Pope Francis Wants to Use Sport to Change Culture

Pop Francis’ initiative to use sports to bring about social change throughout the world with his “Sports at the Service of Humanity” conference seems to be a promising idea for the future of sport and society.  In my American Sport in the 21^st Century class on February 9, 2016 my class discussed sport and socialization.  Socialization is the active process of learning the culture of a society and in sport there are 4 socialization agents that shape how people learn about sport.  The agents are family, peers, school, and community. The article I read on this conference was from the Sports Business Journal.

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2016/01/25/Sports-in-Society/Pope-Francis.aspx

The article outlined that the Pope’s plan to have the “Sport at the Service of Humanity” conference, will bring together 150 of the world’s sport, government, and religious leaders who will discuss ways to grow school, sports, and jobs around the world. The first connection I made between the article and class discussion on socialization was family.  I believe this because religion is a big part of many families in not only the United States, but also around the world.  The second connection that I made between the article and class discussion was the focus on school.  School is one of the focuses of this conference and it is a major socialization agent in everyone's lives so whatever comes of this conference can have a positive impact.  Finally, the last connection that I made between the article and my classes' discussion was peers.  I believe these are also connected because if the conference is also focusing on jobs then that certainly will include peer groups which are a socialization agent as well.  The hope is that this conference will result in many positive improvements of society and sport.  One of the CEO’s of the sport marketing groups helping to organize the conference, Bernie Mullen of The Aspire Group, said the programs hopefully generated from this conference are, “Programs that work on the guiding principles that guide humanity — play by the rules, sacrifice, teamwork, be part of a team and be part of a larger good.”  I for one think that any sport programs that can promote principles as important in life as that is extremely valuable to society.