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Description
Sport for all has increasingly been highlighted by the Taiwanese government; nonetheless, there are some difficulties with sport participation, such as lack of stadiums. Baseball, which is a national sport, plays crucial social roles, such as social coherence, yet there is little participation. Although baseball is so popular in Taiwan, playing baseball is not for all but for elite athletes. Recently, local community baseball teams have been significantly established nationwide, they seem like a group for itself in sport participation that is a rare phenomenon in Taiwan. Even though many studies have examined how social classes may affect sport participation in Western countries, little research have the same discussion in the East. In light of this, we seek the influences of social classes and the way they manage the members (parents and children). To examine research aims, we applied seven interviews and three observations with four symbolic teams. We found that most adolescents are from middle class, yet their parents used not to be in the same class; the father role, most of whom had faced difficulties playing baseball in childhood, is the significant other influencing children's sport interests and participation. Furthermore, the requirements for participants and team regulations of community baseballs could forge a close connection, but they turn boundaries, time involvement and economic capital, for middle-lower classes. Finally, we suggest paying more attention to accessibility for middle-lower classes, eschewing baseball as a sport for specific classes.
