SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
MAIN THEMES: hegemony, structure, agency, power relations
READING THE BODY
SEX AND GENDER
egg and sperm: when it comes to fertilization, biologists have got it all wrong. "the egg is no passive lady in waiting"
gender: how children do gender when they interact or perform
HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY: refers to ideological practices that reinforce the supremacy of men and the subordination of women in society
culture: how popular cultural provides images to be used by children and parents to magnify differences
structure: how the structured gender regime constrains and enables the actions of children and parents
WHAT IS KINESIOLOGY?
We shouldn’t neglect the sociological perspective of kinesiology.
➢ Social constructivism: factors around you shape the way you view the world.
○ Our interactions with others influence how we see the world.
➢ Structure: social factors that constraint our freedom to choose and to act, limit our
choices
➢ Agency: an individual with the freedom to choose and act
➢ Everyone possesses a degree of agency and we are all impacted by social structure
beyond our control.
➢ There has been a shift from the Physical Education to Kinesiology degree to make it
seem more legit
○ Kinesiology gets defined as place for health promotion
➢ Theory of Hegemony by Antonio Gramsci
○ Dominant group tries to make their ideas seem natural and normalized,
putting the subordinate group in a position where they don’t question these
ideas because they are taken as legitimate.
○ Resistance can occur, and this is how change happens
HABITUS: the way in which we understand ourselves and others, unconscious thought, the power to define something is the power to influence or control something
AGEING
give meaning to our experiences, construct our realities and social worlds, occurs in relation to social, economic, and political context, ex. gender divisions, culture, race
easy to blame society BUT we are society, the words/thoughts we use are what create society
ANTONIO GRAMSCI on HEGEMONY: common sense idea of the world, won't question those in power, influenced to believe things won't help us, income and SAT scores, those with $$ have higher SAT score
SOCIAL CLASS
Structure: social factors that constrain our capacity to choose and act, limits our choices, ex. building layout, constrained to an area
AGENCY: freedom and will to choose and to act, an agent is the individual with the choice, their responsibility and they take the consequence
CRITICAL THINKING AND THINKING CRITICALLY
influencers : social interactions, institutions (education, sport), culture (pop culture, background)
who, what, when, where, how
how can we make change, take things apart, question norms, social context impact
can change over place and time
ex. girls like pink, boys are dominant
PARADIGM: way we look and see the world (the lens) basic sets of beliefs.. like a creed
PARADIGM SHIFT: replace one paradigm to another, change peoples way of thinking about a world
SES: individuals or groups positions with hierarchy relative to others, your position relative to others
SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION: interdependent relationship between who we are as individual and social forces that shape us, our options are shaped by positions we occupy, shaped by social economic and political and our body which is a site for this, the norms --> "good body", assumptions on body,name, meaning found
SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
middle class ideology overemphasizes agency and undermines structure, SDOH ties into a social constructivist lens: people need to take structure into consideration when it comes to health, it is not only controlled by agency but there are also barriers such as accessibility to resources, its important to build empathy for those who are affected
PATRICIA HILL COLLINS: she suggested social change
MEDIA AND REPRESENTATION
hazing: a form of initiating new players into the team by having them perform homosexual acts for the sake of the team
normalizes homophobia and sends a message that homosexuality is disgusting, wrong, humiliating, and something to fear.
athletes are forced to have a silent oath in which they do not spread the events of the hazing publically, coaches use terms like fag and gay to encourage people to push themselves since musular christianity is a norm, no one wants to be thought of as a fag or gay
paints a picture of homosexuality as weakness and incompatible with the institution
group sex in hockey with group of males and one female is a form of bonding and not a homosexual act , builds a bond between players and is therefore a performance of hegemonic masculinity, most ahtletes that come out as as gay are from individual sports which lines up with muscular chritinaitiy which is predominantly in team sports
POWER: the ability to influence/ control people and resources
who has power? power is not distributed equally , power is continuously negotiated
POWER AND THE SOCIAL BODY
POWER RELATIONS: who has power in our society, how are power relations identified in today's world
ADDITIVE ANALYSIS of OPPRESSION: misleads understanding of oppression by just race, class and gender, we are oppressed and oppressors at the same time, based on two factors: dichotomous thinking (either or) ranking on dichotomous thinking (acting on it)
dimensions of oppression: institutional dimension of oppression, the symbolic (feminine vs . masculine stereotypes) the individual who we consider "normal" lots of norms based on experiences
exam: pathologization of the poor, habitus, SES, Meritocracy
MICHAEL FOCAULT: mental health and power, even two totalitarian (Hitler and Stalin) still had holes in society, power gives us hope and fight back oppression, power is everywhere, we don't know how we are losing power so we can fight back
toward a new vision: race, class, and gender as categories and analysis, we fail to see how our thoughts and actions uphold someone else's subordination, "i am more oppressed that you"
slavery was a race, class, gender specific institution
oppression is full of contradictions, need of new thinking, new paradigms, new acting, confined to narrow definitions of class, gender and race, get away from stereotypes, cut through labels, interlocking oppresion
