The main reason for the athlete placing volleyball 2nd to netball is based on the equity and access of the sports. Equity and access are explored and discussed through a tool called Figueroa’s framework which consists of five levels. These five levels include individual, interpersonal, institutional, structural, and cultural. The interpersonal level within Figueroa’s framework affected the athlete’s enjoyment and participation the most in Volleyball. This level focuses on the interactions with others, relationships with peers, and athletes’ patterns of influence and how these might affect access and equity to exercise, sport, and physical activity. This level focuses on factors that are formed by our socialization from a young age through the process of learning on social development with our interactions with others at the core of learning to conform to what our culture values as 'normal' or 'acceptable'. These factors include attitudes, values, and beliefs which are influenced mainly by the athlete’s participation in sports in general by their parents, peers, and school. Athletes with enthusiastic parents learn to value exercise, sport, and physical activity as it is being nurtured into their family household. Generally, the family member who holds the most influence on an athlete’s participation in sport is the father. As the athlete’s father figure isn’t in the picture it gave him the choice to mainly do whatever sport he wanted. The father wasn’t there to force him into another sport and forcing physical activity can develop a negative attitude within the sport and become less likely to participate in the sport itself. However, being involved in active play helped the athlete when he was younger receive a positive message towards sport.
The athlete has plenty of prior experience in physical activity and sports like football (soccer) due to their family and peer influence, however, this also hurt the athlete’s opportunity to participate in other sports like volleyball. Figueroa’s framework of interpersonal level states that the influence from peers and family has a great impact on an athlete’s participation, but also says that it may make a person feel excluded from the majority group. So, in that case, if the athlete were to decide to undertake a different sport, unfamiliar to the athlete’s family like volleyball, they could have ultimately felt excluded as their family and peer group are not around the same sport. Therefore, the athlete’s family and peer group negatively affected the athlete’s opportunity to participate in Volleyball before or outside of Year 12 HPE.
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
Place an order
The athlete had shown strong interest and involvement in a range of sports and physical activity yet has had minimal participation in Volleyball. The reason for this is was, along with family and peers, the athlete also had influences from teachers and coaches. When someone starts school, they begin to interact with other agents of socialization like teachers and coach figures. These agents begin to teach athletes about the rules and procedures for activities within institutions which plays a significant part in shaping ideals about sports, exercise, and physical activity. In school, the athlete's PE teachers taught them the basic skills needed for a variety of sporting activities. The athlete developed these skills during the years at school and became more confident in physical activity. The teachers also improved the abilities of the athlete through coaching and training. They offered the athlete a chance to achieve in different areas of sports. Teachers also developed the athlete’s attitude towards sport in a positive way towards sport and explained the advantages of long-term involvement in physical recreation as the teacher acts as a role model for the athlete. The teachers taught the athletes basic skills and benefits of playing sports and due to their friendship group and family, they went in that direction. As this was the case the teacher's influence, especially at a younger age, did not encourage participation in Volleyball. However, the teachers did teach the basics like catching a ball, throwing a ball, etc which can relate to volleyball. This allowed the athlete to feel confident when playing Volleyball at an older age as the skills were developed at a younger age so that the athlete didn’t shy away from Volleyball when told to play it.