In a small orphanage amid the cliffs in Cusco, Peru, I was playing soccer with a group of boys, not much older than 6 or 7 years old. The soccer ball was a broken deflated ball and the lack of grass meant the children played on gravel. They didn’t know the rules or really the concepts besides kick the ball as hard as you could. The girls watched from the sidelines confused at the excitement the boys got out of playing the game. There was no order to the game. I remember asking the children if they had ever played on a team before. They were confused, one boy told me, “Only professionals play on teams.”
Nearly 3,500 miles away in Chester, PA, an extremely impoverished city south of Philadelphia, I again found myself playing soccer with children, …show more content…
In the United States, sports have traditionally been about power, winning, profits and strengths, where as in countries in Latin America, the focus of sports concerns community, nationality, the idea that they can prove themselves against first world rivals (Miller 1993). In 2012, 33.7 million people in Latin America lived on less than $1.90 a day (The World Bank Group 2015). This means that there are a large number of people living in poverty in Latin America. Poverty is a key factor is the lack access to team sports or a safe place to exercise. Latin American countries also struggle with problems of gender in sports at an even greater rate than gender disparities in the United States (Eitzen and Sage, 2013). However these gender disparities are often related to traditional gender hierarchies as opposed to the link between social economic levels and gender in the US.
Children who have the opportunity and access to sports and physical activity will begin to garner the positive effects from sports earlier than children who do not have the same opportunities. Looking at sport through this lens is crucial to understanding social and economic inequality in the world as well as understanding that gender issues are still highly prevalent even after the passage of Title IX. Ultimately, children who do play organized sports and participate in physical activity will then develop different values and morals than
Nearly 3,500 miles away in Chester, PA, an extremely impoverished city south of Philadelphia, I again found myself playing soccer with children, …show more content…
In the United States, sports have traditionally been about power, winning, profits and strengths, where as in countries in Latin America, the focus of sports concerns community, nationality, the idea that they can prove themselves against first world rivals (Miller 1993). In 2012, 33.7 million people in Latin America lived on less than $1.90 a day (The World Bank Group 2015). This means that there are a large number of people living in poverty in Latin America. Poverty is a key factor is the lack access to team sports or a safe place to exercise. Latin American countries also struggle with problems of gender in sports at an even greater rate than gender disparities in the United States (Eitzen and Sage, 2013). However these gender disparities are often related to traditional gender hierarchies as opposed to the link between social economic levels and gender in the US.
Children who have the opportunity and access to sports and physical activity will begin to garner the positive effects from sports earlier than children who do not have the same opportunities. Looking at sport through this lens is crucial to understanding social and economic inequality in the world as well as understanding that gender issues are still highly prevalent even after the passage of Title IX. Ultimately, children who do play organized sports and participate in physical activity will then develop different values and morals than