Social stratification of leisure time sport and exercise activities: comparison of ten popular sports activities.

Guided by a social inequality perspective that combines Bourdieu's conception of socially shaped tastes and lifestyles with Peterson's notion of omnivorous consumption, this paper addresses the link between social inequality and participation in specific subfields of sport. Ten popular sports and adjacent activity subfields are analysed and compared. Based on representative data from Germany, the paper points out that participation in different fields of sport is socially structured, however to different degrees and in different ways. Almost all fields of sport appeal to individuals with above-average levels of cultural capital, whereas lower social classes dominate the group of inactive individuals. Football is least structured by cultural and economic capital, while racket sports, nature-related activities, yoga, fitness and water sports are socially most selective. Beyond social class, gender is also key for structuring participation. Finally, findings show that cultural capital is closely associated with multiple engagements in a broader range of different sports, thus buttressing the notion that omnivorous participation signifies a higher social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]