Social Closure in the Youth Sport Field: The Pull of the Game on Class-Privileged Parents
Abstract
This article addresses a key question in the sociology of social inequality: how the class-privileged come to monopolise formerly open social fields through processes of social closure. We focus on ‘informal social closure’, the less studied form of closure in the literature; our empirical case is youth cross-country skiing in Norway, which historically has recruited across the class spectrum. Based on interviews with ski parents and inspired by Bourdieu’s notion of ‘illusio’ (players’ belief in the game’s importance), we distinguish between three groups of resourceful families who play various roles in exacerbating monopolisation: ‘genuine’, ‘compliant’ and ‘unwilling’ players. Our analysis furthers the understanding of how illusio fuels informal closure processes; compliant players – those with a weaker illusio – play a key role. To understand compliant players’ role, the analysis should scrutinise both how they legitimate the exclusionary code pushed by genuine players and their moral commitments beyond the particular game.
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| When | Event | Field | Old | New |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-18 19:37:53.011249+00:00 | identifier_assigned | DSEID | DSEID-001-7717580 |