, but the opportunities are too few. Minorities still face discrimina- tion in sport. Women in sport suffer from gender-based stereotypes. Intercollegiate female athletes do not receive treatment equal to the treatment received by males, although this situation is slowly improving.
Sports have long been an important basis for stratification in high schools.