Boys who don’t like sports: family lifestyle and transmission of dispositions

Abstract

ABSTRACTMany studies have stressed the key role played by competitive sports in the socialization of boys, particularly in middle-class families. This article looks at the minority group of boys from this social class who dislike competition and participate in few, if any, sports. We present case studies of six boys and their families, interviewed on several occasions. Based on Bourdieu’s [1979. La Distinction. Une critique sociale du jugement [Distinction. A social critique of the judgement of taste]. Paris: Minuit; 1980. Le sens pratique [Practical reason. On the theory of action]. Paris: Minuit] theoretical framework and the concepts of capital, habitus, and lifestyle, we analyze the socialization modes involved in the construction of an atypical gender habitus. All of the boys we interviewed had developed a liking for activities socially attributed to females, in specific family configurations. Beyond these common points, our data allowed us to identify two groups of families: in the middle-class families well endowed with cultural capital, the parents place priority on a ‘cultivated’ lifestyle and pass on to their sons a taste for mainstream cultural activities, which (from their point of view) do not include sports. In the middle-class families less interested in mainstream cultural forms, the parents wish their sons were more sports-oriented. In these homes, there is evidence of problems related to the transmission of the paternal sports capital.