“You’re sitting on a hot soccer field drinking Gatorade…I’m sitting in a yacht club just enjoying the view, enjoying the drinks”: Parental reproduction of social class through school sport sailing

Abstract

This paper examines the utilisation of light sailing within school sport programmes in Western France and California. Sailing has been identified as a key activity for upper class participation in both France and the USA because it heavily involves intellectual skills, including preparation, tactical decision making, leadership and problem solving. Following on from this, we develop the social class concepts of Pierre Bourdieu (1979) to demonstrate how cultural and economic capitals are sought after and reproduced in comparative school sailing environments to maintain upper class social values and positions. We highlight interview commentary and field observations from a 1.5-year comparative ethnographic study of youth sailors and supporting adults, including coaches, teachers and parents. Our findings indicate that Western French and Californian upper class student sailors and their adult supporters are differentiated from each other in terms of how they prioritise either economic or cultural capital acquisition. This finding aligns with Bourdieusian conceptual distinctions of culturally dominant class and economically dominant class values and membership. Upper class status reinforcement and capital reproduction in these divergent ways reflects distinctive national cultures as well as social and economic structures underpinning youth/school sport and educational participation.

‘We just thought everyone else is going so we might as well’: middle-class parenting and franchised baby/toddler swimming

“…Although little is written directly about family habitus, it is widely accepted that the family is a key site for the reproduction of social order, and social and biological reproduction of social structure (Schmitt et al, 2020, DeLuca, 2013. This is because families want to secure their social class through the accumulation of capital and techniques which support the development of specific types of habitus.…”

“…The family and early childhood experiences influence the types and amount of capital that people have access to, as well as shaping habitus. The family is a significant unit for influencing tastes, which become embodied and these may appear as if they are natural or biological (Schmitt et al, 2020). Other research has highlighted how family, particularly parents, have the most influence on their children's development of capital and habitus (Stirrup, et al, 2015).…”