How do youth sports facilitate the creation of parental social ties?

Abstract

This article explores the mechanisms by which youth sports leagues facilitate the creation and mobilization of parental social ties and social capital. Through a qualitative examination of a youth baseball league in the Southwestern USA, I witnessed how organizational structures provided parents with opportunities to socialize and form ties with one another. In addition, I explore how players also influence the specific tie formation of their parents. The role of children in the social capital process has thus far been largely limited to that of passive recipient. Within this piece, I seek to alter this vision by repositioning children as active social agents with roles to play in the social capital formation of their parents.

Notes

^1.Becker, Human Capital.

^2.Bourdieu, ‘The Forms of Capital’ and Bourdieu and Passeron, ‘Cultural Reproduction’.

^3.Bourdieu, ‘Social Space’; Coleman, ‘Social Capital’, in Foundations of Social Theory; Putnam, Making Democracy Work, Putnam, ‘Bowling Alone’ and Putnam, Bowling Alone.

^4.Lin, ‘Building a Network Theory’.

^5. Ibid., 6.

^6.Burt, ‘Social Capital of Structural Holes’, 32.

^7. Goods here can take many forms, which is part of the challenge of constructing good social capital theory. Goods can be tangible or intangible, physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. The list has become virtually inexhaustible.

^8.Portes, ‘Social Capital’, 2.

^9. Ibid.

^10.Putnam, ‘Bowling Alone’, 134.

^11.Nicholson and Hoye, Sport and Social Capital.

^12.Nixon, ‘Social Network Analysis of Sport’, 315.

^13.Lüschen, ‘On Small Groups and Sport’.

^14.Melnick, ‘Small Group Research in Sport’.

^15. Particularly Klein, ‘Pumping Irony’.

^16. Putnam, ‘Bowling Alone’.

^17.Dyreson, ‘Maybe It's Better to Bowl Alone’, 24.

^18.Perks, ‘Does Sport Foster Social Capital?’, 381.

^19.Jarvie, ‘Communitarianism, Sport, and Social Capital’.

^20. Dyreson, ‘Maybe It's Better to Bowl Alone’.

^21. For a notable exception, see Small, Unanticipated Gains.

^22.Cochran and Brassard, ‘Child Development’.

^23.Caldwell, Theory of Fertility Decline; Handwerker, ‘Culture and Reproduction’ and Hoffman, Thornton, and Manis, ‘Value of Children to Parents’.

^24.Coleman, ‘Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital’.

^25. For a useful review, see Dika and Singh, ‘Applications of Social Capital’.

^26. See Belle, Children's Social Networks for a useful review.

^27.Morrow, ‘Conceptualizing Social Capital’.

^28. Ibid., 751.

^29.Raffo and Reeves, ‘Youth Transitions and Social Exclusion’.

^30.Schaefer-McDaniel, ‘Conceptualizing Social Capital’ and Weller, ‘Sticking with Your Mates?’

^31.Holland, Reynolds, and Weller, ‘Transitions, Networks and Communities’; Hossain et al., ‘Social Capital, Ethnicity’ and Leonard, ‘Children, Childhood and Social Capital’.

^32.Morrow, “No Ball Games” and Weller, ‘Skateboarding Alone?’

^33. Weller, ‘Sticking With Your Mates?’

^34. Leonard, ‘Children, Childhood and Social Capital’.

^35. Holland, Reynolds, and Weller, ‘Transitions, Networks, and Communities’, 97.

^36. But see Engelberg, Skinner, and Zakus within this volume.

^37. Small, Unanticipated Gains.

^38. In some leagues, coaches pitch to their teams instead of a pitching machine.

^39. Using the method advocated by Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes.

^40. See also Calhoun, ‘Community Without Propinquity Revisited’.

^41.McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook, ‘Birds of a Feather’.

^42.Lazarsfeld and Merton, ‘Friendship as a Social Process’.

^43.Coleman, ‘Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital’.

^44. Officially known as team parents – but colloquially known as ‘team mom’, as it is nearly always taken on by a mother, the team parent is responsible for many administrative and ‘off-the-field’ tasks necessary to run a team. They collect funds, coordinate snack schedules and plan the end-of-season team party, among other things. Some people within the league estimate that the team parent is a more demanding job than coaching the team.

^45. See Snijders, van de Bunt, and Steglich, ‘Introduction to Stochastic Actor-Based Models’ for a recent example of the balance between rationality and exogenous factors in network structure.

^46. McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook, ‘Birds of a Feather’.

^47.Verbrugge, ‘Structure of Adult Friendship Choices’.

^48.Feld, ‘Focused Organization of Social Ties’.

^49. Ibid., 1016.

^50.Fine, With the Boys.

^51.Putnam, Bowling Alone.