Essay about Structuralism Sociology of Sport Essay

1. Essay about Structuralism
Structuralism
Structuralism is a mode of thinking and a method of analysis practiced in 20th–century social
sciences and humanities; it focuses on recurring patterns of thought and behaviour – it seeks to
analyse social relationships in terms of highly abstract relational structures. Structuralism is
distinctly different from that applied to Radcliffe–Brown – it involves more the bio and
psychological aspect of human studies rather than social structures. Claude Levi–Strauss was the one
to pioneer structuralism; he suggested that cultural phenomena such as myths, art, kinship systems
and language display certain ordered patterns or structures. With these, he believed that the structure
of the human mind could be revealed. He reasoned...show more content...
All cultures think in to terms of opposites so as to classify–meaning we must be able to distinguish
between things. For example, life, death; spirit, body; black, white; red, green (stop and go) – these
words alone do not carry much significance; they have a meaning and that's it – basic facts. We take
the words as they are by use of external references from what society acknowledges to it to be. A pen
is not an eraser because society has accepted it to be a pen.
Levi–Strauss argued that culture is to be understood as a surface phenomenon which reveals the
universal human tendency to order and classify experiences and dynamics. He compared people's
language to the 'rules' that govern society, in that the governed are largely unconscious of what they
know. He compared speech – the use of sounds and rules, mainly in the form of sentences to the
ideas and behaviour that result from the application of largely unconscious social rules. Members
of a society are much more likely to be conscious of their actual ideas and behaviours than they are
of the deeply structured rules that make these ideas and behaviours possible, but the ideas and
behaviours of a given group of people, according to Strauss, can only be understood once the "deep"
structures in their minds can be discovered. He says that human responses are largely dissimilar, and
that the surface structure is what will consequently show different
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2. Sociology of Sport Essay
What is the social role of sport? To what extent does social structure influence the practice and
experience of sport? Discuss in relation to two of the following: gender, class, ethnicity or
Aboriginality, or region. Illustrate your answer with at least three examples from sporting contexts
(local or international). Sport plays a huge role in today's society. It contributes to one's health and
fitness, social interaction, social and motor skills, patriotism, fun and entertainment. It also
stimulates the economy and tourism leading to interaction between different cultures, for example
the Olympics, and sport role models. Sports clearly are an important part of cultures and societies
around the world as such events as the Olympics...show more content...
"Women who play men's sport have constantly to negotiate their status in traditional cultural
contexts of men's power and privilege, and in a general discourse of femininity, patriarchy and
compulsory heterosexuality" (Craig & Beedie, 2008). An example of a female athlete being
ridiculed for portraying society's idea of non–femininity is Martina Navratilova. Martina was the
first female tennis player who began to play tennis more as a power sport than a sport of
technique. Subdued by an oppressive communist system that controlled the Czech Tennis
Federation, she was seen to be playing in the style of men instead of playing women's tennis. As
she did not fit into society's image of how a woman should look, behave and play tennis, she was
ridiculed and branded as the proverbial 'bad egg' when compared to her contemporaries.
Additionally, she was branded as a lesbian, which caused more hardship for her as she was forced to
face a world which was much more homophobic at that time than it is now. Her sexual orientation is
not a prime issue; it was something that was used against her and something that was assumed
simply because she did not portray the feminine image that is expected of women. Another example
includes Dutch Olympian Fanny Blankers–Koen, also known as 'the flying housewife', who was
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