In this podcast, Mark Brooke explores how he teaches dense theoretical concepts in his content and language integrated module entitled Sport and Socialization. In particular, he demonstrates how he uses upshifts where theorising is foregrounded to facilitate his teacher talk. The text and figure representing some of the text’s meanings are presented below and discussed in the podcast. Mark recommends showing the visual while talking to help students’ understanding of the difference in conceptual density of the terms. The text may also be given to students to read if comprehension is problematic.
Teacher talk
“A functionalist seeks social harmony. A phenomenon such as doping in sport can be seen to reflect negative social values, a win at all costs mentality, according to Coakley and Pike (2014), which disrupts harmony. For a functionalist, sport as a “social institution”, with its own belief systems and codes of conduct, functions to develop positive core values like fairplay and healthy competition. So illicit steroid use is cheating; it produces distrust between athletes; it can also be dangerous. So, it negates these functions. Thus, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) sets up sanctioned behaviour and if athletes do not follow these rules, this is wrong, it represents “deviance”. If athletes cheat, they are breaking the social contract, that is, they are breaking agreed codes of conduct to maintain social stability. There is an issue with the “organic solidarity”. Durkheim uses this term organic solidarity” to refer to complementary interdependence between social actors. If everyone has a social role and abides by agreed codes of conduct, harmony can be maintained”.
Figure representing Entry points and upshifts for teaching conceptual terms
References
Coakley, J., & Pike, E. (2014). EBOOK: Sports in Society. McGraw Hill.
Pope, W. (1998). Emile Durkheim. In Key sociological thinkers (pp. 46-58). Palgrave, London.
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) (wada-ama.org)