During a visit to the CBS Early Show with the Tour of Hope, I had a great opportunity to experience theconstruction of identity in a sport subculture. Because professional skateboarder, Danny May, had recently successfully jumped the Great Wall of China using skateboarding ramps, he was a guest of the Early Show outside on the plaza. In addition to interviewing Danny, the Early Show had invited two groups of skateboarders to participate in the interview. One group of skaters was made up of young adult (16-22) males and the other was a group of younger (8-12) male skaters.
As the Early Show crew manager worked to instruct the groups of skaters as to how to perform in the background during the interview with Danny, I observed the younger skaters' attempts at their construction of identity in the skateboarding subculture. Theiridentity formation involved many observable physical traits similar to those of the older, more established or "confirmed" skaters, including their hairstyles, clothing, behaviors, and body language.
Upon talking with the younger skaters, I additionally observed their apparent desire to talk the language of skaters and to converse with attitudes similar to those of the older athletes. It was also apparent that the younger skaters, although very talented and experienced, were less likely to take risks performing tricks in front of the older skaters and the audience. Clearly, if an interactionist perspective research study was to be conducted on these two groups of athletes, much more evidence of this construction of identity by the younger skaters would be identified. This type of research would help us to also view and understand the process of the confirmation of identity in the sport subculture of skateboarding.
For your Application assignment this week, apply both the construction and confirmation of identity processesdescribed in Donnelley and Young's article to another sport subculture. Above, I have included a summary description of the construction of identity of young skateboarders based on my limited observations of the skateboarding subculture.
For your assignment, you will need to include a more extensive examination of your chosen sport. Your Application assignment and research should include personal experiences and observations, as well as research obtained through athlete interviews, journals and the Internet, and other current sources. You are required to conduct at least one interview with an athlete from the subculture and to provide research from two additional sources. Document your sources, including the interview, in your Application assignment.
This is for my sports management class so can you keep it sports related. Also can you choose basketball as the sport. It also has to be 1 to 2 pages long.