Sport Sociology
Course Description: Applies the sociological perspective to the world of Sports. Provides the student with a better understanding of the social processes involved in sports. Looks at how the media, community, tradition, and privilege play an integral role in the participation of sporting events. Covers why sports exist, who plays sports, and what will become of sports in the future.
Course Objectives:
- Define and develop a deeper understanding of various Sports across the world.
- Describe cultural practices and variation within Sports
- Discuss Sports as a social institution and the role it plays within society
- Discuss inequality within the social institution of Sport.
- Discuss various social problems within Sports
Assignment
By the end of the 4th week students are to select a movie that is based on a true story or documentary which you will review from three of the chapters that we cover in class. Please make sure to take a look at the chapters and discussion topics and make sure that you can relate some of the material to the media that you have chosen. Here are some guidelines for the paper:
APA format should be used for the paper. This means that there should be one inch margins, 12 point times new roman font, subheadings, and in-text citations (keep in mind that these are just guidelines and you can or may do more or less on each section of the paper).
Part 1 (1-2 pages): You should spend one page introducing me to the media you have chosen, give me a summary of the movie/documentary or plot and give a brief introduction as to how it is relevant to the class.
Part 2 (2-4 pages): Introduce Sociological theory and chose which theory you believe is best applied to this movie (and why). (Functionalism, Conflict, or Symbolic Interactionism should all be discussed some but one in particular should be focused on.)
Part 3 (2-4 pages): Choose a chapter from the textbook that you think is directly related to the movie (It cannot be ch. 1 or on a chapter not assigned in class). Apply information from the chapter to the movie and your analysis. The chapter must be an assigned chapter and not on Chapter 1 (introduction), the chapter on theory (since it is already covered in part 2) or an unassigned chapter. You MUST CITE.
Part 4 (2-4 pages): Choose a 2nd chapter from the textbook that you think is related to the movie (although it may be more tangentially)(It cannot be ch. 1 or on a chapter not assigned in class). Apply information from the chapter chosen to the movie and your analysis (do not cover two topics that are very similar to each other for parts 3 and 4… for example race/ethnicity and then the history of racism from the book). I strongly advise you to cover at least one of the following in your paper (race, sex, violence, deviance). YOU MUST CITE.
Part 5 (1 page)- You must tie in material from at least one of the outside reading materials (we have a section in our class labeled as such).
Part 6 (1 page)- Summary and conclusion
McFarland-USA-Movie-Project