The purpose of this study was to investigate the cultural processes of how national identity is supported and/or created through sports in South Africa. To get a basic understanding of the South African sports culture data have been collected by using cartographic methods such as reading newspapers, watching sports on television and visiting live sport events. The final part of the method was to conduct interviews about sports as an additional way to collect data and understand the processes of national identity. The theories originates from social scientists like Èmile Durkheim and Karl Marx combined with post traditional perspectives that offers some explanations on how sports and national identity function as an important part that holds societies together.   The conclusion of the study shows that sports are strong factors in the creation and reproduction of national identities in the South African culture. The sport institutions with their norms and regulations on the one hand gives clear directions for how society and sports are organized. On the other hand the South Africans identities mold between a traditional identity and a modern identity where good sport performance can offer class journeys to western society and better opportunities.

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Historically and contemporarily the Black male experience has stimulated and provoked meaningful discussions in the realms of sport and academia. Black males are uniquely situated in American society, as they inhabit a liminal existence that oscillates between love and hate. Ladson-Billings (2011) expounds that Black boys are loved in the narrow niches of sport but are often abhorred in academic settings. The majority of research on the athletic and academic identities of Black student-athletes is conducted at the collegiate level in the revenue sports of basketball and football, and the research asserts that the collegiate sport atmosphere renders the two identities as mutually exclusive (Edwards, 1984; Harrison et al., 2011; Singer, 2008). There are studies occurring at the middle school level; however, these studies combine all male athletes into one group and do not distinguish the research participants according to their specific sport participation or racial background (Alfone, 2013; Fuller, Percy, & Bruening, 2013; Gorton, 2010). The few studies that distinguish between race and sport participation are somewhat dated (Mahiri, 1991, 1998; Nasir, 2000, 2008). This study addresses a gap in the literature by focusing solely on elite Black male middle school student-athletes to discover what leads to the seemingly incompatible athletic and academic identities that surface during college. I employed an instrumental case study grounded in Critical Race Theory which investigated and examined the experiences and perspectives of seven elite Black middle school club basketball players. Themes were generated by coding the interview data of all relevant stakeholders such as coaches, players, and parents as well as a thorough analysis of field notes, artifacts, and focus group data. Five themes emerged from the data, Academic Recognition, Athletic Recognition, Career, Racial Expectations, & Time Devoted to Sport and Intellectual Endeavors. This study is significant because it contextualizes the racial, athletic and academic climate of Black male athletes at a crucial time in their identity development. It contributes to the current literature by providing insight and furnishing essential information for parents, coaches and educators in order to bolster and enhance the academic identity and attainment of young Black male basketball players.

Le statut et la fonction de l'entraîneur sportif se sont progressivement développés avec la naissance du sport moderne, à partir de la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Du début du XXe siècle à aujourd'hui, le modèle le plus prégnant est celui du technicien de « terrain » dont les méthodes se construisent avant tout sous l'influence socioculturelle dans laquelle il est « baigné ». À partir des années 1980, le processus de professionnalisation qui s'est développé a eu comme conséquence une subdivision des modèles stabilisés en nombreux profils individuels, qui vont bien au-delà du simple triptyque technicien-meneur d'hommes-stratège, mis en avant dans les différentes représentations de sens commun. L'analyse des discours de vingt entraîneurs sportifs, choisis pour représenter au mieux l'ensemble de cette population, nous permet de confirmer les modèles socioculturels connus, et de faire apparaître des profils individuels variés. Elle permet surtout de mettre en évidence l'ensemble des logiques de professionnalisation de cette population. Qu'elles soient communicationnelles, techniques, organisationnelles ou de formation, ces logiques ont comme intérêt scientifique de montrer comment les entraîneurs sportifs se construisent professionnellement aujourd'hui. / The status and function of the sport coach have steadily developed since the birth of modern-era sport, in the late 18th century. From the early 20th c. to the present day, the most significant model is that of the field technician whose methods have been built under the influence of his or her social and cultural background. The 1980s saw the emergence of a professionalisation process which subdivided the existing patterns into a variety of individual models, going further beyond the mere three-dimensional combination of the technician-leader-strategist that seems to be the most received representation. Material collected from twenty interviews with sport trainers who were chosen as the best possible sample of the population has been analyzed. This analysis both confirms the received social and cultural patterns and highlights various individual models. In particular, it traces all the logical sequences that define the professionalisation of the population.Be they related to communication, techniques, organisation or training, these sequences find their scientific value in the demonstration they make of how sport coaching takes shape nowadays.