Sociocultural Issues and Physical Education in the Media - Research Paper Example

A critical analysis of the portrayal of socio-cultural issues and physical education in the media Introduction This paper gives an analysis of how the media portrays socio-cultural and physical education issues within the community. A film will be used to back up the claims made within this analysis and help shed more light on how effective or ineffective the media could prove to be in shaping the society. A detailed literature review will be conducted on the socio-cultural issues in light of those themes that were covered during the coursework session. Part 1: Socio-cultural issues that appear to be depicted in the events or behaviors of the individuals involved Relationships normally are constructed socially and culturally. There is a range of socio-cultural issues that affect the community. A number of factors that help shape and determine these socio-cultural issues are the expectations of the community, laws, rules, and policies, economic as well as physical resources, ethical and technological factors. The media could as well be categorized under the technological factors. These factors will in the long run affect the attitudes, behaviors, and expectations that these people have over the relationships (Smith & O’Day, 1990). The media together with what could be described as popular culture often does portray unrealistic scenarios or images about these relationships and often does play a very crucial role in the persuasion process of the people within communities to try and conform to the social norms. The media could still be used as a destructive tool that hinders the achievement of these socio-cultural needs and that is why its portrayal of them is very vital thing to consider (Oleribe, 2005). In the movie Take the Lead, there are socio-culture issues that arise from the events in the movie and from individuals’ behaviors. These socio-culture issues include disadvantaged education and family. On the part of disadvantaged education, this can be well pointed out in the movie where the students in the detention like Rock, LaRhette and the others are seen as not performing well in terms of class education. Although they are not good in class performance, they are seen as having other talents that they can perform better. In this case their dancing skills are good and through practice, acceptance and determination, they dance through a highly competitive dancing competition where their performance is quite appreciated even by the school Principle James who makes the program permanent within the school and expands it to other schools. Family as a socio-cultural issue on the other hand is portrayed in this movie by how different individual characters have been brought up or are relating to their family members or the general family background of an individual character and how this affects that particular character. In the case of Rock, his father is a drunkard who is not able to provide food for Rock since his brother’s death and this pushes Rock to join street thugs so as to sustain himself since he has no job also. LaRhette on the other hand is also affected by the family life since her mother is a prostitute with many children that she cannot take care of hence leaving the responsibility to her elder daughter LaRhette who has to scarifies her own time to look after her siblings. LaRhette is exposed to many dangers in her own home like her mother’s clients who attempt to rape her. This socio-culture issue affects individuals in their upbringing as they are seen to affect these particular characters in this movie. Part 2: Review of each of these socio-cultural issues selected The media plays a very crucial part in shaping the socio-cultural issues affecting the society and has extended to tackling physical education. Media is able to disseminate information to large populations within a short time. However, the media has not always had a positive influence on the society especially when it comes to socio-cultural and physical education issues. It so happens that the media continues to add on the already thorny issues affecting society. For instance, there is an under-representation of people that are disadvantaged and the use of certain thing like images and language has helped worsen the situation. Stereotyping has also not been left out. The public education has over the years also struggled but failed to achieve the results needed in socio-cultural issues and physical education (Fishel, 1998). A huge number of public schools, more so those that are within the high poverty urban zones have been ineffective in meeting the requirements posed by the diversity in student population. The media has in many occasions taken over this role. What could still be seen however; is a generation that is not well-prepared to deal with the issues and compete competitively within the international arena because of the socio-cultural implications and lack of proper ways of instituting physical education (Clune & White, 1988). With the rapidly developing technology, especially in the media, there have been many concerns over the socio- culture issues that are affected within the society by the new technology. This has been in relation to television programs as well as movies. Media are believed to highly contribute to the development of antisocial behavior among people but mostly the youths. It is perceived that human attitude is mostly associated with physiological, domestic and cultural reasons. The learning environment and family at large are considered to contribute to the social attitude and feelings of an individual especially the young or the adolescent ones. Disadvantaged education refers to one’s education capability in terms of school. One’s education does affect his or her socio-culture attitude (Wamani, et al., 2004). A well educated person is perceived to be more responsible and less aggressive to the others within the society’s context. On the other hand, a less educated person is seen to be more aggressive and less responsible to others. These are assumptions or stereotypes that have been made though they do not necessarily apply to all cases since some situations have proved otherwise. Like in the take the lead movie, many characters are portrayed as those with disadvantaged education. Rock, LaRhette and the others are portrayed as students from family backgrounds with weird characters and their education life is much affected. In fact it is because of their in disciplinary cases that they earn detention in the basement. This can be badly interpreted by the young ones watching the movie that education is not that important in life and that one can still succeed even without education. Movies have been associated with influencing people especially teenagers in terms of their attitudes and behaviors towards life. The characters in the movie are having problems with education and as a punishment they are taken to the detention which acts as a rehabilitation place. In the long run, what they had taken to be a punishment in the detention turns out to an opportunity to explore new talents. They explore their dancing sills and even go for a competition where their performance is remarkable good compared to their class education and social life. This can also create a positive impact on the movie peers. This movie is also acknowledging the fact that disadvantaged education does not mean the end of the world to the characters. There is always hope and a chance to do other things or take a different path that one might end up doing more efficiently. It emphases on the fact that one needs to follow up his or her skills for better perfection despite the challenges that might be faced. Another socio-culture aspect projected out in the movie is that the society should not be judgmental on the disadvantaged education individuals. People should always be given a second chance despite the previous mistakes. In the movie, the principle had already lost hope on the group that was in detention and could not believe that they could be able of achieving anything of value given their previous track record (Wright & Macdonald, 2011). A family’s upbringing in one way or another effects the physiological behavior pattern and values of a person. Bad family upbringing of a child has been found to affect a child’s attitude towards life as well as his or her relationship with his peers. On the other hand, good family upbringings also determine and play a big role on how one perceives life in general. It affects how one relates with others be it at school or his or her peers. A child who has been raised in a violent environment will most likely develop with aggressive attitude, behavior, thoughts and feelings. They tend to believe that a problem could easily be solved by violence and it is acceptable in the society. In the same way, a child that is brought up in abusive environment also tends to grow up with different attitude that can be attributed to defensive adaptation measures that in the end affects is or her social life. These children tend to keep to themselves as they shy away from the society and people around them. Mostly they want to keep to themselves and avoid the outside contact. This aspect of family upbringing is portrayed in the movie by Rock and LaRhette as characters. Rock on his part has been raised by a drunkard father who does not care much about him. This is somehow attributed to his aggression in life with his peers and is uncooperative both socially and in school where he has in disciplinary cases like vandalizing the principle car. LaRhette on her part has been raised by a prostitute mother whose customers at times harass her in attempt to rape her. To add to that, she has been left with the responsibilities to take care of her younger siblings while her mother is a way. Her aggressive and hate attitude seems to have generated from the family upbringing she has been raised through as a child. This movie has socio-culture attributes in a way that it might influence the viewers in some way or the other. For people especially teenagers who are still psychologically developing, they might be influenced or get carried away by the violent lifestyle that Rock is living. Apart from his aggression in life, he is also associating with the wrong company that is involved in robberies (Slavin, et al., 1992). Viewers, especially boys, have been known to be attracted to media violence and this affects their affection arousal. Watching violent movies or movies that involves violent threat activates sympathy which is known to increase heart beat rate and blood pressure in the viewers. Also on the part of LaRhette and her upbringing, the movie could have socio-culture effect on viewers. Her mother’s immoral behaviors can be influential to other teenage girls who might be motivated to live such a life style. The scenes like those of intended rape which are almost of the same category with pornography movies are of bad influence to teenagers who might get tempted to practice such acts of their peers. On the good side, the movie also has socio culture values that it brings out. It proves to viewers that despite people being raised in bad family background, they still can turn out to be good responsible people unlike it is believed that someone from a bad family upbringing definitely turns out to be bad. This is clearly proved by LaRhette whom despite her mother being a prostitute, she is responsible to her siblings and takes care of them and she does not accept any advances on her by her mother’s male clients. Part 3: Critical comment on the portrayal of the two issues The movie portrays different aspects of the social and cultural aspects of life. Rock is portrayed as a very arrogant, aggressive and leads a criminal life. This can be said to be in relation to his background upbringing where he is brought up in a violence environment that is portrayed by his brother’s involvement in gang fights. His in discipline behavior is shown where he vandalizes the principles car and goes ahead to forge a medical letter to exclude him from dancing. Also the fact that he is ready to fight proves the theory that the family background one is raised into affects his or her attitude and behaviors in one way or another (Erinosho, 1998). Research shows that people brought up in harsh environments like Rock at long last develop resentment towards the world. They tend to distance themselves from the society at large and even end up developing negative habits like those of criminal life. A child that is raised without proper parental guidance also develops negative attitude and mostly lacks discipline. In the case of Rock, his father is a drunkard that does not care much about him and in fact ends up throwing him out of the house. As a result Rocks has developed negative behaviors by being stubborn and unmanageable to the school and his social life (Erinosho, 1998). Socio-cultural approaches have over the years been concerned only with issues that deal with socialization. The differences seen between psychological approaches and those that use sociological methods have been frequently emphasized and in many cases mobilized as being part of a move that could critique the universalistic approach to child development. A point in question is that of instituting supportive culture in pursuit of change (Bodilly, 1998). The truth however is that the fundamental change which is needed in schools has over the years been very slow. What is seen in this movie being analyzed could be summed up as most individuals being in need for emotional affection and require the social need which is acceptance. In this case, such people end up seeking companionship, approval, acceptance, and support from other people. for quite a number of children, their behavior could be shaped rom family as well as the environment in which they grow up in. the relationships that occur between individuals within their families, peer groups or partners could end up satisfying them or not and the outcome could be to seek it elsewhere in case they do not get it. Physical education could be an answer to many a society’s problems and could thus help propel the young people to greater heights if well-coordinated as seen in the movie. The relationships that occur are usually essential for the health of an individual in terms of emotional, social, and mental well-being (Slavin, 1995). A number of young people usually do experience confusion when it comes to physical as well as emotional boundaries related to relationships. For instance, the young people could be confused about the degree of physical intimacy to have with people or find it hard to conceptualize the extent to which they could exercise self-disclosure. At the same time, this generation of young people is vulnerable to blatant exploitation. This is why it is usually advisable that young people be able to investigate their roles in society, responsibilities in given relationships and the rights they possess. While doing this, there is also need to reflect on issues and seek clarification on a range of individual values when it comes to various changes that they do experience in life (Buor, 2003). Conclusion Education seems to be everything which does influences behavior as well as personality of people. Physical education seems to be part of the foundation of education that does encourage the development of abilities of children and forms the basis for life schooling within society. This is because it adopts the principles of both unity and parity and goes beyond the mind-body dichotomy. The media could be a reliable instrument in shaping the socio-cultural issues and physical education that affect society (Slavin, 1995). The media is widely used by the younger generation than it is by the adults. This therefore means that it could reach a good chunk of the younger generation who are also still in schooling age. If effectively used, the media could portray a positive image on socio-cultural issues and help push for physical education as the best means through which young people could grow. This kind of a holistic approach to the issues affecting society is crucial for the long term benefit of the community and the media will also gain by being viewed in positive light. The issues of socio-culture and physical education will still be challenging now and in the near future. There is need to structure the media so that it gives a good image of these issues and help the society in shaping the lives, especially that of the young people. Proper education also needs to be conducted to ensure that the younger generation is sensitized on the media and the fact that not whatever they see is all but good for consumption. The opposite depiction by movies needs to be taught to young people since it is not all that is shown which is supposed to be taken literally. They need to think beyond or outside the box. References Buor D (2003). Mothers education and childhood mortality in Ghana. Health Policy. Jun. 64(3):297-309. Bodilly, S.J. (1998). Lessons from the New American Schools Development Corporation’s development phase. Washington, DC: RAND. Clune, W.H., & White, P.A. (1988). 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In Politics of Education Association yearbook 1990 (pp. 233-267). New York: Taylor & Francis. Wamani H, Tylleskar T, Astrom AN, Tumwine JK. & Peterson S (2004). Mothers education but not fathers education, household assets or land ownership is the best predictor of child health inequalities in rural Uganda. Int. J. Equity Health. 3(1):9 Wright J. & Macdonald D. (2011) Young People, Physical Activity and the Everyday, Routledge Movie Cited “Take the Lead” Read More