Espace des sports, espace social et effets d'âge - article ; n°1 ; vol.79, pg 2-20

Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales - Année 1989 - Volume 79 - Numéro 1 - Pages 2-20
The space of sport, the social space and effects of age. The rapid spread of tennis, formerly perceived as bourgeois sport, makes it impossible to attach a sport mechanically to a class and is an invitation to construct the System of sports as an interplay of constantly changing relationships between the sports - situated with respect to one another - and classes objectively situated within the social space. For example, it can be shown that the learning and playing of tennis are differentiated from one club to another in a conurbation (Nantes) when new groups appropriate the game. But the opposition between sports - or between modalities of the same sport - is charged with multiple meanings which express not only distinctions between social groups but also differences between the sexes, the age groups and the values socially attached to them. Thus choices and shifts of interest between tennis, squash and golf resuit from a complex play of competition and symbolic marking among the social groups, the sexes and the age groups.
19 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.