“Using one aspect of inclusion discussed in the seminar sessions, analyse and discuss the extent to which this perspective has developed entitlement and accessibility to sport for that specific group.” The aspect of inclusion that I shall be looking at is race in sport. I shall look at how the different races of the world are affected by sport and how they are included in sport. Throughout sport there has always been an issue of race throughout the sport. The issue of racism has affected all sports and is a major issue that is slowly being taken out of all sports. When we look at the race through sport it normally brings the thought of black people and also associated with the male gender.
So looking at the inclusion of races in sport it will be of all races black, Asian or oriental it will involve both male and female a like so that these are not overlooked (Birrell,1989). You can not look at racism and only think of one race it involves every race you can think of. We can look at the racism that has been involved in sport in amazement at how far the world of sport has come. An example being in America the national baseball league in 1867 banned all black players from the league; this was not changed until 1946 when for the first time in 76 years a black player would play in the major leagues again (Parry and Parry, 1991). You can compare this with there now being 10% of the total players being black and 36% being of a different race other than white. So we can see the improvements that are coming along through sports and how they are trying to include the different races (Wikipedia, 2007).
Sport body’s have been working in trying to eliminate racism from there sports so that it can become more widely viewed and played by all cultures. A great example of different governing body’s making the effort to incorporate the inclusion of different races into sport, is the football governing body that set up campaigns such as ‘Kick it Out!’. These campaigns are deigned to influence the supporters and maybe other people involved in the sport to stop racisms (Kick it out, 1998). There is also the anti racist campaign run by the cricket governing body called ‘hit racism for six’, this shows that there is more than one sport trying to get rid of racism in sport. Initiatives such as this need to be developed for all of the sports so that we can get a pool of all the best players.
When trying to increase the inclusion of different races taking part in sport we must look at how we are including all races in our P.E programs. If you look at the different religions and how they can effect the inclusion of different races trying to take part in physical education. This can especially affect Muslim race and there taking part in physical education. Evidence of this is shown in a study taken by Carroll and Hollinshead (1993) which interviewed different Muslim communities attending a local secondary school. When the study was taken it seemed the school was having problems including the Muslim children in physical education.
Though through the different interviews it was found why they found it hard to take part in this subject. The main issues involved the ways that P.E was taught often affected the Muslim children’s religion. This is an ongoing problem and one that can be fixed if there was some compromise from schools on the different parts of P.E which affects there religion. The sooner you realise the better as the children want to play and have fun just as much as the other children in the class.
When we look at the number of different ethnicity groups taking part in sport it is often misinterpreted that the low number in Asians Muslims it is down to the young persons own preference and not to racial issues within different sports. (Verma & Darby, 1994). Though we can see how there are still some different barriers which are being broke down with the fact that there is no such problem with the taking part of sport or physical activities when you look at the other races such as the afro-Caribbean or oriental, they seem to take part in there local community or district teams (Green, 2004).
One of the key aspects of racism in sport is the way in which the people are described in the media. When we read the papers of great success of a black performer it would read “the great black star Henry” where as if it would be a white person it would be simply be Gerrard and not the white Gerrard (Long & Hylton, 2002). This is common throughout the world and is a reason that sports can not move through racism and stop the exclusion of some players because of race. There was recent evidence of racism in the highest level of football being the international stage in a match between England and Spain. Black players such as Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips were subjected to monkey chants every time that they touched the ball (BBC SPORT, 2004). Incidents like this are what the Kick it out campaign against.
This sort of chanting is what effects the inclusion of black players to take part in sport. This sort of actions is occurring at the highest level of the sport and has the knock on affect to the other levels which are being played. We can see the effects of racism closer to home if we look back to an incident where a black Brighton striker had been racial abused by a fan and threatened by the person (Garland & Rowe, 1999). These sorts of actions are unacceptable football no matter what level, and can be a direct reason for there being a drop in the black players at the club or the surrounding community. These sorts of actions are preventing the total inclusion in sports that is wanted by the governing bodies but nothing is being done about it.