Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-1989

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

William J. Morgan

Committee Members

Kathleen Emmett, James O. Bennett, Joy T. DeSensi

Abstract

Competition as a fundamental component of sport entails that sport participants are engaged in some kind of social interaction. The meanings attributed to competition and social interaction in sport are not always clear and unambiguous. This study critically examined the structure of social interaction in competitive sport. A conceptual analytical technique was utilized to uncover factors that contribute toward our understanding of competition and social interaction in sport.

Four paradigms of competition in sport were evaluated to demonstrate that several meanings of this notion are plausible. By considering the salient features of all four paradigms, the "exclusive ends," the "contextual," the "mutual challenge" and the "teleological," a general account of competition was proposed.

Several theories of social interaction were next examined in the writings of Weber, Mead, Schutz, Habermas and Giddens. The main tenets of their thought were situated in a structural model of interaction developed by Layder. He claimed that social interaction is framed by contextual structures, which are prior, objective constraints, and interaction structures, which are produced by social agents in particular interactive sites. Layder's model served to inform our examination of social interaction in competitive sport.

Thus, three contextual structures of sport were considered, namely, the logic of constitutive rules of sport, typifications in sport and two senses of the ethos of sport. To study interaction structures, Osterhoudt's classification of sports as individual, dual and team sport was employed. These categories related to the way competition is qualitatively distinct in various groups of sports. The main emphasis here was to disclose the ways athletes contribute to the structuring of interaction while competing.

The study concluded by declaring its significance and what it had modestly achieved. First, it refuted any kind of reductionist account of those elements which contour the meanings of competition and social interaction in sport. Secondly, it established that the structure of competitive sport, with regard to interaction, must be considered as a duality and that sport's structure is not paradoxical. Finally, it presented a strong case that only a pluralistic approach to comprehending the concepts of competition and social interaction in sport can reveal the complexities of these ideas.

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