Week 5: Connecting Concentration Areas

My two concentration areas of Sociology and Family Studies will be the focus of this blog and how they apply to my work. I have taken a sports specific sociology class in SOC 220, Sports in Society. This is an obvious correlation between my internship organization and my concentration. According to Jay Coakley, author of Sports and Society: Issues and Controversies (SOC 220 textbook), sports are connected to major spheres of social life including politics, family, the economy, the media, education, and religion. “[Sports] are why some people get out of bed. Sports define many of us. Some superstars command as much attention as heads of state and other leaders. Whether you weigh the good or bad of it – it’s a fact” (Bob Davis, vice-president, American Program Bureau, 1999). My work with Excel Sports will give me the opportunity to learn about how sports impact the lives of the families I will be working with. Some families may be more passionate about the sports than others. With the economy struggling presently, it will be interesting to learn about sports and its impact on the local economy and vice versa. While promoting, I will learn about how important people think sports are in a down economy and if they will still pay for their kids to have a sporting experience. Using an Interactionist Theory perspective in my work with Excel Sports I will attempt to answer the following questions: what are the social processes through which people become involved in sports? How do people come to define themselves and be defined by others as athletes? Finally, how do people give meaning and derive meaning from their experiences in sports? (Coakley, 2008). The Family Studies concentration yields correlations to my internship as well. I have taken many Child Development (CDE 220), and Human Development classes under my FAS concentration. I will be able to observe the physical development of children as young as four, and I will also observe the development of kids as old as seventeen. Laura E. Berk lists specific aspects of physical or motor development in her book Development Through the Lifespan: flexibility, balance, agility, and force are all skills that are better developed in the age group I will be working with. I will also be able to observe sex differences in middle childhood because Excel Sports works with both boys and girls. Cognitive development will also be on display with the kids I work with. I will see how well they process the instructions I give them as a coach. This can be illustrated in Piaget’s concrete operational stage which initially takes place around 7 to 11 years of age: “this marks a major turning point in cognitive development. Thought is far more logical, flexible, and organized than it was earlier” (Berk, 2007). I will be able to apply my learning of child development to my coaching and teaching duties through my interactions with the kids I am working with, and because I am working with kids of varying ages, I will be able to observe the different stages at which physical and cognitive development takes place. I hope you enjoyed the brief look into my concentrations and their theories and how they are being applied.

Interdisciplinary vs. Multidisciplinary

An internet definition of interdisciplinary study is as follows: An interdisciplinary community or project is made up of people from multiple disciplines and professions who are engaged in creating and applying new knowledge as they work together as equal stakeholders in addressing a common challenge. Multidisciplinary can be defined as such: the act of joining together two or more disciplines without integration. Each discipline yields discipline specific results while any integration would be left to a third party observer. An example of multidisciplinarity would be a panel presentation on the many facets of the AIDS pandemic (medicine, politics, epidemiology) in which each section is given as a stand-alone presentation (wikipedia.org).

Interestingly enough, my company (Excel Sports) takes a definite interdisciplinary approach to attacking projects and problems. We have coaches, players, and administrators taking ALL of the aforementioned roles on. For example, I will lead a class using my playing background, as well as my coaching background, and supervise and set up a class under the label of administrator. ALL of the employees of Excel Sports have backgrounds as players and coaches, as well as referees and administrators. Setting up a league, or camp, or class puts all of our experience to the test. We are NOT multidisciplinary because we are all integrated in our approaches. When I work with another coach, its not JUST a player working with JUST a coach. We both have experience working from multiple disciplines, and doing so simultaneously. Our "disciplines" are structured as I mentioned before. We have players/coaches/administrators/promoters all working together, all performing these tasks at the same time, making us pretty much interdisciplinary by nature. Our organizational structure is essentially heirarchical. We have our President/CEO Dandrick Moton, then below him is the second in command who takes over for Dandrick when he is out of town...he is Coach Mike (coach, administrator). Below him, we have all the other coaches/players/administrators/promoters. That is where I come in...at the bottom.