Volume 2, Issue 2

Comparing preferences for sport participation between alternative and conventional sports, this article exhibits some differences across sport contexts, as well as across gender and class. However, the main finding is the major similarities of preferences and dominating social groups (boys that is) across the contexts. This indicates that a similar habitus is in play in the alternative context as in the conventional one, and that "real alternatives" are merely to occur inside established frames of sport provision. Zusammenfassung In diesem Beitrag werden die Präferenzen für Sportengagements in alternativen und konventionellen Sportarten verglichen. Dabei lassen sich einige Unterschiede zwischen diesen Sportkontexten, aber auch zwischen den Geschlechtern und sozialen Gruppen aufweisen. Das wichtigste Ergebnis aber sind die großen Ähnlichkeiten der Sportengagements und die Dominanz bestimmter sozialer Gruppen (insbesondere von Jungen) in allen Kontexten. Das bedeutet, dass ein sehr ähnlicher sportlicher Habitus für die Beteiligung an alternativen und konventionellen Sportarten eine Rolle spielt. Folglich treten „reale Alternativen“ nur innerhalb des etablierten Rahmens von Sportmaßnahmen auf.

In recent years sports reported major gains in modern societies. With newly revived discussions on „sports for everyone“, one has to ask the social-theoretical question of how the social background influences sport oriented behavior patterns. The following article tries to answer that question by examining adolescents who are being socially integrated into club sports, stemming from the experiences of their nuclear families. Based on the Zinnecker concept of family socialisation, the attempt was made to outline a research program. In addition, hypotheses were formulated which were tested with empirical data from the 2002 youth sport surveys from the state of Brandenburg.

Sport participation is credited with numerous health promotion potentials. In the center of this article is the analysis of substance consumption and nutritional behavior. Against the background of a stress theoretical model of socialization, personal and social resources were also taken into consideration. Data were collected from 602 adolescents age 15 to 18 who were interviewed using a standardized questionnaire. The data were evaluated by using mean comparisons, multiple regression analyses, and a structural equation model. The findings showed a rather sobering result in respect to the assumed potential of sports. Only the consumption of cigarettes and high quality nutrition correlated positively with sport participation.

The present study answers the question whether sports activity, as social inequity approaches and socialization theory might suggest, is still determined by socio-structural constraints. This investigation is based on a nationwide representative cross-sectional database (the German Health Survey 98) which to date has received comparatively little attention among the social science community. This empirical study determined the sports activity of the working population in Germany using bivariate methods and multiple OLS regression procedures on a representative net sample of 3 349 employees age 18 to 69. The data revealed that 39.20 % of the German employees are not involved in any sports whatsoever. Specifically, females, older people, those from lower income groups, and inhabitants of the former East Germany tend to have an inactive lifestyle. This paper is the first to deliver representative data on correlates of sports participation among employees since the German reunification in 1990. Results show that even in sports activities structures of social inequality continue to exist.