Abstract
This study analyses the class-related determinants of sport socialization and sport practices in Poland from the perspective of Bourdieu’s class theory. We investigate how parents equip their children with sports-related cultural capital, including whether or not they take into account the social recognition of sport activities and how this is reflected in sport socialization practices. We performed in-depth interviews with parents whose children practised horseback riding, lawn tennis, soccer and wrestling, and a quantitative nationwide survey of parents of children aged 7–16 who practise sports. Class-based patterns of sport socialization, parents’ past sport experiences and present participation and family leisure and sport consumption were observed in the qualitative part of the research, in which we found sport practices and tastes to be quite distinct according to class. Yet, except for class-dependent sport consumption, this pattern was not confirmed in the survey. Sport practices within highly commercialized sport services in present-day Poland may be used as markers of social position by those who enter this social field – approximately 40% of the Polish population. The rest remain undefined and undistinguishable in terms of a specific sport-related lifestyle.
This article focuses on the social diversity of the process of sport socialization and participation in sports from the perspective of Pierre Bourdieu’s class theory. Empirical analyses were undertaken to test Bourdieu’s theory in the field of sport socialization and to verify the distinctive potential of sport-related social practices in Polish society. Such studies have not yet been carried out in Poland on a broader scale. Before the formal change of the political system in 1989, the category of social class was heavily exploited in communist Poland within sport sciences from a politically promoted Marxist perspective. The presentation of the ‘legacy of workers’ sport’ and the ideologically infused discussion on the advantages of working-class sport over ‘bourgeois sport’ were major aspects of the chapter on sport and social structure found in Sociology of Physical Culture, an official Polish textbook published in 1988, one year before the political transition (Wohl, 1988). After the communist collapse, this analytical category was neglected and the general concept of class in the social analysis of sport was abandoned. The former domination of the Marxist class paradigm and the subsequent retreat from this key sociological category resulted in Polish sports sciences overlooking the social class theory developed by Bourdieu in the 1970s. In this study, we attempt to fill this research gap.
In the period between 1945 and 1989, competitive and leisure sports in Poland were directly or indirectly state-administered and state-financed. Mass sport and politicized international competitive sport were at the heart of state sports policy. Mass sport was perceived instrumentally as a ‘means of obtaining the fit, disciplined and co-operative workforce needed for attaining economic and military strength and efficiency’ (Riordan, 1982: 224). Sports labelled ‘bourgeois’ were discouraged by the state because, as Giulianotti puts it, they were judged to be ‘suffused with alienation, ruling-class ideologies and commodification’ (2005: 41) and were meaningless leisure pastimes. Free or extremely low-charge access to almost any sports discipline strongly reduced the previously elite character of many sports. The political system transition in 1989, which resulted in the commercialization and liberalization of sports in Poland, brought about the collapse of many sports clubs and a decline in participation, and subsequently forced a reshaping of the way people perceived sports participation. Soon enough, it appeared that without the support of public money, some sports became less available for those from the lower classes. The former egalitarian view of sport as an open-access field for people from any social class slowly paved the way for sports to become viewed as one more field of social competition for recognition and prestige.
With regard to the social structure of post-communist societies in Central Europe, as Eyal et al. (1998) have argued, cultural capital was the most important basis of power and privilege. Increased social and economic differences have produced the newly rich and the economic elite, who are looking for a social identity, with distinctive lifestyle markers. Use of leisure time and tastes and choices in leisure sports have become more important manifestations of high social position. These changes in sport organization, economic determinants of participation and view of the social functions of leisure sports were clearly visible in many interviews with our upper-class respondents, who noticed a major shift in sport-related parental practices between communist-era and present-day Poland: Things changed a lot. As a child I practised ice hockey, my brother tennis and a bit of fencing and shooting. It was all offered almost free of charge. But it was a communist time and my parents did not bother about the costs of children sport activities […]. Now we have to pay this from our own pockets and you really see this in a family budget (Interview 11 – tennis parent; upper class).
Over the course of the two decades that have elapsed since the system transition in Poland, respondents have had to re-define the field of sports and construct new personal ‘maps’ and social images of sport practices. One of the goals of this study was to ascertain the degree to which sport participation and socialization into sport are class-determined more than 20 years after the political transformation. We considered sports activities to be an element of cultural capital with which parents equip their children by situating them in a social space where traditional boundaries of class based solely on economic differences are expected to gradually blur. The main problem analysed in the paper is the process of transmitting sports culture within a family, as well as the transfer of cultural capital from parents to children, including preferences for particular sports disciplines and leisure sports in terms of participation and consumption. We were looking for patterns of sports culture reproduction and class-related determinants of this reproduction. Our aim was to find out whether in contemporary Polish society leisure sport is actually recognized as an indicator of social status and whether Polish parents, when making decisions related to their own leisure-time sport activity as well as that of their children, take into consideration the social prestige of such activities. We wanted to find out how parents make choices with regard to sports activities undertaken by their children and how parents perceive the social image of sports disciplines practised by children.
Bourdieu’s class theory and its application to sports and leisure
In his social class theory, Bourdieu put special emphasis on social practices, class-determined habitus and social consequences of cultural capital differences. He assumed that middle- and upper-class parents equip their children with cultural competences (cultural capital) that are required and valued by educational institutions. Those who are rich in these competences score higher in school competitions and, as a result, more frequently occupy higher social positions. In this way, theoretically neutral systems of school assessment justify and legitimate social and economic inequalities. Cultural competences and habitus as a set of cognitive and behavioural dispositions are shaped mainly by the family outside of school. As Bourdieu (2005/1979) claims, this not only includes linguistic competences, literature and arts, but also sport tastes and practices. Sport tastes, attitudes toward the human body and sport practices may easily play the role of social markers and elements of cultural capital. The sport socialization process and family leisure sport practices would therefore also be class-determined. Bourdieu’s theory is very attractive as one of the meta-narrations linking structure and agency with social and cultural systems. Yet it has also been criticized over time. Major complaints concern its deterministic character – which seems to suggest that individuals are mainly receivers of cultural codes – and its excessive focus on the competences of the dominating class, while neglecting the competences and heterogeneous character of the dominated classes. Other important doubts concern the possibility of applying Bourdieu’s class theory to the contemporary social reality of postmodern societies. It refers mainly to the omnivore cultural consumption of the upper class and easy access to a vast range of forms of cultural participation regardless of class position but, as Ohl (2000) notices, in presenting applications of Bourdieu’s theories to contemporary research on sports, the sole fact of mass consumption of sport products does not result in the homogenization of class habitus. The present-day validity of Bourdieu’s class concept results, therefore, not from the economic dimension of consumption alone, but from its symbolic aspect as related to the use of products and the meanings attached to them (Ohl, 2000: 154). As Mehus (2005: 323) mentions, ‘those high and low in cultural capital consume the same product in different ways’. In many cases, class differences would be therefore often hidden from superficial observers and require in-depth analysis to be uncovered.
The fact that social position may still be a good indicator of the intensity and quality of sport involvement is confirmed by a substantial body of research. Some (e.g. DiMaggio and Mohr, 1985) suggest that the higher the social position, the more culturally active individuals are in all spheres of culture, including sports. There is also much evidence from various countries and cultural contexts that representatives of higher classes more often practise sport and more often attend sports events as spectators (e.g. Coakley, 1994; Eitzen and Sage, 1991; Erickson, 1996; Gruneau, 1999: 52; Moens and Scheerder, 2004; Thrane, 2001; White and Wilson, 1999; Wilson, 2002), although with regard to the latter, contrary evidence is also available (e.g. Mehus, 2005). Indirect media sport consumption is, on the other hand, more often identified with the lower classes and a low level of cultural capital. This is reported, for example, by Eitzen and Sage (1991), Wilson (2002) and Mehus (2005), as mentioned above. Class differences also concern active leisure-time participation and forms of activities chosen. This is confirmed, for example, in a Scottish participation survey analysed by Jarvie (2006: 304) and the longitudinal research of Moens and Scheerder (2004) in Belgium.
Despite the acknowledged problems of translating and interpreting Bourdieu’s class concept to other, non-French cultural and social contexts, many of Bourdieu’s observations were confirmed, for example, in the American research of Stempel (2005). This author claimed that dominant class representatives in the US use competition and physical, contact-free aerobic conditioning/training and competitive sports with low levels of aggression to draw boundaries between themselves and the middle and lower classes. A very interesting recent example of a comprehensive and fruitful use of Bourdieu’s class theory to analyse the social diversity of lifestyles and cultural (also sport) tastes outside of France is the research in Great Britain presented in Bennett et al.’s book Culture, Class, Distinction (Bennett et al., 2010).
Research methods, procedure, and samples
This study used both qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first stage, a small-scale qualitative investigation was carried out. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with parents of children who practised the sports selected for this analysis. The interview scenario included the issues of choosing sports for children (reasons, functions of sport and benefits expected), expenditures related to children’s sports, parents’ past and present sports experiences, perception of elite/prestige sports, children’s non-sport leisure activities and family leisure and sport consumption. Based on the results of our analyses of these qualitative interviews, a standardized questionnaire (including open-ended questions) was developed. It was then used to carry out a Poland-wide, statistically representative survey with a random sample of parents whose children regularly practise extracurricular sports. White and Wilson (1999: 245–246), who discussed the methodology used in the analysis of social determinants of sports practises based on Bourdieu’s theory, stressed the need to return to quantitative studies in class-oriented analyses of sports practices. According to White and Wilson (1999), qualitative studies can define the meaning and significance of practices for social actors, but do not allow patterns in the general population to be seen. Sometimes qualitative studies may lack references to the objective structure. In our research, we applied both complementary approaches. This is reflected in the way in which the two parts of the empirical research were implemented and the manner in which they were described. The joint use of qualitative methodology and quantitative population measurements is recommended by Silverman (2009: 270–271), who notes that even though this mixed methodology is more difficult to carry out, it is more fruitful and credible because random sample quantitative measurements allow one to see the degree to which cases selected for qualitative investigation are actually representative.
The research sample of the qualitative part of the research was a purposive sample that included 35 parents (24 males and 11 females; mean age 41.2) of children aged 7–16 years (12 aged 11, mean age 11.23; nine girls and 26 boys) who practised horseback riding (n=7), soccer (n=12; boys only), lawn tennis (n=8) and wrestling (n=8; one girl). The focus of interviews with parents was these children, but many of our respondents provided a lot of additional information on their other children’s sport and leisure interests. We have taken into account individual (horseback riding, lawn tennis and wrestling) and team (soccer) sport disciplines, sports with (wrestling and soccer) and without (horseback riding and tennis) physical contact with opponents and sports that were more (horseback riding and lawn tennis) and less (soccer and wrestling) expensive for the parents. The sport disciplines for this part of the research were selected due to their distinctive class character, as reported in the literature and by Bourdieu himself. The selection of such ‘extreme cases’ in terms of expected class-related differences enabled the definition and comparison of the distinctive sport-related class profiles of respondents. Using a snowball sample approach, new cases for every sports discipline were added until we had the impression of reaching the saturation point and of not receiving new input from the respondents. Hence, the most internally heterogeneous group of soccer parents is the most represented one. The research was conducted in December 2010 in Warsaw, Poland, during children’s training sessions (mostly in the case of soccer, wrestling and tennis) or during separate individual meetings with parents (mostly in the case of horseback riding and tennis). Interviews lasted from half an hour to two hours. They were recorded, transcribed and analysed using ATLAS.ti software.
The interviewed parents were relatively well educated. Over half of the respondents reported completing master’s degree studies; three had attained bachelor’s degrees. Respondents’ wives, husbands or life partners presented very similar levels of education. Taking into account the distribution of education levels in the four selected sports disciplines, we should notice a lower level of education of respondents in soccer and wrestling. The most heterogeneous discipline with regard to the parents’ education level was soccer. In the horseback-riding and lawn tennis groups, all respondents reported having university degrees. The occupational categories (based on a detailed description of the job performed) of the respondent and his/her partner (if any), their estimated financial well-being, the education level of the respondent (and his/her partner) and his/her father’s education level were taken into account in order to categorize the respondents into one of three social classes. The distribution of social classes within the selected sport disciplines is presented in Table 1.
Social classes of respondents from four selected sports disciplines in qualitative investigation.
Another part of the research was a survey carried out by the PBS market research company in December 2010. The questionnaire applied in this part of the research was administered by an interviewer during individual, face-to-face interviews and consisted of 32 items (10 open-ended questions), including social and economic characteristics. The content of this questionnaire was similar to the content of the interview scenario from the qualitative part of the research. It was a Poland-wide survey representative of all Polish families with children aged 7–16 years, with at least one child who regularly practised sports outside of school physical education classes. The sample included 309 parents (one parent per family was approached). The survey sample size was adequate for the size of the theoretical population, i.e. the population of Polish parents of children aged 7–16 who regularly practised sports. This was a multistage stratified random sample. First, Poland was divided into six regions. Second, four strata based on the size of the place of residence were defined for each region. A proportional number of families with children of the target age in each stratum were defined for the sample. In the final stage of sample design, after a random selection of urban and rural district communities within all six regions as well as addresses within communities, a random route procedure was applied and only parents of children practising extracurricular sports were interviewed. The response rate was 55%. SPSS software was used for data analysis. The chi-square maximum likelihood test was used for all nominal variables and a Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA was used for ordinal variables.
The social characteristics variables that we analysed were gender, age, place of residence, education level of the respondent and his/her father, occupation of both the respondent and his/her partner, household size, number of children and marital status. The majority of the sample was composed of women (80.3%), who represented their households. The respondents were aged 25 to 61; the sample mean age was 39.1 years and the median 38 years. Over half of the respondents (53%) were residents of urban areas; 47% came from rural regions. All 16 Polish territorial districts (voivodeships) were represented. Almost one quarter of the respondents stated that they had completed university studies; 47% had completed high school and 22% had had vocational training. The largest occupational group in the sample – at 19% – was office workers (e.g. secretaries, low-level clerks and accountants), which could be related to the domination of females in the sample. Salespeople, insurance agents, specialists and representatives of the learned professions (e.g. physicians, lawyers and artists) made up a combined 30% of the sample. Only three respondents (at n=309) held senior management jobs. Over 30% of the sample was composed of blue-collar workers and farmers; 54% were employed in the private sector, while 25% worked at public companies and institutions.
In both parts of the research, Bourdieu’s operationalization of social class (2005/1979: 632) was applied. Occupational categories, monthly net household income and the education level of the respondent and his/her father were taken into account. A majority of the sample was allotted to the lower (44.3%) and middle (42.7%) classes. Almost 13% of the respondents were allotted to the upper class. The middle class was additionally divided into the higher fraction (10.4%) and the lower fraction (respondents with no higher education; 32.3%).
Results of the qualitative survey
Continuity of family sport traditions
Parents reported different reasons and socialization agents responsible for choosing a sport for their children. The factor most often presented was parental initiative in reference to family tradition. The sports experiences and sports histories of parents were an important element of the interviews, and we noticed that in the majority of cases, a child’s involvement in sports was a continuation of parental sports practices and preferences. Less important reasons mentioned for choosing a sports discipline were close proximity to training sessions, the low cost of sport classes or a child’s initiative being supported by parents. Family sports traditions were mentioned as an important sport socialization factor by all respondents from the horseback-riding group, but we also observed this general pattern in all selected sports disciplines and social classes. The only exception concerned a few respondents whose children practised soccer and wrestling. In the case of soccer, the media popularity of this sport in Poland was reported to be the key socialization factor. For wrestling, those who did not follow family sports traditions mentioned low fees and easy access to training locations as the primary reasons for choosing this discipline. These were typical illustrations of Bourdieu’s working-class ‘choice of the necessary’ (2005/1979: 458–486). Upper-class parents (represented mainly in the horseback-riding and tennis groups) also reported that while making decisions about sports discipline for their children, the social image (positive or negative) of a certain sport was also taken into account.
Natural growth vs. concerted cultivation: children’s non-sport extracurricular activities
One of the alleged characteristic features of the upper-class lifestyle is versatility of cultural interests and competence in many heterogeneous forms of culture. Such omnivore consumption and cultural mobility of elites is contrasted with the relative univorism and passive consumption of culture of the lower class. In our research, we did not analyse the complete spectrum of respondents’ leisure-time behaviour, including their participation in high culture. We investigated all sports-related leisure activities and non-sport extracurricular activities of parents and children. We expected upper-class children to have a greater number of activities and a more diversified group of activities than the other social classes. Interviews allowed us to confirm this assumption. The lower-class children and the lower-middle-class children were indeed different from the upper-class children with regard to the number and type of their organized extracurricular activities. The general pattern was that children from the lower class (wrestling and soccer) were involved less frequently than upper-class children (horseback riding and tennis) in leisure-time activities other than sports. In this case, we observed more of a ‘natural growth’ than a ‘concerted cultivation’ approach (Lareau, 2003) to children’s socialization and education processes. Upper-class children’s leisure was constantly adult-organized and controlled, with no spare time or potentially wasted time left for children. These children were involved in many different activities, including music (9 out of 12 interviews with upper-class parents) and arts classes, foreign language classes and many others. Their parents underscored the need for constant and comprehensive education and put a lot of effort into organizing their children’s out-of-school educational activities. A good example is the upper-middle-class family from Interview 14, with a girl who practised horseback riding: Q: Do your children, who spend so much time on sports, have time for any other organized activities in their leisure time? A: Yes. They do. As parents we are always thinking whether they use their time well and for their benefit. Kids have a lot of free time. I will give you the example of my son, Kuba. He is probably the most active one. Just recently we have discovered his music talents and we have organized piano classes for him. He also has tennis and swimming classes and pottery workshops. It is all neatly organized. Pottery class is right here, in our neighbourhood. The piano teacher comes to our house, it is a five-minute drive to a tennis court and 15 minutes for a swimming class. [Having a] mother who is not working professionally and at home plus a car [helps solve the] logistic problems of our children. My daughter Maria attends pottery class as well, recently started playing volleyball and rides a horse three to four times a week and on weekends. We need to keep them busy, control and not let them spend their time with computers and all the other gaming devices (Interview 14 – horseback riding, father).
The variable that disturbed this pattern of children’s organized leisure-time activities and social class was the level and intensity of children’s sport commitment. The high frequency of weekly training sessions limited the non-sport leisure activity of children in the same way among soccer players from all social classes and some horseback riders from the upper class: Q: Do your sons have any spare time for other activities apart from sports? A: No, not at all. The day would have to have more than 24 hours. They would have to do night shifts. […] They go to school between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., next there is soccer training, long drive home, eating, homework, sleep and on the following day we repeat this routine (Interview 21 – soccer; middle class).
We also noticed that in the case of upper-class children, sports activities were very frequently accompanied by music classes. This was the case for many young tennis players and horseback riders, who also attended afternoon music schools or took piano lessons at home with a professional teacher. Music is not part of the regular school curriculum, and we may assume that it is considered by upper-class parents to be a distinctive marker of high status and an important element of their children’s cultural capital. Quite often we also saw sets of such high-status activities. One example is the brother of the girl from Interview 14 who practises horseback riding: he learned to play the piano, attended drawing classes, played tennis at a club, took swimming classes, occasionally joined his family for horse-riding excursions and in winter attended skiing and snowboarding camps. We can therefore see that in such cases sports are just one piece of a whole mosaic of extracurricular activities (omnivore tendency) and do not dominate other fields of children’s development. Considering this, we may conclude that a strong focus on sports, or a sport, as a child’s only leisure activity (univore tendency) would be more characteristic of lower- and lower-middle-class families than of upper-class families. A similar tendency concerned family leisure and tourism: upper-class respondents were much more active in these fields than were lower-class respondents.
The meaning of children’s sport involvement and parental expectations
Parents presented different understandings of the meanings and functions of children’s sports. In the majority of interviews, the issues of character building, learning systematic work, improving health and fitness and reducing passive leisure opportunities (computer and television use) were raised. Yet class differences were also recorded. They were especially visible between the horseback-riding, tennis and upper-class soccer-parent groups, as well as the lower-class wrestling group. For the latter, the primary functions of children’s sports activity were the development of strength and fitness and the learning of discipline. This utilitarian, instrumental approach was significantly less visible in the statements of upper-class members. In the case of tennis and horseback-riding parents, we have observed a much more autotelic approach to sport. It was perceived as one of many fields of children’s activity in which the main objectives were to support their overall development, provide a chance for relaxation and be a pleasurable experience: We do not consider sport as the most important thing in his life. The notion we want to pass over to him is that he should take education seriously, while sport is the domain of pleasure (Interview 4 – horseback riding).
The parts of our interviews that were related to the meaning and functions of children’s activities enabled more general conclusions to be drawn. First of all, upper-class parents were much more reluctant when estimating the importance of sport for their children. They presented more balanced views on children’s sport advantages and disadvantages and reported negative opinions of the consequences of sports involvement more often than representatives from the lower class. The lower- and lower-middle-class respondents were much more straightforward and positive about the benefits of sport. Second, we observed class-determined differences in perceiving the possibility of professional sports careers for children. This was especially the case for the soccer group. All lower- and middle-class parents considered possible professional soccer careers for their sons as a life opportunity, while upper-class parents saw this as a potential threat. They were seriously afraid that soccer involvement would reduce their children’s chances for educational attainment and ‘normal’, non-sport professional careers: My impression is that this passion is more and more constraining him. His [mind] is not open for anything else than the idea of becoming a professional player. No education, no cultural development. It is soccer and nothing else (Interview 26 – soccer; middle class).
It also seemed that upper-class parents put less emphasis on the health and fitness benefits of sport in comparison to lower-class parents. They were more focused on the psychological and social benefits of such activities. This may not be a real class difference, but may instead be the result of the different sports competences that are valued and required in different sports. In wrestling and soccer, strength, speed and general physical capacity are of primary importance. In lawn tennis and horseback riding, physical fitness is also a necessity, but technique seems to play a predominant role. Another non-class-related reason for different parental views on sports might be the fact that the lower and lower middle classes were represented mainly by boys (wrestling and soccer), while the upper-class representatives (from horseback riding and tennis) were mainly girls. This requires further consideration.
Results of the nationwide survey
The survey of parents whose children regularly practised extracurricular sports was carried out after analysis of the data from the qualitative portion of the research. In reviewing the interesting class-differentiated results of the in-depth interviews, we were expecting to see similar response patterns in the nationwide survey. This assumption proved to be only partially true. Structured individual interviews based on a questionnaire designed to match the structure and key issues from the qualitative interview scenario generally did not reveal similar class-determined patterns in the sport socialization process and the sport practices of the respondents.
Class determinants of sports socialization and reasons for choosing extracurricular sport activities for children
The children of the respondents were involved in various sports activities – both competitive and non-competitive, but with regular training sessions – besides school physical education classes. Almost 60% of them were involved in sports competitions. We found the largest proportion of children who were competitive sportspeople to be among the upper-class respondents, but class differences were not statistically significant. Nor was there a dependency between social class and number of sports disciplines practised by children. The most popular children’s sports activities were soccer (36.2%), swimming (26.5%), dance (16.2%), recreational biking (15.2%), volleyball (11.7%), combat sports (10%) and basketball (9.7%). Disciplines such as tennis, horseback riding (also analysed in the qualitative part of the research) and downhill skiing were only mentioned by a few respondents. The chi-square test revealed significant differences between lower- and upper-class respondents with regard to children’s dance classes (at p < 0.05), which were practised more than twice as frequently by upper-class children, and soccer (at p < 0.05), which was much more popular among children from the lower class.
The most frequently reported reasons for choosing sport activities for children were their individual initiative, popularity in their social networks and financial availability of sports classes. Unimportant motives for all three social classes were family sports traditions (only 2.8% of answers), which is quite contrary to our results from in-depth interviews. Significant differences between upper- and lower-class respondents were recorded. Social class significantly differentiated parental responses with regard to children’s choice as a main selection factor for sports activity (at p < 0.01). Upper-class respondents seemed to leave more freedom of choice to their children with regard to sports activities. These parents were also reported to be significantly less constrained in their decisions (in comparison to parents from the lower class) regarding factors such as proximity to training facilities, which was not reported by the upper-class respondents as an important reason for choosing sports activities for children. See Table 2.
Major reasons for choosing extracurricular sport activities for children in all three social classes (%).
Percentage of cases for each class and a total sample.
Maximum of two answers per respondent were recorded. Respondents were not provided with a list of answers. Answers were sorted into the eight categories of answers presented in the table above.
Aware of many possible participation-related constraints, e.g. the availability of sport facilities and services, we asked respondents what sports activities they would choose for their children if finances, time and organizational factors were not constraints. This was a projecting question, and we were interested in parental aspirations and their views on what would best suit their social group, gender and children’s ages. This was an open question and respondents provided a range of answers. Social class did not diversify answers with regard to the majority of choices, including basketball, dance, swimming, combat sports or skiing. In one case, however, class was an important independent variable. Again, this was the case of soccer. With complete freedom of choice, only one respondent from the upper class would choose soccer as a sport for his/her children (2.5%), while soccer was the choice of almost 25% of the lower-class respondents. Differences between the lower and upper classes and between the lower and middle classes were statistically significant at p < 0.001 in both cases. In addition, volleyball was significantly more popular among lower-class children than among middle-class children (p < 0.05) and upper-class children. Sports that were often perceived as prestigious and elite by the qualitative and quantitative research samples, such as horseback riding, were more frequently chosen by upper-class respondents, but no statistically significant differences were recorded. Lawn tennis (similar to horseback riding with regard to social image) was chosen by only 10% of all respondents. This might be because on the one hand, this discipline was perceived as prestigious, and on the other hand, respondents could still imagine their children practising it without the risk of being labelled as snobbish. For many middle-class parents, sports such as horseback riding could have been simply ‘unimaginable’.
Many parents reported other organized non-sport leisure activities for their children, but for 57% of children, sport was the only form of extracurricular activity. The main non-sport leisure activities were art, music and foreign language classes. Taking into account results from the qualitative part of the research and the numerous organized leisure activities of upper-class children, we also expected class differences in the nationwide survey, yet the only significant difference was observed for foreign language classes and concerned upper- and lower-class children (at p < 0.05; upper class – 46.15%, middle class – 20.37%, and lower class – 18.46%). In all other cases, it was not confirmed that upper-class children were indeed involved in more non-sport leisure activities.
Past and present sports participation of parents
Since social practices and preferences are social constructs, they depend heavily on the process of socialization. In early years, the family plays a key role in the sports socialization process. Later, peers and other socializing agents may become more influential. Individuals whose family supported such activities are more likely to be involved in sports (Sallis et al., 2000). In both parts of the research, we asked about the respondents’ present sports activities and past sports experiences, which could influence attitudes toward sport in their families. More than 40% of the surveyed parents reported practising some sports disciplines and taking part in sports competitions in the past. Their sport experiences were limited to certain team sports and track-and-field running events. Since these are typical school sports, we may assume that the interviewed parents reported activities in which they were involved at school sports clubs. In the five years preceding the research, a very small number of parents practised supposedly distinctive and prestigious leisure sports (a list of disciplines was provided) such as golf, horseback riding, water sports (e.g. yachting, windsurfing, and scuba diving), lawn tennis or downhill skiing. Out of all 309 interviewed adults, only two had experience with golf, eight in yachting, one in kite surfing, and 10 in scuba diving. Only 10% had gone skiing in the past five years. Participation in such activities already has socially distinctive potential because they are such rare phenomena in the general adult Polish population. These activities were constructed into sets of high status symbols and were often reported by the same respondents: golf was accompanied by horseback riding and scuba diving; downhill skiing with yachting and tennis. Nevertheless, except in the cases of downhill skiing, snowboarding (more popular among upper- and middle-class respondents) and angling (popular among lower-class respondents), social class was not statistically significantly in differentiating the present and past sport practices and experiences of the surveyed adults. Class was more important in the case of active family leisure and tourism. It was significantly more frequently undertaken by upper-class families. All-family sports and leisure activities were positively correlated with parents’ education level and practising sports in the past. Tourism activity in the year preceding the research was reported by almost 90% of upper-class respondents and only 30% of those in the lower class. Differences between the lower and upper classes and the lower and middle classes were significant (at p < 0.001). Significant class differences were also observed for direct and indirect sport consumption. Lower-class parents reported that they watched sports on television much more frequently than upper-class parents (31.4% and 12.5%, respectively; difference was significant at p < 0.05). See Table 3.
Declared frequency of watching sports on television in all three social classes.
Attendance at sporting events was not a popular activity across the whole sample. In the case of direct sport participation, almost 50% of middle- and lower-class respondents and 67% of upper-class respondents declared that they never attended sports events. Differences between the lower and upper classes and the middle and upper classes were statistically significant (at p < 0.05). The survey data analysis was controlled for gender, and this variable did not confound the relationships described above.
Discussion and conclusions
To summarize the present research, it must first be stated that the different methodological approaches brought up somewhat different images of the class-related attitudes and sport practices of Polish parents. In-depth interviews conducted as a part of our qualitative study revealed many class-related differences. The class-based differences revealed by this study were in line with the conclusions drawn by Bourdieu with regard to sports activities and with other conclusions presented in the literature, as reported in the theoretical part of the paper. In the case of a national representative survey of Polish parents, the social class of the respondents did not serve as a variable in significantly varying responses. The class-oriented character of sport socialization was not confirmed in the quantitative research, and the development of a class-based taste for particular sports, similar to the model of relations presented and justified by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory (evident in the qualitative part of our research), was not proven either. The reasons for this could be at least twofold. First, the qualitative part of the sample was designed in advance to include presumably class-differentiated respondents whose children practised horseback riding, lawn tennis, soccer and wrestling. These were somewhat extreme cases in terms of expected class-related differences. National Polish sports surveys leave no doubt that horseback riding and lawn tennis are activities of a few select Poles. In-depth interviews also allowed for the presentation of greater insight into respondents’ perceptions of sport activities as compared to a structured questionnaire-based interview, even though it included 10 open-ended questions and interviewers were obliged to record respondents’ answers to many questions in their entirety. Second, and more importantly, surprisingly indifferent views on sport from the quantitative part of the research could result from the generally low level of interest in this sphere of culture, the relatively low level of sports competence of the parents themselves and the lack of perception of leisure sport as a possible social marker. This may be the continuation of the communist egalitarian view of sports and the post-communist problem with perceiving leisure sports as a distinctive social marker. At the same time, Polish society at this stage of development may still be more prone to seeking stronger markers of social position, such as an expensive car or a house, than leisure sports. Our research results support Domański’s (2000) observations, in which advanced statistical techniques were used to investigate lifestyle and social structure in Poland in 1990. This produced 14 lifestyle categories and the conclusion that only those groups who occupy extreme positions in the social structure had really specific and distinctive lifestyles. The wide space between the top and bottom of the social hierarchy remained undefined and undistinguishable in terms of a specific lifestyle. Domański also took into account some secondary data on sports consumption and sports participation, thus explaining why the tendencies observed in the ‘extreme cases’ from the qualitative part of our research were only echoed in the nationwide survey.
The experiences of the general Polish adult population in the area of sport are very often limited to the competences acquired in school physical education classes. Hence, when a group of Poles – whose numbers can be expressed as a fraction of a percentage of the entire population – are engaged in horseback riding, leisure sailing, golf, hunting or even tennis, their sports interests, skills, knowledge, equipment and clothing very easily become social diacritic markers. Sport disciplines recognized as elite or prestigious usually require skills for practice in the form of embodied capital, as well as objectified and institutionalized cultural capital in the form of, for example, sailing certificates and diving licences, which are all obtained outside of a school’s physical education curriculum. Bearing in mind that – in contrast to the situation before the political change – the field of sport services is highly commercialized in Poland and children’s out-of-school sport activities are financed mainly by parents themselves, not everyone has a chance to experience those activities. This includes tennis, skiing, snowboarding, horseback riding, sailing and windsurfing. This kind of sporting skill and experience, accompanied by knowledge of a foreign language and music skills, may indicate that a person comes from a family with a high level of cultural capital. Interviews from both the qualitative part of the research as well as the nationwide part of the study showed examples of the development of this type of status-related set of skills by representatives of the upper class. In our qualitative research, the educational strategies and control of children’s leisure of upper-class respondents were very similar to those observed by Lareau (2003) in middle-class families. Sport as this kind of marker could become a valuable part of an individual’s cultural capital. However, to reveal its distinctive nature, a sports discipline must be properly selected from those sports that, in a given society, are perceived as elite. It also cannot prevail over other interests and forms of participation in culture and should therefore retain its autotelic character. According to respondents from the higher classes in our qualitative research, sport that is practised too intensively and treated very seriously as the main form of leisure activity, or the main object of interest (which also applies to media sport consumption), loses its distinctive charm. The same applies to professional sports which, though sometimes a source of good money, were not recognized as a career path desirable for children of members of the upper class.
As mentioned before, the results of the qualitative part of the research were consistent with a number of Bourdieu’s assertions about class-based sport conditioning. This applies, for example, to parents’ motives when selecting a particular sports discipline for their children, as well as to the expectations associated with this activity. Utilitarian objectives for the selection of a sports discipline dominated among parents who were assigned to the lower and lower middle classes. Respondents assigned to the upper class in the qualitative part of the research (mostly associated with horseback riding and tennis) declared more liberal attitudes toward sports activities. For them, sport was just one of many forms of their children’s activities. It was not perceived as the only or the dominant form of cultural participation. In contrast, this was often the case for respondents from the lower class. Children of respondents affiliated with the upper class, even with extensive involvement in sports activities (horseback riding), also studied foreign languages or participated in music and art classes. Regardless of social class affiliation, the surveyed parents were aware that some forms of sport and leisure have socially distinctive potential and a specific class image. Respondents whose children practised horseback riding often spoke of the specific social environment found in horseback riding and the existence of cultural ‘access rights’. These were related to family traditions of horseback riding and to a need for a long-term learning process, which results in a high level of embodied capital. Parents also emphasized the financial barrier that limits access to this sport. Competitive horseback riding could therefore be a good indication of high economic capital and objectified cultural capital. In contrast to the findings and conclusions presented by Coakley (1994), Eitzen and Sage (1991), Erickson (1996) and Hartmann-Tews (2006) – who proclaim the coexistence of higher levels of participation in sport than sport spectatorship in the upper class – respondents assigned to the upper class, in both the qualitative part of the research and the quantitative nationwide survey, did not perceive themselves as sports fans and devoted significantly less attention to direct sports consumption or watching sports on television than lower-class respondents. In the qualitative part of the research, a prevalence of sport enthusiasts attending sports events and frequently following media sport coverage was found among respondents from the lower and lower middle classes. Although the majority of parents claimed that they gave their children large amounts of freedom in choosing sports and leisure activities, it is clear that parents selected sports based on their perception of the social image of a particular discipline. The social image of the sport was referred to in many interviews. Our analysis of the past sports experiences of the parents and the current sport activities of the children indicates a class-related transmission of behaviour patterns in the field of sports, as well as the formation of certain types of attitudes in children toward sports, among respondents in the qualitative part of the research. This could result in class-related differences in attitudes toward the nature and functions of sport in an individual’s life, in assigning different importance to this sphere of life compared with other areas of culture and in the perception of body, hygiene and health. These social norms and values associated with sport, internalized by the individual in the process of socialization, create the individual’s disposition to respond in accordance with accepted schemes in a given social environment, i.e. in accordance with the individual habitus. The results of the qualitative part of the research confirmed that among the reasons motivating parents to choose certain types of sports for their children’s leisure time – other than health and logistical factors (easy access, low cost, etc.) – were motives related to class. Class-related motives for choosing a sports discipline were based on the conviction that a particular sports activity is more appropriate for the upper class, as it can be characterized by features such as a lack of physical contact between opponents, lesser risk of injury than in contact sports, a more individual character of the classes, an emphasis on technical skills rather than on strength and agility and the general elegance of a discipline.
The presumption adopted for the research was that children of parents from the higher classes would have a more diversified experience in sports and leisure than children of parents from the lower classes. This was confirmed in the qualitative part of the research. The hypothesis that sports consumption would be linked to one’s place in the social structure and to one’s level of participation in leisure-time sports was only partially confirmed. Position in the social structure actually affects the extent of sport consumption, but the more intensive consumers of sport were respondents from the lower and middle classes, not the upper class. This conclusion applies to both the qualitative and quantitative parts of the study. It must also be emphasized that the stated level of participation in sport had no connection with the level of sport consumption.
The results of nationwide representative studies on parents of children who regularly practise sports have demonstrated little social or class-related diversification of the sport practices of Poles. With regard to their children’s sport and non-sport activities, respondents’ answers were for the most part similar to and statistically independent from an affiliation with a particular social class or education alone. The aforementioned conclusion also includes the issue of the choice of a sport for the child, the expectations associated with this activity and the level of a child’s participation in competitive sports. Affiliation with a particular social class elicited significantly differentiated responses only in relation to soccer. The lower was the social class affiliation of parents, the higher was their interest in soccer. In the national survey, soccer was the most popular discipline: it dominated children’s sport activities and parental televised sport consumption.
Contrary to our preliminary assumptions, there was no significant class-related differentiation in the non-sport extracurricular activities of children. This result was found across the entire population. This conclusion differed from that of the qualitative part of the research, which showed that children of upper-class parents are characterized by more comprehensive cultural consumption. The most significant class-related differences between respondents to the nationwide survey concerned the television consumption of sport, as well as family leisure and tourism. Just as in the qualitative part of the research, members of the lower class were the most interested in sports events presented on television. On the other hand, almost half of the respondents from the upper class declared that they did not watch sports on television at all. This result is consistent with the observations of Mehus (2005), Eitzen and Sage (1991) and Wilson (2002). A very similar class-related image of intermediate sports consumption emerged from our qualitative research. Family leisure and the quality of time spent on various activities by the whole family clearly had a class-related character. These kinds of family activities were more often characteristic of members of the upper class and were associated with – clearly still very distinctive in Poland – tourism activity.
In spite of Poles’ rather low level of sport participation (estimated at 37.5% of the population aged 4+; Polish Central Statistical Office, 2009: 104), based on the results of the qualitative part of the research we see that sports can be, and to some extent are, used to construct and maintain cultural capital and high social status in present-day Polish families. The formerly undifferentiated field of sports of the communist period has once again become differentiated. The former communist bourgeois sports are regaining their popularity among members of the upper and middle classes who seek attractive signs of their social position. Omnivore consumption and ‘concerted cultivation’ of children in the manner described by Lareau (2003) in the case of the American Tallingers and Williamses, including organized sports, music and extracurricular educational activities, have become distinctive features of Polish upper- and middle-class families as well. After the first period of improved economic dimensions of life, which followed decades of goods scarcity and deprivation, people’s lifestyles, cultural consumption and sport practices are becoming more important markers of social position.
However, the distinctive character of a particular sports discipline, in the case of sports activities for both children and adults, follows from the actual manner of practice, the meaning given to the practice and the other forms of cultural activities that accompany the practice. Financial accessibility is the factor that ranks second, which gives a particular discipline distinctive character. To uncover this kind of information, qualitative research methods seem to be better tools than those of quantitative research.
Footnotes
Funding
The research, as a project coded PU-5, was financed by the Józef Piłsudski University of Physical Education in Warsaw, which is a public institution.