Who benefits under the existing social arrangements and who does not?

Provide written responses to each of the prompts posed here. Submit your responses through
the “submit” tab on the Module 1 Discussion Questions assignment page in Canvas.
1. Eitzen (2016) proposes several questions that drive at the core of sport sociology. Two of
those questions are central to the purpose of this course:
• Do we question the way sport is organized?
• Who benefits under the existing social arrangements and who does not?
Discussion Question:
a. With those questions in mind, explain some of the reasons we don’t question sport
and how it is organized.
In your response, consider what social arrangements you think should change in sport, and who
has the power to make those changes. Also, consider if you think decision-makers in sport
would agree with you on what needs to change.
2. Eitzen (2016) closes his Sport Unites, Sport Divides chapter with the following statement:
We need to take sports seriously- not the scores or the statistics, but the process. Not to
focus on who wins, but on who’s losing. By my count the losers in sport have been and
continue to be the poor, racial minorities, and women. And, as long as these folks lose,
sport will more likely divide than unify. (p. 45)
If sport is accepted as a microcosm of society, and in sports, certain groups of people are either
• excluded completely (e.g., kids with physical disability)
• or are categorized into specific sports or positions based on assumptions about
characteristics associated with class, race, or gender…
Discussion Question:
a. Why, then, are sports revered as the great equalizer, or as a true meritocracy? Are
they, and if so, for whom?
b. Do we hide from or rationalize classist (rags to riches), racist, sexist, and ableist
practices embedded in the “process” of sport (as Eitzen identified)? Or are those
categories necessary to organize sport, and society?