Abstract
This article examines the ways in which upper middle class families acquire, transmit, and preserve their social and cultural capitals through membership at the Pine View Swim and Tennis Club, a semiprivate facility located near a major mid-Atlantic city in the United States. Drawing on Cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu’s theorizing on sport participation and social class position, as well as 4 years of ethnographic investigation, I argue that the pool, as a cultural field, maintains socially segregated boundaries offering members a significant, yet hidden vehicle through which they can facilitate their class and race-based privilege. Specifically, Pine View fosters an important sense of community and belonging in and through members, as well as an exclusive social learning opportunity, thus contributing to the (re)production of their White, privileged habitus.
During June of 2009, in a story making national headlines in the United States, a group of 56 campers, 46 African Americans, and 10 Hispanics, from the Creative Steps Day Camp were barred from the Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania after paying more than US$1,900 for 1 day of swimming per week for the duration of their camp program (“Justice department files lawsuit,” 2010; Lattanzio, 2009a; “Pa. swim club,” 2009). Following their 1st day at the club, the camp’s money was refunded and they were asked not to return to the pool (Lattanzio, 2009a). The Valley Club claimed that the campers were banned because the facility lacked the capacity or infrastructure to safely accommodate the group as originally anticipated (Candiotti & Shin, 2009; “Pa. swim club,” 2009). However, during their time at the club, multiple campers explained to parents and camp staff that they heard pool members and staff making racist remarks while they were enjoying their time at the pool (Lattanzio, 2009a). Furthering the idea that campers were banned due to racist sentiments held by the mostly White club members, the club’s president explained in a statement that “there was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion . . . and the atmosphere of the club” (Lattanzio, 2009b). Eventually, after a great deal of media attention, community protests, and claims of racism, the Valley Club extended an opportunity to the camp group to finish out their original contract agreement which they did not accept (Lattanzio, 2009b).
In response to this incident, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint against the Valley Club on January 13, 2010 “alleging that the club engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination on the basis of race or color” (“Justice department files lawsuit,” 2010). The lawsuit, citing Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, claimed that the club “adopted a racially-discriminatory policy to bar summer camps from using its facilities after a group of predominantly African American school children visited the facility” (Justice department files lawsuit, 2010). Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, argued, Denying African-American children entry to a swimming pool because of the color of their skin is a deplorable violation of this nation’s civil rights laws . . . It is illegal and inexcusable to discriminate against patrons by barring them from a place of public accommodation on the basis of race or color. (“Justice department files lawsuit,” 2010)
This complaint was still in mediation as of May of 2012 (M. Arora, personal communication, July 25, 2012).
The incident at the Valley Club highlights a very real and significant racial disparity that exists within the sport and leisure activity of swimming in the United States. In a particularly visible example, at the 2012 London Olympic Games the U.S. Swim Team featured only three Black athletes, Cullen Jones, Anthony Ervin, and Lia Neal (Leonard, 2012). These three swimmers rounded out the total of four Black Olympians throughout U.S. Olympic swimming history (Leonard, 2012). However this astonishingly low number is not surprising given that many competitive swimmers in the United States begin their careers on summer swim club teams similar in structure to the Valley Club. In addition to repercussions evident in the competitive arena, the consequences of access, or lack thereof, to swimming opportunities are manifest in other ways as well, one of which can be construed as a general public health concern. For example the Center for Disease Control (2012) reports that Black children are more than three times as likely to drown as White children their age. Furthermore, economically and socially underdeveloped localities experience more drowning fatalities, particularly among minority groups, and report a greater fear associated with swimming (Hastings, Zahran, & Cable, 2006; Irwin, Irwin, Ryan, & Drayer, 2009; Saluja et al., 2006).
In general, swimming, as a sport and recreational pursuit, has been shaped by a history of race and class-based exclusivity (Hastings et al., 2006; Wiltse, 2007). Due to a fear of White and Black people swimming in the same venue, Wiltse (2007) argued that racial integration of public pools was “a direct and immediate cause” (p. 180) of private pool construction, exclusive membership, and swimming clubs. Many Americans had a “desire to recreate within more socially selective communities,” and belonging to a club “ensured that other swimmers would be of the same social class and race” (Wiltse, 2007, p. 183). Therefore, neighborhood, community, and club pools were built as a means of social segregation, while time functioned to promote property values, provide summer activities for children, and eventually became integral features of affluent developments (Slear, 2007; Wiltse, 2007). While often pool clubs do not restrict membership if they are not at capacity, they tend to feature a fairly homogenous membership simply due to their spatial and socioeconomic geography, and thus operate with largely impenetrable, invisible boundaries controlling access and indirectly impacting democratic swimming participation. Overall swimming participation presents a significant, yet relatively understudied cultural sporting practice that maintains important repercussions for all individuals across all ethnicities and social class groupings. Accordingly, through an ethnographic examination of the Pine View Swim and Tennis Club and its largely upper middle class, White membership, this article seeks to elucidate how swim club access and membership are constitutive elements in the cyclical (re)production of social privilege.
Theoretical Background
Many White, upper income Americans belong to private recreational swim clubs “precisely because they [do] not want to swim in socially unrestricted waters,” and prefer the restricted access of clubs that unintentionally control the demographic characteristics of the membership (Wiltse, 2007, p. 193). Often however, many individuals and families maintaining club memberships and occupying this advantaged position of Whiteness do not acknowledge the socio-historical processes that have contributed to their position of dominance nor do they recognize their own racial privilege (Frankenberg, 1993). Frankenberg (1993) explained, First, whiteness is a location of structural advantage, of race privilege. Second, it is a “standpoint,” a place from which white people look at ourselves, at others, and at society. Third, “whiteness” refers to a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked and unnamed. (p. 1)
Whiteness operates as “a whole set of ideologies, discourses, and identities” serving to “perpetuate existing racial hierarchies and White domination” (Hartmann, 2007, p. 56). It is “a complex, often contradictory, construction: ubiquitous, yet invisible; normalized and normative; universal, but always localized; unmarked, yet privileged” (King, 2005, p. 399). White people tend to “benefit from being white whether or not, as individuals, they hold supremacist notions, harbor racist sentiments, or are made anxious by the physical presence of peoples of color” (Hartigan, 1997, p. 496). Frankenberg (1993) argues that many individuals occupying positions of privilege are not able to accurately assess “the significance of race in the shaping of U.S. society” (p. 9). In addition, they tend to ignore the systems of race that construct “the maintenance of all-white neighborhoods . . . [and] white people’s fear of people of color,” all ideologies that should demonstrate the relationship between whites and people of color, yet often do not (Frankenberg, 1993, p. 70). Many White people understand their own lives and privilege as “racially neutral,” rather than as shaped by race, and thus they do not to examine it any further (Frankenberg, 1993, p. 49). Accordingly, these taken for granted ideas reproduce racial hierarchies that normalize privilege in many different ways, including participation in sports and leisure activities, particularly in more exclusive sports such as golf, tennis, swimming, and skiing (Coleman, 1996; Long & Hylton, 2002). While there are numerous studies on the subject of race and sport, most refer to minority groups and their experience of participation and representation, or lack thereof. There are comparatively few ethnographic studies of Whiteness and its implications in specific sport settings. Some notable exceptions include Erikson’s (2003) observational explanation of the invisibility of Whiteness through an analysis of rock climbing at an indoor facility, and Spracklen, Timmins, and Long’s (2010) ethnographic study of Whiteness of rugby in England. In addition, others have analyzed media representations of Whiteness and sport, for example, Butterworth (2007), Coleman (1996), Douglas (2005), Erikson (2003), Rhodes (2011), Poniatowski and Whiteside (2012), and Walton and Butryn (2006). These authors have demonstrated the critical importance of understanding, examining, and interrogating the subject of Whiteness and its relationship with sport/leisure participation so as to gain a nuanced perspective of the way in which privilege structures sport, a body of literature to which this article seeks to contribute.
As an institution, athletics, recreation, sport, and/or leisure can create and exemplify not only race-based inequalities, but social class divisions as well (King, Leonard, & Kusz, 2007; Messner, 2009). According to cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu (1978, 1984, 1988), there is a relationship between sporting practices, corporeal engagement, and social position, and it is important to consider these constructs together. Class preferences for particular sports “receive their social significance” based on the perceived intrinsic and extrinsic benefits they will bring the participant in relation to their body (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 209). For instance, upper classes experience their lives in a culture of privilege, and demonstrate this through an effortless exhibition and a distinguishing conspicuous consumption of the material world around them. They pursue sports such as skiing, tennis, and golf, in exclusive private places with specific partners, characteristics that embody social cues and cultural competencies (Bourdieu, 1984). The middle classes focus their lives around cultural promotion that is manifest through the status production of a socially driven, controlled, and presentable existence. They are concerned with cultivating their bodies, and illustrate this through their preferences for sports like soccer, and physical fitness activities such as jogging, biking, and aerobics (Andrews, 1999; Andrews, Pitter, Zwick, & Ambrose, 1997; Bourdieu, 1984; Swanson, 2009a, 2009b). Finally, the lower class exists in a culture of poverty that values instantaneous gratification and economic reward, and experiences an instrumental relation toward their bodies. This is evidenced in their predilection for certain physical activities, such as boxing, that are characterized by “a high investment of energy, effort or even pain,” and often, bodily contact (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 213).
Accordingly, swimming is more prevalent among affluent, White families, and often takes place in private, restricted venues with specific individuals, and thus is illustrative of a privileged social class position (Bourdieu, 1978, 1980, 1984; Wiltse, 2007). In addition, membership at a swim club can facilitate physical fitness and social profit, and maintains hidden entry requirements such as family tradition, early training, clothing, and techniques of sociability, all of which add to its distinctiveness and discourage working class participation (Bourdieu, 1984). Furthermore, swimming requires a larger economic investment, and tends to be constituted by the possession of greater levels capital (Bourdieu, 1978, 1980, 1984).
Bourdieu (1980, 1984, 1986) defined economic, cultural, and social capital as the three major forms of capital dictating social class position and structuring power and profit in the cultural field. First, economic capital is recognized as a sign of distinction and refers to financial status, wealth, assets, and the time and money to devote to leisure pursuits (Bourdieu, 1984, 1986). Second, cultural capital refers to the culturally valued tastes and consumption patterns an individual accumulates through their social standing. Cultural capital is gained “quite unconsciously,” and often times unrecognized as capital but rather as a “legitimate competence” bringing those who possess it distinction (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 245). Children tend to acquire it at an early age through the family where its “diffuse, continuous transmission . . . escapes observation and control,” thus functioning as a hidden indicator of social class position and contributing to the cycle of class reproduction (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 254). Finally, social capital refers to social network, prestige, and authority that an individual demonstrates through peers, friends, and skills. According to Bourdieu (1986), Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition—or in other words, to membership in a group—which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a “credential” which entitles them to credit in the various senses of the word. (p. 248-249)
Bourdieu explained that social capital has a “multiplier effect” on one’s collective capital (1986, p. 249), and it demonstrates “successful management” of all capital possessed (1996, p. 24). Bourdieu (1986) also indicated that to reproduce social capital, those who have it must engage in “an unceasing effort of sociability, [and] a continuous series of exchanges” (p. 250) to maintain and increase this capital, as social networks are not a given, rather they are the product of the concerted effort of families to (re)produce “lasting, useful relationships that can secure material or symbolic profits” (p. 249).
In addition to capital, Bourdieu also discussed fields of cultural production and habitus, all three of which are important, dialectically related ideas crucial to the construction of social class (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). He argued that an individual’s position in a field, demonstrated through their embodied habitus, is formed through “the distribution of the specific forms of capital” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 108). Fields, are the “social space of objective relationships” (Bourdieu, 1985, p. 16) defined by particular contexts within which agents attempt to maintain or improve their social status (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; DeFrance, 1995; Wacquant, 1989). Within a cultural field, one’s habitus becomes valuable and perceived “immediately as endowed with meaning and interest” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 128). Class habitus is a durable system of structuring tastes and preferences for certain practices and dispositions that contribute to the development of a particular, classifiable lifestyle, and it is acquired through personal understanding of one’s actual social, cultural, and economic status (Bourdieu, 1977, 1984). Through its generative history, habitus involves a system that produces and governs particular practices and dispositions comprising a lifestyle (Bourdieu, 1984, 1989).
Based on Bourdieu’s understanding of social class, leisure pursuits that take place in exclusive cultural fields, such as swimming clubs, are emblematic of the upper middle class habitus, and accordingly require one to possess certain forms and levels of capital as a prerequisite of participation (Bourdieu, 1984). In particular, social capital is necessary to gain access and membership, and in turn, membership often yields greater levels of social capital (Bourdieu, 1978, 1984; Shilling, 1991). However this social capital is often acquired, transmitted, and reproduced in and through private swim clubs that are populated by White, upper middle class families, as these restricted cultural spaces allow families to exercise more control over the “complexion” of the “others” with whom they recreate. Consequently, this process creates social boundaries restricting swimming club access, and often the experience of recreational swimming as well, to racialized and/or low-income “others.” The following details the way in which the Pine View Swim and Tennis Club operates as a vehicle for members to augment their familial capital through the socially segregated nature of club membership. Specifically, I argue that Pine View creates an important community offering members a sense of safety and security, yet devoid of cultural difference. Furthermore, this pool community functions as a class-based enclave enabling the acquisition, transmission, and preservation of important forms of White, upper middle class capital, thus helping to secure members’ social class privilege.
Method
This research engaged a qualitative, ethnographic approach to studying Pine View and its members with the goal of understanding the socially segregated nature of pool membership and the way in which members’ coproduce various capitals through their affiliation with the club. Ethnographic research is important because it gives “researchers the best opportunity to examine various phenomena as perceived by participants” (Shaffir, 1999, p. 676). Ethnographic methods allow the researcher to form relationships and experience the culture they are immersed in, thus allowing for a deeper understanding of the participant’s way of life. This method was appropriate for this project as it was crucial to understand and identify, firsthand, the individually insignificant, but collectively meaningful and important ways in which social class and racial/ethnic identities contribute to the maintenance of the privileged, dominant positions held by Pine View members. Furthermore, the in-depth knowledge produced through my prolonged, intense engagement with this group allowed me to observe and examine the subtle, hidden techniques associated with social segregation and the acquisition and reproduction of capital, and thus ultimately the (re)production of the upper middle class White privileged position of members.
I served as the head coach for the swim team over four summers, a position that gave me excellent access to the club’s culture and its members through observatory and participatory experiences, as well as via formal, in-depth interviews with members. Observation and participant observations were documented in a series of field notes and focused on understanding the context and content of members’ interactions at the pool. To more accurately interpret the data documented in my field notes and enhance my understanding of the pool’s culture, I conducted interviews during the summer of 2009 with mothers and children who frequently attended the pool. Specifically, interview participants were selected based on the following characteristics: married parent of more than one child; one child in the family must be between 6 and 10 years old; and this child must actively participate in the swim programs at the pool during the summer (swimming, diving, and/or lessons). Through these criteria, it was possible to obtain perspectives from Pine View members who attend the pool frequently and have children that still rely on parental intervention to facilitate their livelihoods (i.e., planning playdates, transportation to activities, chaperoning, etc.), but are becoming autonomous youth with ideas, opinions, and interests of their own (cf., Lareau, 2003). In total, 35 interviews were conducted, 20 with mothers and 15 with children. All mothers signed an Institutional Review Board approved consent form and, if applicable, one on behalf of their children, as a prerequisite of participation. Each of the 20 mothers participated in a recorded, in-depth, semistructured interview at their own home that lasted anywhere between 45 and 105 min. Questions asked in these interviews focused on understanding how members appropriated Pine View into their daily and family lives. The children also participated in a recorded, informal, semistructured interview at their home which varied from 10 to 30 min in length.
I transcribed all interviews verbatim, and uploaded all computerized data, including field notes and transcriptions, into the qualitative data management program, Atlas.ti. I utilized Atlas.ti to organize and categorize interview transcripts and field notes, and analyze data through the practice of open, axial, and selective coding (cf., Creswell, 2003; Daly, 2007). In an effort to ensure my interpretations of the cultural field of Pine View were credible, I took several measures to achieve validity during this research process. First, I engaged multiple methods, including interviews, observations, and participant observations, to understand the culture of Pine View. Second, I worked hard to establish a good rapport with participants through a prolonged engagement at Pine View that helped me to achieve saturation at the research site. In total, I spent approximately 2,800 hr at Pine View over the course of four summers gaining lived experience at the club. Third, I conducted member checks with interview participants. Finally, I continually engaged in reflexive thinking during the research process, acknowledging my interpretation of the culture and context of Pine View are based on my own biography as a White, middle class female, who is a former swimmer and swim coach. While I never belonged to a private club in my youth, I must recognize that I grew up in a position of relative privilege, a circumstance that impacts my reading of the Pine View community. However, I believe my awareness of my own socialized experience of identifying as a relatively privileged White woman in the United States has allowed me to better understand the cyclical operation of race and class-based privilege that enabled membership for those families belonging to Pine View. My own positionality helped me to identify the small, mundane, hidden characteristics of privilege structuring the class habitus of member families, and therefore I strongly believe that this research can help to elucidate cyclical hierarchies of privilege and stimulate a deeper understanding of how Whiteness operates subtly and covertly to reproduce regimes of power structuring our social world. In addition, it is important for me to recognize my habitus, comprising a similar suburban upbringing, a comprehensive knowledge of competitive and recreational swimming, and an understanding of the codes and conduct at a club like Pine View, assisted me in gaining access to participants in this project as well as performing the analysis and interpretation of the data collected. Accordingly, it was crucial to consider how my position at the pool situated me as an insider and an outsider and the way in which my identity served as a constitutive presence in the very cultural field I was researching. Throughout this project I tried to be cognizant of my previous experiences, relationships to participants, and status within the community as the researcher is never just a neutral observer (Denzin, 1997; Hammersly & Atkinson, 1995). My physical likeness, presence, and role, and the way in which I positioned myself at the pool, contributed to the interactions I had with members at the pool thus shaping the research process and the specific conclusions forming the basis for this article.
Research Site and Demographic Characteristics
Pine View is a semiprivate swim and tennis club located in a suburban community that is situated on the outskirts of a major mid-Atlantic city in the United States. In 2009 (the final summer of this research) membership cost US$670, and there were approximately 170 memberships sold, the majority of which went to two-parent households with children under the age of 18. The club has three tennis courts; a pavilion area for picnics, grilling, and shade; and a 25-m, six-lane pool with two 12-m by 12-m areas attached at opposite ends. Pine View features swim and dive teams which charge US$125 per child per team to participate for the season and are each made up of member children aged 4 to 18.
The town where Pine View is located reports a median household income of US$157,254 per year and is home to many government employees, lawyers, and professional business persons (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006-2008). The mothers interviewed were asked to complete anonymous demographic surveys in which they designated their annual household income to be in one of six ranges derived from the 2007 Current Population Survey quintiles for the United States. Of the 20 mothers surveyed, 1 selected her annual household income to be between US$100,000 and US$135,000; 3 indicated theirs to be between US$135,000 and US$177,000; and the remaining 16 noted their income to be more than US$177,000 annually. These results place all participants in the top 20% of families in the United States, and 16 of the families in the top 5% of all American households. In addition to their household incomes, the Pine View women also volunteered demographic information related to their ethnicity, occupation, age, children, and level of education. Sixteen of the 20 mothers identified as White, and the remaining four as Asian. In terms of occupation, 7 of the mothers stayed home full-time, while the other 13 worked as part-time professionals in fields such as law, accounting, and administration. The average age of participants was 40 years old, and 11 families had two children, eight families had three children, and one family had four children. Finally, this was a highly educated group as all of the women and their husbands possessed an undergraduate degree, and further, 15 women and 17 of their husbands had earned a graduate degree. Based on the aforementioned demographic characteristics as well as Bourdieu’s sport classifications, this research considered Pine View’s membership base to be largely upper middle class.
Discussion
Community
Spatial arrangements in the suburbs can be isolating, but swimming pools operate as common, albeit often private, spaces that bring families together (Wiltse, 2007). Belonging to a pool club becomes an “investment not only in money but in neighborhood co-operation, enjoyment and friendliness” (Wiltse, 2007, p. 194). The families in this research gravitate toward Pine View for these reasons, explaining the importance of the pool as a community. Community means people feel “meaningfully connected to something smaller than the nation and larger than themselves” (Dalton, 2005, p. 15), a sense of belonging that is important to these families. Multiple mothers praised the pool for having, as Rachel noted, “a community feel.” Those families that live in neighborhoods across, adjacent to, and behind the pool, explained Pine View as an extension of their neighborhood community. Kristen enjoyed the way that the pool offered her kids “a sense of community rooted right here in their neighborhood.” She continued to tell me that the pool has been part of our experience of living in this neighborhood, and the way that we’ve made friends in the neighborhood. [The girls] go to an independence school, they don’t go to the public school. So one thing that we really love about Pine View is [it is] a way for them to connect with the neighborhood—you know immediately [the road], but also just the surrounding area, beyond [the road]. It’s given them a nice opportunity to get to know neighborhood kids in way that through school they wouldn’t have.
These connections, bonds, and relationships formed at the pool in the summer do in fact represent an additional and important social network, for parents and children, and thus the pool functions as a cultural field to cultivate valuable capital (discussed in more detail below).
Reilly explained that she feels it is fun to be active and social, and therefore she “love[s] the idea of the community. I think [Pine View] is just kind of community and meeting new people, and having friends that live in your area, in your vicinity, and having my girls make friends that way too.” She believed it was important that her daughter made friends at the pool and in her neighborhood because “they’re just at that age where they’re bonding, and I think a lot of the people in the area stay around for a long time, so it’s good to build these strong little friendships now.” Sabrina, who spoke of community more adamantly and fondly than any of the other mothers, advocated that “community is good for your family.” She found Pine View to be “another great community to be part of for the summer” as it is a place “where people know us, and we know them, and we feel sort of safe and comfortable there.” Sabrina explained that overall: I just feel it’s just a safe place for them so as a parent you can sit back and let them be independent. But what’s nice is because it is a community and one day somebody’s gonna say, “well, Gavin you shouldn’t be doing that.” You can kinda allow—I mean it takes a village you know? Which is so hokey and Clinton-esque but it’s true. And I like that atmosphere where everybody knows who your kid is, so they’re gonna be looking out for them.
Sabrina felt both connected and part of Pine View, as did all of the other families I spoke with. She, like many of the mothers, brought up the idea of safety as another important feature of community. Sabrina explained to me that because she has a special needs child, community is a very important component of the pool because it gives her son “a place where he can feel safe and people are kind to him.” In another example, during our interview Kristen engaged in conversation with her daughters who were sitting with us, and said, between your coaches, and parents that you know, like you know if Daddy and I aren’t there, you know it’s a nice community, and there are, at any time, at least five people that could help them if they needed it.
This idea was conveyed throughout all of my interviews, and the fact that parents felt that their children were safe at the pool is significant. Even the children expressed this sentiment in their discussions with me, telling me that there will always be people that they know around the pool if they needed help. Similarly, Lynn told me that the pool offers: a really nice sense of comfort for the boys, like they truly feel like it’s home away from home in the summertime, and you know, they know the [life]guards, the [life]guards know them . . . you know, it takes a while for them to have that sense of comfort, and like its instantaneous for them [at Pine View], because it’s such a natural comfort zone for them.
The idea that children feel comfortable and safe at the pool is an additional reason why families enjoy being there and value their membership.
However, the sense of safeness and community feel expressed by the mothers can easily be read as a euphemism for the production of social capital, and further, the social segregation that is representative of the Pine View community and members’ lives in general. The “natural comfort” characterizing the Pine View experience is related to “the harmony of habitus,” and an embodied sameness that members experience in and through each other (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 82). This “presence of absence” (Chidester, 2008) is a clear marker of social segregation and indicative of members’ lives in general.
In addition, the women’s common sentiments for their socially segregated pool community speak to the mostly White identity of members, an idea that is rarely a conscious consideration for them, yet continuously reproduced through their club membership (Long & Hylton, 2002). Whiteness and “exclusion . . . shape the cultural field(s) that white Americans now inhabit” (Frankenberg, 1994, p. 75). The Pine View families’ White, upper middle class privilege affords them social distance from minorities as they inhabit mostly White neighborhoods that were constructed through the historical racial structuring of their community (Frankenberg, 1993). For these families, Whiteness and the maintenance of the complexion of the club, is unavoidably inseparable from social class position. Thus I argue, as McDonald and King (2012, p. 1026) assert, “whiteness operates through other modes of power, including class,” and therefore for the Pine View community, the members’ White identity operates as a constitutive element of their social class position. While the mothers believe wholeheartedly in the sense of comfort, safety, and socialization that their Pine View membership has provided them, by way of their various forms and levels of capital, the class and race-based exclusivity and superiority evidenced through their comments is an illustrative example of their social class privilege. The pool is a vehicle of inclusion/exclusion organized by class habitus and possession of various capitals structuring particular appropriate behaviors, values, and ideologies, thus contributing to the club’s social boundaries. Ultimately, members draw on the important sense of community they feel at Pine View to develop and promote a variety of capitals in and through their children, while using membership in this community to reinforce and reproduce the socially segregated nature of their lives.
In addition to the general feeling of safety and security Pine View fostered, members felt that the pool community was a pivotal in providing a well-rounded social experience for their children. Many women articulated that in their competitive, fast-paced community, like Cathy feared, “[kids] are exposed to a lot that could sort of make them a little more insular and less welcoming and it worries me.” Therefore, Cathy believed that Pine View was important, because I think it clearly gives [the kids] an opportunity to be exposed to lots of different people, and it gives them an opportunity to interrelate with different age groups which is great, and people coming from different backgrounds and different experiences and different cultures and all that. So I mean, it’s still [this town], so it’s not a total melting pot, but it’s better than a lot of the organizations that they have been asked to be part of.
Cathy’s quote surprised me because as an academic observer over 4 years, I do not consider Pine View to be diverse, but also because she pointed to it as more diverse than many other organizations her family is involved in, a characteristic that I believe to be constitutive of these families’ White, upper middle class habitus. In addition, the term diversity typically refers to race and ethnicity, however due to the lack of “traditional” diversity at the pool, Cathy was also focused on the other types of difference she believed to be healthy for her children to be exposed to, such as age, culture, religion, and family. Many mothers described elements of religious diversity they have encountered at the pool or in interactions with other members, and appeared to view it as an additional healthy benefit to pool membership. For example, Sabrina commented that Pine View “is diverse. Sort of—for the area at least, you know, ethnically, I don’t know, there’s people—it’s sort of an international flair.” She continued saying, “my kids go to a Jewish school, so I like that [Pine View] is not all Jewish people, so it’s kinda diverse.” Accordingly, the Pine View mothers appear to manage their children’s access to multicultural experiences, believing that their membership to Pine View, a club with Asian and Jewish members, populations historically not included in a definition of Whiteness, equates to diversity. Yet in reality, at Pine View the minority members occupying these classifications are still upper middle class individuals in families who lead privileged existences, and therefore are not likely to be considered “others” due to their shared class circumstances. Through them, Pine View maintains the “right” type of diversity. In this sense, the way in which Whiteness is expressed through Pine View is not strictly about inclusion based on skin color; rather it is a system of stratification premised on the similar possession, application, and employment of capital. The inclusion of these nonthreatening, assimilated, upper middle class “others” operates as a social strategy to maintain Pine View as a socially segregated cultural field.
Based on the mother’s sentiments regarding their membership, it became clear that Pine View operates as a homogenous, mostly White community offering their children what they believe to be the right social experiences as the relationships at the pool are maintained within a safe, supervised space preserving classed and raced boundaries. Like Pugh (2009) found in her work, Pine View parents do indicate a slight need to find their children diverse experiences, but in general tend to shield them from “interactional difference” (p.97). In particular, upper income White and Asian families, like those that make up the Pine View membership base, seem to gravitate toward specific, safe, segregated, and controlled diverse experiences, rather than actually integrating their lives (Byrne, 2006; Pugh, 2009). While upper middle class parents generally want their children to engage in diverse experiences, they prefer social contexts that isolate people from “others” so there is not too much difference and their status is not threatened (Byrne, 2006). Parents view a complete multicultural experience as the “wrong ‘mix’,” posing a threat to children’s social development, and thereby attempt to manage their children’s access to diverse interactions (Byrne, 2006, p. 1011). Pine View families operate under this philosophy, recognizing small differences (i.e., religion) among their fellow pool members as beneficial for their familial social network and personal development, yet the interactions they engage in with other club families are quintessentially nonthreatening as they are governed by their shared upper middle class habitus. This distinctive, seemingly natural “harmony of habitus” (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 82) maintained in and through Pine View members operates as an overarching, homogenizing force contributing to the invisible, impenetrable boundaries of the pool.
Crowd-free and comfortable
The women not only appreciate the pool community, but they also feel like they fit in at Pine View, an important component of their leisure experience (cf., Green, 1998) and a marker of their shared habitus and levels of cultural and social capital. Many mothers said that the pool offers them a place to feel content, connected, and part of a community. Margaret mentioned that “people are friendly, and it’s family. I see other moms that are just like me, and they have kids, and they are watching their small ones and big ones, and it fits.” She continued by saying “I love that, to just surround myself with that way, and see the real good people, the real moms that are caring for their children.” Likewise, Rachel explained that the pool is important because she “needed to go around people, families like us,” while Lynn said she liked Pine View because “there’s common ground with a lot of the families’” and “we’re all kind of in the same situation right now with issues or what they’re doing or what we’re doing.” Other women used phrases such as moms like me or families like us in talking about Pine View as well, all indicating a particular sense of belonging they feel to the pool and community. The women’s explanations illustrate a concerted effort to belong to Pine View specifically and represent a social strategy for the maintenance of their White privilege through their pool membership. In addition, the women’s comments demonstrate a distinctive desire to be around other families who share the same class habitus through which they gain an important sense of belonging. Jessica alluded to this idea when she explained: I mean I could just drop the membership—it would be ridiculously much cheaper to go to a public pool whenever we wanted to. But I like just knowing that we have that pool, we can go when we want, it’s not going to be crowded, I know people there so we can hangout with someone we know . . . we’re guaranteed to know someone there, to have someone to chat with, I don’t know . . . there’s something about the public pool and a pool that’s like . . . yeah, it would be hard for me to not ever join [Pine View].
While Jessica acknowledged the financial implications of her Pine View membership over the public pool, she indicated that belonging to the club is important enough to pay for. Jessica’s words, “there’s something about the public pool,” are demonstrative of her lived experience of privilege and class-based tastes and preferences for private over public and further, segregated and restricted over open-access. Jessica’s desire to be at Pine View is governed by her unconscious, yet specific, selective, and strategic identification of the pool as a class-appropriate space, and by implication, an exclusionary, mostly White affiliation. Pine View is not selected by members specifically for its racial and ethnic make-up, rather it’s a process driven by social and cultural capitals, and therefore there are families present that could be considered others, yet they follow the codes and ideologies of this class-based space, thus helping to represent the “right mix” of differences at the club and ultimately operating to homogenize membership.
In addition, like Jessica explained, almost all of the women described Pine View as not crowded and having a friendly, laid-back, easy-going environment, features that are important to their sense of belonging, personal comfort, and enjoyment of the pool. Popular, overcrowded spaces indicate that masses of ordinary people have appropriated them into their lives and “insidiously arouse horror or disgust for objects and practices that have become common” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 249). Pine View, as a crowd-free, private, exclusive recreational space offers members a certain sense of distinction in part through the socially segregated nature of the cultural field. Stephanie explained to me that she likes it because it is one of the nicer swim and tennis clubs she has seen, and it is much less crowded than the “public pool [which] is really close—and it’s nice—but very crowded.” Tracy and Barb compared it to the jam-packed atmosphere of the local YMCA that has an indoor and outdoor pool. Barb said, it’s just too crowded . . . I could not have kept a good eye on them there, even in the baby pool I was still nervous, there’s 1000 people walking around, and I just wanted a pool that was less crowded.
Similarly, Tracy explained that the YMCA is way too busy, but “with [Pine View] you can come at 11 in the morning and nobody is there.” Rachel praised Pine View because it is not crazy all the time, and described another swim and tennis club, only seven tenths of a mile away from Pine View, as “very chaotic.” Overall, it is clear that the women place a high value on Pine View as a private, relatively quiet, relaxing space. Following Frankenberg (1993), these women’s White privilege is characterized by “social distance” (p.48) from others, and this is upheld through “boundary maintenance” (p. 55) techniques. The pool offers a class enclave, socially segregating the upper middle class membership from the populations comprising the crowded public pools. The premium the families place on their own space represents a powerful, prestigious commodity that demonstrates their distinctive, lived experience as White, upper middle class, privileged individuals with the capital and control to shape their own lives. Through their seemingly ordinary choice to be away from crowds, the Pine View women illustrate a covert tactic through which they maintain the complexion of their club.
The women also discussed the idea of who is at the pool versus who is not there, indicating an additional element of their concerted choice to belong to Pine View over other clubs. Many joined Pine View in relation to its close proximity to their neighborhood and their ability to recreate with people in their community who they do not see through their children’s’ school during the rest of the year. For example, Heather explained, And the other appealing thing for me . . . [was] once I’d become entrenched at the elementary school, I was very aware of people at that school mostly belonging to a different swim club. And I became very involved in the PTA when the girls were young, and I was very happy to [have] removed myself from that during the summer and not sit around the pool with the same women that I sat around with discussing things with at PTA meetings. I mean, that was a very—that was a big factor for me . . . Because there were some very strong personalities and I just wanted—I needed a break. (Heather)
Similarly, Sabrina said of Pine View, That’s part of what makes it special in way, because there are people that you just see in the summer. It’s nice, I like that there are separate communities, I like that it’s not the mother’s from my kids school who just talk about the school and the teachers, and the blah blah blah, you know? I love not listening to that. (Sabrina)
These excerpts from Heather and Sabrina reflect many of the women’s sentiments regarding their pool membership, as well as illustrate their conscious decision to vary their social network, a choice emblematic of their lived experience of privilege. Through their selection of Pine View over the other pools in the area, these mothers demonstrate their unconscious, naturalized upper middle class habitus. They employ their various forms and levels of capital to garner themselves the type of environment where they feel the most comfortable, based on nothing more than “the socially innocent language of likes and dislikes” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 243). Specifically, these women have exercised a level of agency and control over their lives by making the strategic choice to belong to Pine View because of who is not there, thus purposefully constructing their social network. As Bourdieu (1984) argued, one’s habitus will find a sense of matching with others with a similar habitus in “a sort of mutual acculturation” which is based on “the immediate affinities which orient social encounters, discouraging socially discordant relationships, encouraging well-matched relationships, without these operations ever having to be formulated other than in the socially innocent language of likes and dislikes” (p. 243). I believe these women’s distinctive tastes and preferences, symbolic depictions of their White, upper middle class habitus, intentionally facilitate their leisure and comfort and represent covert social tactics governing their social segregation and the maintenance of Pine View’s invisible boundaries. The specific, concerted choice to belong to Pine View operates as a social strategy through which families are able to maintain their upper middle class White privilege. They’ve identified the pool as a cultural field featuring the “right mix” of people for their families to engage with.
The Production of Social Capital
Given their general comfort and satisfaction with Pine View, the women praise the pool community for the opportunity it offers them to cultivate social capital. For instance, Faith referred to Pine View as “a welcoming, kind of social center for our family . . . [that] we all look forward to every year . . . it’s sort of what we do in the summer, it’s a place we go.” Faith continued by explaining they know more people every year and it is a great place to come back to each summer. Tracy felt that the pool really defines our summer [because] summer stars for us when [Pine View] opens, all of a sudden its physical activity for the whole family, its social activity for the whole family, its unplanned playdates for the whole family, I mean honestly I go there, and everybody has a friend or makes a friend, you know all five of us. So we can go there at any time and have people to hangout with and swim with, and that’s really important and it makes our lives a lot easier.
Similarly, Stephanie commented that in the summer “[the pool] is a big social component for us.” Nancy said that she enjoys the pool for “the social part—that you sit down and you can talk and meet new people and new families.” Elizabeth observed that being at Pine View is “an easy way to facilitate friendships because you are focused on having fun, you’re not thinking about it too much, and you can make friends effortlessly.”
Accordingly, the pool represents an important chance for children to have fun and feel connected while socializing and building their social skills, thus cultivating their social capital. For example, Cathy explained that her son “is such a huge social animal [and] he goes and he likes to be around all the kids.” Stephanie commented that the pool allows her kids to have a unique opportunity to socialize: Ken actually, he’s pretty good, I think one of his strong points is he’s pretty good at trying to go talk to other kids, and so I actually think it’s kind of neat for him not knowing a lot of kids—that’s another reason I do want to go more . . . I think even Zoe, she tends to be shy, at least definitely compared to Ken, even she said that she was talking to a few kids.
Reiterating Stephanie’s sentiments about fostering socialization in a shy child, Rachel explained, I want [my kids] to be social people and have a good circle of friends, I want them to be very socialized and know people and be comfortable, especially because [my son’s] a little shy, and that’s . . . why we do a lot more social things.
Rachel indicates that she is utilizing the pool as a distinctive social opportunity to help her children form a “good circle of friends,” and improve their social confidence, traits that are crucial to the maintenance of their familial social status and children’s future success. Socialization is important for upper middle class parents and children, and Pine View is a valuable place to acquire social capital and techniques of sociability. Sabrina similarly mentioned, I think my kids learn to be social and kind and they interact well with other kids and with other adults, you know? It just I think makes them happier individuals, and makes their way better in the world. People like you better if you’re social, if you know how to look somebody in the eye.
The idea of looking somebody in the eye speaks to a specific social (and cultural) capital that is beneficial in many aspects of life, and Sabrina’s mention of this characteristic refers to it as an embodied disposition expressive of social class location. As a way to ensure the transmission and reproduction of privilege in the next generation, parents attempt to instill corporeal habits in their children, as even subtle gestures, postures, and language can demonstrate social meaning and cultural values, and thus “shape the class body” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 190; see also 1977). The manner in which an individual relates to their own body is expressed in particular ways, for instance, bodily comportment and outward displays of confidence express very “visible traces of early and recurrent exposure” to particular, distinctive class experiences, and are “powerful social marker[s]” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 252). Confidence, and the effort to nurture confidence through social interactions with other pool members, is a privilege of the privileged, and again demonstrates the acquisition, transmission, and reproduction of valuable (White) capital in and through children.
Furthermore illustrating this idea of exclusive, class-based socialization, Faith explained that she viewed this unique parent–child inclusive environment as an excellent opportunity to be a social role model for her children: we’re socializing and you know I think another thing, they’re socializing with each other, I get to socialize, and they’re watching me socialize too, and I think it’s an interesting—you know I often model for my kids, I think because I have these [different] groups of friends so I’m navigating groups of friends . . . I think it’s an opportunity for them to see, because they typically are not seeing me socialize with my friends during the school year, because [we’re] busy—I mean they might see us when we’re at activities and I’m chit-chatting with a friend or something, but they’re not seeing me kind of move among friends as they do at the pool . . . they see me kind of moving among, and being nice to everybody, and kind of talking to someone and then moving on to another person, and watching that, and I often will say, “do you see how I talked to this friend, and how I include this friend?” So it’s a place for them to sort of see me role model that as well.
Faith believed the ability to socialize as a very big part of life and a skill that is imperative to her children’s success—one which it is not only her job to teach, but also to model. Leisure sites, such as Pine View, offer parents the opportunity demonstrate behaviors, practices, family values, and life skills for children, rather than lecture them about proper behavior (Shaw & Dawson, 2001). Furthermore, swimming clubs function as distinctive cultural fields fostering opportunities for social learning and personal growth (Light, 2010). Faith’s identification of Pine View as an appropriate physical space to cultivate these skills in her children is an example of the way in which parents use the pool as a vehicle to transmit and reproduce their social skills, thereby contributing to the reproduction of their class-based privilege. Illustrating how her children have learned to create and operate in their own social sphere at Pine View, Sarah explained, “for my kids, they now have friends, instead of me having friends and trying to make friends for them, you know, they find their people.” However, Sarah, like the other mothers, knows that “their people” are other White, upper middle class children from Pine View families who share the same habitus and help to coproduce the socially desirable cultural field that Pine View boasts. For example, Cathy explained, just in general, I mean you don’t see raucous behavior and you don’t see rudeness. Even the groups [of] kids who come—there aren’t really even that many groups of kids who come together, but even when they do, I mean, you know, they’re in control and they’re polite. So I think it’s a nice environment.
Accordingly, making friends at the pool, for adults and children, is simply a socially controlled opportunity to meet other “good people” (Barb, Lynn, Margaret), an exercise that reinforces and valorizes the class and race-based segregated nature of their lives, and certainly their pool membership. Ultimately the social capital acquired, transmitted, and reproduced at Pine View is White and upper middle class, and as such, through their embodied habitus, members enable and promote the normativity of Whiteness at the pool, and subsequently structure the hidden social boundaries of membership.
Developing a social network
The socializing opportunities that families have at Pine View are important and numerous, and like Ostrander (1984) discovered, club memberships are critical to the preservation of upper income social networks for reasons over and above leisure and enjoyment. In addition to simply being a social opportunity, membership at Pine View facilitates a social network for families. Social networks are not a given, rather they are the product of the concerted effort of families to (re)produce “lasting, useful relationships that can secure material or symbolic profits” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 249). As such, many of the mothers explained how their membership to Pine View was a choice made for particular reasons, namely, as a place to “connect” with others who share their habitus. For instance, Elizabeth told me the purpose of Pine View in her family life was for exercise, leisure, and social network, I would definitely say. You know a way to connect with the neighbors and a way to connect with people outside the school because there is no one at the pool that goes to any of the schools that we belong to.
Yet, the goal of socializing and forming a social network at Pine View is not about bonding or building lifelong friendships, rather it is about the practice and process of social networking. These upper middle class families utilize the pool as a cultural field in which they can engage in a “continuous series of exchanges,” and thus maintain and/or increase their social capital (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 250). Specifically, pool membership offers an opportunity to form a useful social network that increases the strength and number of social relationships a family possesses. As an example, Sabrina believed, I mean it increases your social connections, not in social climbing ways, it’s just more people, you know? You know if you want to start a business it just widens your social circle I guess. We don’t—is that something we need? No. We’re not selling something.
Many of the mother’s discussed these social connections, not with an emphasis on social climbing, but rather as a way of broadening their network. Sabrina also told me, I met somebody whose husband did similar work as my husband, so I met the husband and I’m chatting with him one day, so the next time [my husband] came, I introduced them, two hours, yak yak yak, so it’s social, you know? In terms of like “oh, let’s go out Saturday night,” not so much yet, but it’s fostering some friendships.
Cathy illustrated this idea of expanding her social network using the example of another Pine View family: Like the Smith’s—we met. Now we haven’t socialized with them, but then when you run into them out and about, maybe at the grocery store, you stop and have quite a long conversation, you know? So you do develop some relationships—we haven’t taken them to the level of socializing with the folks outside of the pool, but it’s a nice opportunity to socialize there.
Ultimately the Pine View social network presents members with a different set of potentially useful social connections. Fellow members are not specifically viewed as friends, rather as affiliations that may be called on at some point in the future when circumstances change, for instance if there is a job or sales opportunity. These connections cultivated at Pine View offer an additional social circle structuring members’ habitus.
However, while these relationships are valuable, the mothers explained the fact that Pine View is very clearly about “summer friendships” rather than best friendships. Elizabeth told me that Pine View is a summer community, definitely … I wouldn’t say these are like my best friends or anything like that, they’re definitely like a neighborhood environment. We’re closer to people from school, or just our outside group of friends and things like that.
Elizabeth’s viewpoint was common as the women indicated that Pine View did not drive their social lives, rather, as consistent with their upper middle class position, is only one component of it. For instance, Cathy said, “you see the same people there day after day, but that doesn’t go much beyond a pleasant hello.” And Faith explained the idea of these loose, “pleasant” relationships: I don’t know the names of everybody who goes. Like I know Tracy is always there, but like there are a bunch of people I know who I always say hello to, and we’ll chit chat even, but I don’t know their names, but we all know we’ve been there for years, and I know I know them from the pool.
Furthermore, Sarah mentioned that these summer associations are all but abandoned during the rest of the year: I’ll run to people during the year—I’ll run into Tracy or Heather, and we have a great time, and we might stop for a few minutes and catch a cup of coffee to catch up with each other, but we don’t usually actively make a plan to see each other, which is funny . . . And everybody accepts that too, so nobody’s offended. It’s not like next year your friendship is deteriorated because you haven’t kept it up. It’s almost the expectation that it’s okay to do that—you go to the other things and come back.
The fluid nature of these summer relationships is important to members’ upper middle class habitus due to their ability to foster a social network based on Pine View affiliation.
Establishing and utilizing these connections characterizes the lived experience of the Pine View families. Social capital demonstrates the “successful management of the capital collectively possessed by members of the domestic unity” (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 24), and serves to multiply other forms of capital, giving those who possess it distinctive privileges (Bourdieu, 1986). Pool membership, afforded through economic capital, and desired due to cultural capital, offers families an additional opportunity to build social capital and expand their social circles through relationships with other members. However, as discussed, these alliances only further serve to reinforce and reproduce members’ socially segregated lives through the coproduction of specific forms of White, upper middle class capital in and through each other. These subtle tactics structuring capital transmission and reproduction are illustrations of the class-based ways of knowing and being which contribute to the hidden boundaries structuring the White, upper middle class Pine View membership.
Conclusion
Discovering the many covert ways in which White power functions so as to “perpetuate the normativity of White world views and maintain the privileged position of Whites” is important (Hartmann, 2007, p. 58), and a task that I believe this article has accomplished. While certainly not as overt as the incident at the Valley Club described earlier, it is undeniable that social segregation is a very real consequence of Pine View membership and members capitalize on the pool as a cultural field of invisible exclusion so as to recreate with other families who share their habitus. Specifically, I have argued that Whiteness and upper middle class privilege are intertwined and inseparable at Pine View. The particular, concerted choice to belong to Pine View operates as a social strategy through which families are able to maintain their upper middle class White privilege through “highly controlled social exchange[s]” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 217) made possible due to the largely impenetrable, yet invisible, boundaries structuring the community. Accordingly, belonging to the pool is as much an exercise in the acquisition, transmission, and reproduction of specific class-based capitals as it is in swimming. These capitals structure appropriate behaviors, values, and ideologies, and thus dialectically contribute to the construction of club’s socially segregated boundaries. Through Pine View membership and social interactions within this distinctive cultural field, children learn to reproduce the same regimes of social segregation in their adulthood, thus continually perpetuating not only the hidden barriers to swim club membership and the broader swimming culture in general, but also the invisibility of White power and privilege.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Author Biography
References
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