Religious and Political Grounds of Agonal Sports Tradition and Their Effect on Theory and Methodology of Sports Education

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Alexandru Mircea Chirtoaca, postgraduate student
Russian State University of Physical Culture, Sport, Youth and Tourism (SCOLIPhC), Moscow

Keywords: national models of sport, algorithm to identify levels of analysis and evaluation.

Introduction. The purpose of the substantiation of the need and the possibility of answering the question about the degree of actual significance of religious and political principles as a basis for sports pedagogics, as mentioned earlier, places three tasks that need to be solved consecutively.

The first task - the one of showing sport as a unity of specific historical, primarily religious and political, diversity at the level of the historical and philosophical analysis can be solved, in our opinion, on the basis of our methodological concept of correlation of agonal and coliseum models of existence and development of the world agonal sports tradition.

The third task – the one of definition and validation of the indicators of the necessary adjustments to any of the national sports education systems in comparison with the virtual abstract-globalist, sociocultural, or, to be more specific, common civilization sports educational matrix, can not be solved effectively without settling first of some intermediate task. Why?

The key conceptual and meaningful element in this formulation is the emphasis on the national origin of specific sports and educational systems. Therefore, it is logical to assume that a specific effective algorithm of levels of criteria for analyzing and evaluating national models of sport, that could combine theory with practice, should be created.

So, the second, or intermediate, task is to create an efficient algorithm for identifying criteria for the analysis and evaluation of national models of sport. To solve this task correctly one needs to consider individually the two groups of national sports models:

- international (conventionally defined as "foreign") models, being developed in a particular national sociocultural context;

- national (conventionally defined as "native") models per se, which are the result of actual (including official) sportization and adaptation of ethno-cultural somatic and motor practices, which is in the focus of the study on national community. In our case, of course, we will focus on the social community of the Republic of Moldova.

We seem to get an almost completed algorithm of analysis of national specificity of so-called international sports models if we take as a basis the conceptual approach of A.A. Peredel’sky [2]. Summarizing the extensive experience of the existence of sports in different countries over the XIX-XX centuries, A.A. Peredel’sky proves the feasibility of isolating and studying of the following levels of schematic strategic sports modeling: economic, political and actual social level.

The purpose of the research was to develop a common concept of systematic definition of criteria for analyzing and evaluating the national specifics of sports models.

Results and discussion. At the economic level Peredel’sky defines and characterizes industrial and consumer models of sport. Political level according to him includes wartime (pre-war and post-war) and peacetime (aristocratic, authoritarian and democratic) political sports models. Ethnic, class, national and international (globalist) models constitute the actual social level [2]. Particularly valuable in the context of our research is the remark of A.A. Peredelsky on the need for "analysis of national models of sports development, which requires knowledge of cultural traditions, mentality, psychophysical and national characteristics, production-economic and socio-political determinants that create the unique image of the same sport in different countries ..." [2, p. 57]. By the way, we believe, this remark casts doubt on the possibility of the emergence of an internationally-globalist model, at least for the foreseeable future, as long as nations, each with its own features, exist.

The above passage says nothing about religious determinants, the grounds for national version of sports modeling. But in another study, A.A. Peredel’sky doesn't just indicate the need for researching religious determinants, he adds this indication in the draft of the scientific program of social study of sport [1]. Thus, even in terms of using methodological orientations of the mentioned author, we have the right to focus on political and religious determinants.

However, at this very point of analysis we have to admit that the methodology of A.A. Peredel’sky is clearly not enough to determine the specific Moldovan features of development of international sports models. It can serve only as a starting point for systematization and further more detailed subject-oriented elaboration. In other words, we lack a special algorithm of analysis of national specificity - the same situation as when considering the group of "native" sports models. That is, instead of solving the problem we defined it more correctly from the system perspective and postponed it. But now, we have a plan for our study and without any interruption we can begin to develop the desired algorithm directly. This algorithm should be a reasonable sequence of allocation and examination of the main criteria for analysis and evaluation of the peculiarities of Moldovan sports models in their integrity.

Obviously, such an algorithm should primarily correlate with the analysis and evaluation of the composition and the level of development of those sports that already exist in the country. Further, it would be wise to turn to national history and find out what pre-sports types or forms of somatic and motor practice were developing in the country earlier in order to determine the degree of ethno-cultural predisposition and a list of possible priorities that result from it. It is also necessary to take into account those ethno-cultural communities and nationalities, united under one national flag by the integrity of national borders. Then, we should study the periods of historic partnership of country’s population and leadership with other nations to establish the conditions and the extent of possible voluntary or forced socio-cultural influence and borrowings.

After the historical analysis we can pass on to the characterization of current state of the nation, including the dominant confessional-religious situation and corresponding degree of tolerance and open-mindedness, behavioral stereotypes and values ​​of citizens. Not less important object of analysis stands the country's political regime, which is a real set of means and methods of state authority [1, p. 9]. The analysis of national policy should also reflect the priorities and long-term orientation of the foreign policy of the country and related socio-economic, cultural and civilizational programs.

So, now in the most general terms we can see a quite complex algorithm, which includes different levels of analysis and evaluation of required parameters and can be represented as follows [Table 1].

These priorities are possibly the result of typical ethno-cultural, psychophysical and mental features and of a number of geographical factors (zone, climate, topography, etc.) affecting the unique image and orientation of productive-economic and socio-political development of peoples, which constitute the nation.

Table 1. Levels of analysis and evaluation of national peculiarities of sports models.

Subject of analysis

Levels of analysis in order of precedence

Current national sports classifier

1.1. The period (total time) of existence of particular sport in the country and conditions of its introduction.

1.2. The share of those who are regularly engaged in that sport as a percentage of the total population.

1.3. The actual ratio of "native" and "foreign" sports, their shares

History of the country:

- Ethno-cultural background;

- Geographical information;

- Socio-historical background

2.1. Reliable information about the historical representation of national (similar to a certain kind of sport or unique) somatic and motor, social and cultural disciplines.

2.2. Typical ethno-cultural psychophysical and mental characteristics.

2.3. The specificity of geographical location of the country:

- Zone;

- Climate;

- Soil and relief;

- Land (territory);

- Water area.

2.4. Productive-economic features.

2.5. Social and political traditions.

2.6. Ethno-cultural composition and process of national unification.

2.7. History of foreign policy and related partnership and confrontation

The present:

- current cultural and confessional situation;

- current political situation

3.1. The presence of real confessional domination and actual degree of tolerance of the citizens.

3.2. Characteristics of current political regime.

3.3. Foreign policy priorities and related economic and other cultural and civilizational programs.

In conclusion, we note that on the basis of this table it is possible to make a set of quite clear and specific criteria for the analysis and evaluation of national peculiarities of sports models and determine different types of scale for the calculations on related indicators. In turn, these indicators can be used effectively in planning future national political strategy in the field of sport.

References

  1. Peredel'sky, A.A. Sport in the focus of history and philosophy of science: study guide for postgraduates of physical culture and sports universities / A.A. Peredel'sky. – Мoscow, 2014. – 112 P. (In Russian)
  2. Peredel'sky, A.A. Philosophy of Sport. Meta-scientific grounds of sports process / A.A. Peredel'sky. – Мoscow: MAGISTR-PRESS, 2011. – 480 P. (In Russian)

Corresponding author: filosofia@sportedu.ru