This essay is a social analysis of student-athletes, more specifically individuals who attend school part-time while taking part in competitive sports. In particular, I used my previous high school as the basis for my social exploration. This social analysis includes applying concepts such as role strain, role conflict, subculture, social solidarity, reference groups, social stratification and equality of opportunity in order to better understand a niche social world. A successful student-athlete is like a unicorn: they are rare and magical in action. They somehow achieve outstanding sports results, stay at the top of their classes, and have a vibrant social life. You can usually find them in one of three places: in class, their athletic
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While there are many different variants of student-athletes, I chose to focus on the high-performance student-athletes at my old school, who were mostly nationally and internationally competitive athletes, as opposed to varsity or recreational athletes. Perhaps it’s out of some sort of hidden resentment for a “normal” life that didn’t revolve around practice and school, but us student-athletes subconsciously felt superior to our average counterparts. We have more academic responsibility to balance with our athletic schedules, and somehow we thought that it made us comparatively better. We often discussed our torturous workouts, or what time we had to wake up for practice that …show more content…
Competitive athletics are financially draining, especially at the national and international levels, because of the travel, training, coaching, facility rental and equipment costs associated with it. Therefore, it is completely logical to suggest that there is economic inequality within high-performance sports, and consequently my previous school. Competitive sports are inherently exclusionary to people from less affluent backgrounds, and hence it is a prime example of social stratification (Little et al, 2014, p. 269). However, it cannot be said that all athletes are from affluent upbringings, because not everyone in my program was. From my personal observation, approximately twenty of the two hundred students relied on bursaries, scholarships and grants to fund their training. Therefore, equality of opportunity does not exist within high-performance student-athletes, because not every person has equal access to resources (Little et al, 2014, p.
While there are many different variants of student-athletes, I chose to focus on the high-performance student-athletes at my old school, who were mostly nationally and internationally competitive athletes, as opposed to varsity or recreational athletes. Perhaps it’s out of some sort of hidden resentment for a “normal” life that didn’t revolve around practice and school, but us student-athletes subconsciously felt superior to our average counterparts. We have more academic responsibility to balance with our athletic schedules, and somehow we thought that it made us comparatively better. We often discussed our torturous workouts, or what time we had to wake up for practice that …show more content…
Competitive athletics are financially draining, especially at the national and international levels, because of the travel, training, coaching, facility rental and equipment costs associated with it. Therefore, it is completely logical to suggest that there is economic inequality within high-performance sports, and consequently my previous school. Competitive sports are inherently exclusionary to people from less affluent backgrounds, and hence it is a prime example of social stratification (Little et al, 2014, p. 269). However, it cannot be said that all athletes are from affluent upbringings, because not everyone in my program was. From my personal observation, approximately twenty of the two hundred students relied on bursaries, scholarships and grants to fund their training. Therefore, equality of opportunity does not exist within high-performance student-athletes, because not every person has equal access to resources (Little et al, 2014, p.