Physical Culture and Social Class

How is social class linked to, and expressed within, sport and physical culture? Consider this question with regards to Bourdieu’s theory of social class.

Social class has recently become a large topic of discussion in America. Although the idea of distinguishable social classes was supposed to have disappeared with the establishment of American democracy, it is very prevalent in almost all aspects of our society today. American sport and physical culture are by no means immune to the implications of class and status. Social class plays a large role in determining which sports or physical cultures people participate in and the ways in which they participate.

Since the very beginnings of popular sports, they have been entangled with the matter of social class. According to French cultural theorist, Pierre Bourdieu, “The shift from games to sports in the strict sense took place in the educational establishments reserved for the ‘élites’ of bourgeois society” (1978, p. 823). Bourdieu also notes that these members of the upper-class always prided themselves on being disinterested in and distanced from material interests. This explains the propensity of the wealthy to take part in activities with no purpose other than just the art of doing the activity. Sport was spread, as public schools used it as a time-filler that allowed for easy supervision of the students and employers used it to contain the working population. When professional sport came around, members of the working class saw sport as a means to improve their social status.

Today, different social classes tend to participate in certain different sports. Pierre Bourdieu noticed these tendencies and developed a theory to account for the distribution of sports. He observed that members of the upper class participated in golf, tennis, fencing, sailing, and riding, while the middle class did walking, climbing, hiking and jogging, and the working class did wrestling, boxing, rugby, and body...