The Great American Football Ritual: Reproducing Race, Class, and Gender Inequality

Abstract

An ethnographic study of one football season in a small South Texas town is presented to explore the extent that community sport is, as various critical theorists have suggested, a potential site for counterhegemonic cultural practices. Football is conceptualized as a major community ritual that socializes future generations of youth. This broad, holistic description of socialization also notes various moments of ethnic resistance engendered by the Chicano civil rights movement. Other moments of class and gender resistance to the football ritual are also noted. Finally, the way players generally resisted attempts to thoroughly rationalize their sport is also described. In spite of these moments of resistance, this study ultimately shows how deeply implicated community sport—in this case high school football—is in the reproduction of class, gender, and racial inequality. The white ruling class and the town’s patriarchal system of gender relations are preserved in spite of concessions to the new ethnic challenges. When seen from a historical community perspective, sport may be less a site for progressive, counterhegemonic practices than critical sport theorists hope.

Bullying among adolescent football players: Role of masculinity and moral atmosphere.

“…In his ethnographic study of high school football in Texas, Foley (2001) described the ways that football contributes to the social hierarchy and how it promotes dominant gender norms among its participants, in the school, and throughout the community. The manner in which football prioritizes certain forms of masculinity not only elevates football players to higher levels of social status, but it also indirectly marginalizes non-participants (Foley, 2001).…”

“…The manner in which football prioritizes certain forms of masculinity not only elevates football players to higher levels of social status, but it also indirectly marginalizes non-participants (Foley, 2001). …”

A contextual examination of gender role conflict among college football players.

“…Subsequently, this sustained level of preferential treatment can contribute to an environment that perpetuates the superiority of traditional masculine gender ideologies within this sport (Gage, 2008). As a center sport, football is seen as an influential agent of socialization for new generations of young men, while also serving to maintain the traditional values of the previous generation of men (Foley, 2001). In 2009, 1.1 million members of this new generation of young men played high school football in the United States (NFHS, 2010).…”

“…Because sporting domains represent a potentially influential agent of masculinity socialization (Foley, 2001;Messner, 1992;Whannel, 2007), we intended to examine the contextual nature of male college football players' experience of gender role conflict within a particular life domain (i.e., within the domain of football), as compared to their experiences with gender role conflict in a broader life domain (i.e., life outside of football).…”

Mitos, ritos, identidad y alteridad en un estadio de fútbol

“…Dentro de la antropología del deporte y del ritual (Blanchard y Chesca 1986;Foley 1990;Vaczi 2015), el estadio de fútbol ofrece un escenario privilegiado para la observación y análisis de comportamientos rituales que van mucho más allá de la catarsis colectiva y las manifestaciones violentas (Armstrong 1998;Garriga 2010Garriga y 2015. Las identidades de género, especialmente masculino (Archetti 1998;Bromberger 2010;Llopis Goig 2010; las identidades locales y nacionales (Fábregas 2001;Alabarces 2002;Bromberger 2007), las relaciones de poder entre clubes, la participación social y el intercambio emocional (Ramonet 1999;Llopis Goig 2006); la expresión de valores y creencias (Archetti 1985;Cachán y Fernández 1998;Bromberger 2000) derivadas del ambiente que genera este deporte se hallan presente en las gradas.…”