Blurred Lines: How College Sports Maintain Social Structures

• In Event: 56.081 - Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: 56.081-11 - Sociopolitical Economic Understandings of Higher Education

Abstract

College sports remain one of the most visible portions of higher education. As such, the institution is a potent site for both social control and resistance. Despite historic and recent acts of civil disobedience, the institution has yet to bring about widespread social change. Using critical education scholars as a starting point, this paper examines why the revolutions for race and gender inequity stymied in college sports. It does so by drawing on semi-structured interviews with forty-six student-athletes from a top-level academic and athletic public university. The student-athletes’ experiences reveal blurred boundaries between formal and informal school and sport settings. The findings suggests turning to the informal settings of higher education to uncover how social structures are reproduced.

Author

• Kirsten Michelle Hextrum, The University of Oklahoma