COURSE STRUCTURE
Module 2 Topic C: Discussion Questions
Following the lecture, and having read the assigned readings and watch relevant video clips, you are expected to prepare answers for TWO (those questions in green) of the following discussion questions. Your prepared answers will form the basis of your verbal contributions within discussion sections
These answers should:
1. Be a minimum of 150 words for each answer (not including the question or reference list).
2. Be typed and double-spaced.
3. Have the complete question immediately prior to the answer.
4. Cite appropriately any sources used in your answer (use appropriate Style and Format Guidelines).
5. Include a complete reference list (use appropriate Style and Format Guidelines).
6. Hand in a hard copy of answers during discussion section
The aim of these answers is to get you to engage and extend the information covered within each theme, in order to generate a better understanding of core concepts, knowledge, and issues.
These questions are intended as preparation for both the discussion section and exam related to this topic.
PLEASE NOTE: Within the multiple choice section of the module exam, you should expect to be asked questions on the information related to any of these questions.
However, the ONE thematic essay question for the module exam will be selected from those questions in green.
Following the review session for this module the selected question will be designated in red.
Theme 1: Social Class Matters
1. What does it mean that a society is socially stratified? Describe the U.S. social class structure, specifically in terms of the major class groupings and their relationship to the distribution of wealth and income. Where would you position yourself and your family on the social classer hierarchy?
2. In what way is social class related to lifestyle? What does it mean that lifestyle is an assemblage of living practices and patterns? How would you characterize the lifestyle cultures of upper, middle, and lower class groupings? Are some classed lifestyles better for individuals than others?
3. Why does social class matter? How has it mattered within your life, specifically with regard to influencing life chances, opportunities, and experiences? When answering these questions, consider your own classed-based lifestyle, examine which lifestyle “segment” the neighborhood where you live is categorised in according to:
• The zip code-based Nielsen Lifestyle Segmentation System. Which PRIZM segment does your family fit into, and which of the lifestyle/media traits for this segment are most relevant to your family’s lifestyle?
• Discussion of social classes outlined in the excerpt from “People Like Us: Social Class in America”. Which of any of these social classes do you belong to? What makes you identify with this class culture?
Theme 2: Sport, Physical Culture, and Social Class
1. With regards to spectatorship and participation, why can contemporary sport be considered neither egalitarian, meritocratic, nor classless? How is social class differentiation evident within different forms of access to the Olympic Games and corporate sport events?
2. How does social class impact upon participation in sport and physical activity, and the creation of healthy lifestyle assemblages? In what way could we argue that sport and physical activity participation rates are linked to broader health/longevity/life expectancy indicators?
3. Explain what is meant by the fact that different social groupings not only tend to involve themselves in different forms of sport and physical activity, but their motivations for doing so similarly differ from those of other social groupings. In other words, how is sport and physical activity involvement related to the borader lifestyle cultures of social groupings?
4. Critically examine your own social class background in relation to your experiences of, and preferences toward, various aspects of physical culture. To what extent, and in what ways, does your physical cultural experiences and preferences relate to the interplay of capitals as expressed in the habitus and hexis of your social class location?
Theme 3: Capitals and Social Class Differences in Sport/Physical Activity Participation
1. According to Bourdieu’s understanding, why is the “distance from necessity” an important determinant of a classed lifestyle? What is the relationship between economic capital and necessity? Necessity to and from what?
2. How are economic, social, cultural, and physical capital interrelated in shaping the role of sport and physical activity as influences on the creation of our classed bodies/lifestyle embodiments?
3. Assess the relative merits of the healthism (individual argument) and social determinism (structural argument) explanations for either fit and active bodies, or unfit and inactive bodies. Which of the two do you consider to be the most widely held among the general population, and why? Which of the two arguments do you find most insightful?
Theme 4: Class Habitus and Embodied Lifestyle Cultures: The Working Classes
1. What are the major elements of the lower class habitus, and how are they expressed in the preferences for particular sports and physical activities, the motivations for being involved in them, and the hexis (lifestyle embodiments) that are produced as a result? Is the lower class habitus any less healthy than the middle class habitus?
2. According to Bourdieu, in what ways does the lower class demonstrate an instrumental relationship with the body? How is this manifest within lower class lifestyles more generally, and lower class sport and physical activity culture more specifically?
3. Outline the process whereby the lower classes use their bodies as a source of profit within sport and physical culture. What elements of capital are being converted here? Is this a realistic strategy for the lower classes seeking upward social mobility, and as such should it be encouraged?
Theme 5: Class Habitus and Embodied Lifestyle Cultures: The Middle Classes
1. What are the major elements of the middle class habitus, and how are they expressed in the preferences for particular sports and physical activities, the motivations for being involved in them, and the hexis (lifestyle embodiments) that are produced as a result? Is the middle class habitus any more healthy than the lower class habitus?
2. How (be specific in terms of the various elements of the health industrial complex engaged) does the middle classes’ economic capital resources allow it to recreate and project the body as a marker of social class membership and status? In what way are these practices related to the social and cultural capital possessed by members of the middle class?
3. How is sport and physical activity related to the reproduction of social class? What role does the middle class habitus play within this process, specifically as it relates to parenting as part of the middle classes competitive lifestyle projects?
