Playing to Win. Hilary Levey Friedman
in organized activities into account when making admissions decisions. Most of the other top systems of higher education in the world (in Japan, South Korea, China, India, and France, for example) rely on standardized test scores to determine admissions. It is a purely numeric enterprise. Of course, this carries its own stresses and problems for students, but academic performance is the main focus.
Parents know that academic credentials matter. Sociologist Randall Collins explained their importance this way: “The rise of a competitive system for producing an abstract cultural currency in the form of educational credentials has been the major new force shaping stratification in twentieth-century America.”99 As I previously mentioned, this new stratification connected to existing inequalities based on class.
The rise of competitive activities for children is tied to another major change in the educational system: the rise of compulsory education. As Viviana Zelizer carefully details in the classic Pricing the Priceless Child, the rise of compulsory education coupled with the eradication of child labor coincided with a cultural shift in how children were viewed. Even as they became less economically vital to families, children became emotionally priceless.100 Starting in the early twentieth century, parents began to invest more and more in their children, just as they started to have fewer kids, which made the children they did have even more important. This sacralization of childhood helped contribute to the fetishization of childhood and childhood accomplishments.
In many ways it is no coincidence that during this time America experienced a fetishization of awards and prizes in general. The winner-take-all prize frenzy that characterizes American culture started around the same time. For instance, the late nineteenth century saw the establishment of several different types of competitions that still exist today. In 1874 the first Kentucky Derby was held, and 1877 witnessed the inaugural Westminster dog show.101 More than animals got in on the act: in 1913 the first rose competitions were held in the United States.102
The early twentieth century also saw the development of organized American sporting culture. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was established in 1910, and a variety of professional sports leagues grew during this time. Less popular sports also developed their organized, competitive infrastructures in this historical moment; for example, the first synchronized swimming competition in the United States took place in 1939.103 Social scientists Andrei Markovits and Steven Hellerman note that sports foster Americans’ predilection for rankings and quantifications, a huge part of the sporting culture: “America’s fetishism and obsession with rankings have made two ostensibly conflicting, yet essential, American values comparable: that of competition and fairness.”104
The emphasis on competition, and rankings in general, intensified in the second half of the twentieth century. James English describes the 1970s as the most intense period of prize creation, with tremendous growth in every field, including the addition of even more prizes to certain fields, as in film and literature.105 Music competitions saw similar growth in this time period.106 Even offbeat activities, such as competitive eating, developed their own competitions and award structures in the 1970s.107
Since the 1970s prizes have become increasingly fashionable. They are broadly publicized in a variety of fields, including sports and literary awards,108 along with children’s activities. Competitive children’s activities need to be contextualized in the development of the broader organized, competitive spirit of the United States.
Today the sheer number of competitive opportunities for kids has implications for children’s long-term development and for class inequality. Competitive children’s activities have evolved since they began in late nineteenth-century America. Now there are more activities, a greater number of competitions, and a change in the class backgrounds of competitors. These changes can be understood in terms of changes in families, the educational system, and prizes.
While there is an opportunity to once again involve less advantaged children in competitive activities—as is occurring with scholastic chess in Harlem, the Bronx, and other urban centers that have nonprofits supporting gifted children financially so they can train and travel109—it is clear that the middle class still dominates these activities. As paid coaches and fees for participation in activities and competitions continue to proliferate, those who are not able to pay are largely pushed out of the system, especially when they are in elementary school. There are opportunities for participation in school-sponsored activities in middle school and high school, but without specialized training at a young age, it is difficult to compete with those who have had such training.
Understanding the historical evolution and context of these activities is a first step. But we must also understand how parents and children conceptualize the place of these activities in their contemporary lives as they develop the Competitive Kid Capital needed to succeed in various educational tournaments through childhood and early adulthood.
TWOMore than Playing Around
STUDYING COMPETITIVE CHILDHOODS
“Do you want to play?”
I always dreaded that question. Not because I didn’t want to play, but because I didn’t really know how. I am a chess neophyte and a failed soccer player. There was simply no way I could keep up with the pint-size players I was studying—even though I tried, much to their delight.
During six to nine months of intensive observation of chess, then soccer, and finally dance, I learned how these activities and their competitions are organized, who is in charge, and why they are ordered the way that they are in the present day. I spent the better part of evenings and weekends over sixteen months on soccer fields, in dance studios and hotel ballrooms, and in school buildings and other spaces where chess is played. I talked informally with participants, attended tournaments, and often carved out a social role for myself (usually as an informal assistant to a teacher or coach). I then conducted 172 semistructured interviews with parents, coaches, and children in their homes or places of work or at a coffee shop, a library, or other public space.
While I never became an expert chess player, dancer, or soccer player—and, sadly, never will—I did become an expert on the organization of these worlds. For each activity I had two field sites, one urban and one suburban, in the greater metropolitan area of a major northeastern city in the United States.1 Within each urban and suburban setting I had a field site for each activity in order to maximize comparability, so I had a total of six field sites across the three activities.
All of the urban settings are in the area I call “Metro,” and the suburban settings are in “West County.” The Metro location is extremely diverse, in terms of both income and race/ethnicity, while West County is far more homogeneous. West County contains several affluent suburbs with a mainly educated populace dominated by white and Asian families. There is economic diversity within the county, but the towns where I spent most of my time are the most affluent in the county.
Because I knew the least about chess when I began, I started there. I then moved onto soccer, which I once tried to play in grade school. (The fact that I played in skorts instead of shorts likely tells you all you need to know about my abilities on the field.) I closed my research with dance, as this was the activity I knew the most about, having attended dance competitions as a child—though as a spectator and not as a participant. I myself have never competed in a chess tournament, a soccer tournament, or a dance competition.
I learned about these activities from the ground up, and this chapter is a pocket guide on how each of them works. I have highlighted certain practices within each activity that are relevant to understanding various aspects of Competitive Kid Capital formation that I discuss in the next chapters. In the appendix I detail how I selected field sites and those I interviewed, how I presented myself in the field, and some of the unique methodological challenges this research presented (particularly as it relates to research with kids). If you already know how any of these competitive activities function, you may prefer to skip that activity’s section and simply read about the organizations I worked with. For each of the three activities I begin with an overview of the competitive landscape and then describe the six field sites: Metro and West County Chess, Metro Soccer Co-op and Westfield Soccer Club,