A Study on the Social Function of Sports as Community-Organization

The purpose of this study is to examine the social function of sports which organize communities. According to Matsubara, community was determined by 4 factors as; territoriality, social interaction, social resources, community sentiment. In this study, community sentiment is taken as the most important factor to organize community and it would be clarify, how sports activities in community function for community sentiment. Two communities were surueged; Takakura district in Kasugai city, Aichi pref. (urban community) and Tobu district in Atsumi gun Tahara cho, Aichi pref. (rural community); both disignated as "model community" by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1973. Male adults and female ones were included in the sample of the two districts. In sampling stratified ramdom sampling was applied, and the sample size was 1000 in each district. Term; The survey was conducted from September to October in 1982 in each community. Questionnaire; it contained 5 elements (45 items) as follows; Social atribute (11 items), Community sentiment (6 items), Participation in events and activities of community (10 items), Interest in health and sports (6 items), Sports paticipation (12 items). The method of analysis; we-'feeling, role-feeling, dependency-feeling-these three factors determining community sentiment are asked first. Then the total score summed is meant as the strength of community sentiment, being divided into 3 groups. And Cross tabulation and X^2 test with other items were conducted. The findings of this analysis were as follows; 1) Community sentiment has especially an important relation to permanent residence element as social attribute. 2) As for the participation in community events or activities it has various opportunities for the communication among inhabitants in community. The experience of participating sports events or activities tended to increase the community sentiment in each community. That is, sports events or activities were considered as the method strengthen the community sentiment. 3) The inhabitants in each community often watch spectator sports, and this was found especially in the highly ranked group of community sentiments. It may seem that they are interested in sports. 4) Try to analysis the relationship between the community sentiment and voluntary participation in sports as individual; as they have higher community sentiment, they participated in sports more times now in Takakura community. And the members of sports clubs or sports lovers societies tend to be confined those only in the community. These facts manifest that sports activities as a media to strengthen community sentiment have more or less possibility in urban community just like Takakura. On the other hand, in rural community like Tobu, it is concluded that community sentiment of residents is strengthen not only through sports activities, but also through interchanges of their daily life.16KJ00004196246departmental bulletin pape