Abstract

In our rapidly changing industrial society social attitudes toward competition remain in conflict, divided along educational - class - and even sex-lines. Yet it is none-the-less an all-pervaisive process, basic to our everyday style of living in both work and leisure, and even in family-life. For this reason, competition tends to be ritualised within a variety of institutions, but particularly in those placing high value on themes of achievement, including work environments, in the school, sport and games. It is in the latter contexts that the young of a society become the recipients of the efforts of their adult caretakers in learning to compete through highly institutionalised, formal modes of social organisation. Before examining this complex problem of sport and its impact on children competition will be defined. Three key issues will then be examined: First, the social context of competition comparing the existing forms of social organisation; the social impact of competition treated in terms of its extrinsically rewarding properties and its undermining effects on trinsic motivation; and third, the social consequences of competition considered in light of the problems associated with skill learning under instrinsic conditions. Verf.-Referat gekuerzt