Question

Consider Hilary Levey Friedman’s argument about the problem of upward socioeconomic mobility and what function youth sport performs in it. Now, consider the following two hypothetical scenarios:

a) A nationwide educational initiative is implemented that teaches parents that child self-esteem—developed through physical fitness, sportsmanship, and cooperation with teammates—is the proper objective of youth sport, not victory per se.

b) Elite colleges and universities decide for better or worse to reduce the uncertainty of college admissions by henceforth making decisions about admissions based strictly on standardized test scores and GPAs (the latter perhaps adjusted for high school and/or curricular difficulty). A completely randomized lottery system would be used when the qualified applicant pool is larger than the number of available spots in the incoming class.

For each of these hypothetical scenarios, explain whether the scenario would alleviate the problem of hyper-competitivenes in youth sport, and why it would or would not, if Levey Friedman’s theory about youth sport in Playing to Win were correct.

Though there may be some latitude given in the scoring of your responses, keep in mind that the main objective is to demonstrate a convincing understanding of the implications of each scenario for Levey Friedman’s argument.

Answer 1

(a) Hilary Levey Friedman has talked about the impact of youth sports on children. She said in youth sports children grow in a competitive environment which helps them to compete later in the broader world. Youth sports help to promote physical fitness, health and even nutrition among children. Hilary Levey Friedman has said from particularly three sports namely, chess, dance and soccer the children can learn how to perform when other peolpe would gaze at them. The importance of winning can be learnt, how to bounce back to win after a loss can be learnt, how to win within time limits can be learnt, and also how to succeed in stressful situations can also be learnt.

Now in the first situation, a nation wide educational initiative has taken which suggests the parents that a child's self esteem takes place through physical fitness, sportsmanship and cooperation with teammates which is the proper objective of youth sports not victory. Levey Friedman'' theory says that youth sports would make the children understand about competition which will further help them to adjust later in the broader competitive world. The children will learn about cooperation and will help themselves in difficult situations. So, youth sports will not give rise to hyper competitiveness. It will rather create an environment from which they will be able to learn how to bounce from failure, will learn how to deal with stressful situations and how to perform within time limits.

(b) Elite colleges have decided to take admission into the college by following the strict GPAs and standardized tests. However, a lottery system would be created when the applicant pool is larger than the number of available spots. This will rise to competition among the children, but not hyper competition as with the increased number of qualified applicants will raise the situation of lottery which will be based luck. Moreover, scoring depends on one's capability and intelligence, so even after considering the GPA the competition might not be too high for college entree. In this situation, youth sports will help the children to cope up with mental stress.