International Perspectives Of Physical Education And Sports: A Critical Comparison Of Spain And Croatia

Introduction

The corresponding study analysis would be concentrating upon the critical comparison of the influence of physical education and sports on the two selected nations of Croatia and Spain. The study composition would be constituted by the analysis of specific different aspects concerning the general topic, including education dissertation help. These would be associated with the particular culture which has been spawned regarding the influence of Physical Education (PE) and Sport at the two respective countries. This would further involve the consideration of the overall sports related culture regarding the influence of PE and sporting discipline related participation on the dynamics of such a culture.

As per the research and observations of Nicholson, Hoye and Houlihan, (2010), the initial stepping stone for the formulation of such a comparative analysis between the sports and PE based cultural perspectives and situations at both Spain and Croatia would require the formulation of a horizontal narrative regarding the historical significance of these two aspect based cultural general progression within the national social premises of the two respective countries. Dyson and Casey (2012) have outlined that, in case of the evaluation of the social development of physical education and sporting discipline based cultural discourses at Spain, a direct resonance of the collective cultural self-consciousness of the Spaniards in terms of the predominant stereotypical cultural dimensions of Spain, could be comprehended. This consists of a deliberate attempt to enumerate the impact of sports and PE on the social this notion through the prominent sporting personalities of the country. As has been propounded by Vázquez et al (2015), this Spanish national self-consciousness is primarily reflective of the pursuit of certain ideals and ambitions, often, in contravention of the most common logic and even rationality. On the other hand, as has been observed by Hrstić and Mustapić (2015), the perspectives and culture of sports and PE are deeply ingrained within the complex traditions and social value mechanisms of the Croatian social structures. Čustonja and Škegro (2015), have stated that it is next to impossible to think that the Croat youth would not be learning and practicing any form of sporting or physical activity based discipline. This general inclination to learn and practice as well as participate in different sporting traditions have been derived within the Croat society from the long tradition of medieval competitions which propagated and reinforced the significance of having the most resilient and strong physical characteristics for the youth. According to Borbely (2015), one strand of cultural supposition is that the Mediterranean concept regarding the human value and beauty is intrinsically associated with that of the appearance of human beings. This concept has been presumed by different social scientists as well as by the historians of sporting discipline development regarding the national perspective of Croatia to be one of the key driving forces for the practice of sports and associated PE.

As per the research and observations of Nicholson, Hoye and Houlihan, (2010), the initial stepping stone for the formulation of such a comparative analysis between the sports and PE based cultural perspectives and situations at both Spain and Croatia would require the formulation of a horizontal narrative regarding the historical significance of these two aspect based cultural general progression within the national social premises of the two respective countries. Dyson and Casey (2012) have outlined that, in case of the evaluation of the social development of physical education and sporting discipline based cultural discourses at Spain, a direct resonance of the collective cultural self-consciousness of the Spaniards in terms of the predominant stereotypical cultural dimensions of Spain, could be comprehended. This consists of a deliberate attempt to enumerate the impact of sports and PE on the social this notion through the prominent sporting personalities of the country. As has been propounded by Vázquez et al (2015), this Spanish national self-consciousness is primarily reflective of the pursuit of certain ideals and ambitions, often, in contravention of the most common logic and even rationality. On the other hand, as has been observed by Hrstić and Mustapić (2015), the perspectives and culture of sports and PE are deeply ingrained within the complex traditions and social value mechanisms of the Croatian social structures. Čustonja and Škegro (2015), have stated that it is next to impossible to think that the Croat youth would not be learning and practicing any form of sporting or physical activity based discipline. This general inclination to learn and practice as well as participate in different sporting traditions have been derived within the Croat society from the long tradition of medieval competitions which propagated and reinforced the significance of having the most resilient and strong physical characteristics for the youth. According to Borbely (2015), one strand of cultural supposition is that the Mediterranean concept regarding the human value and beauty is intrinsically associated with that of the appearance of human beings. This concept has been presumed by different social scientists as well as by the historians of sporting discipline development regarding the national perspective of Croatia to be one of the key driving forces for the practice of sports and associated PE.

According to Moscoso-Sánchez, Rodríguez-Díaz and Fernández-Gavira (2015), the initial one could be comprehended as the fact that the contemporary Croatian society and national culture do not consider the time which could be devoted to the sporting discipline of football or to the general sporting practices, to be a negative impact on the various educational goals other than those of the PE. On the contrary, the historical as well as the concurrent Croat societies have consistently fostered the notion that sporting disciplines are integral parts to the overall fields of educations. Thus, sports and PE could reinforce and provide boosts to the development of the Croat youth. This has led to the development of the social tradition where Croat families invest considerable effort in maintaining a balance between the academic lives of their children and the engagements of physical education. The second rationale, as has been enumerated by the research propositions of Raffaelli and Katunar (2016), the general course of social conversations at Croatian societies inevitably involves the discussions and deliberations on sporting disciplines, primarily that of the football. Even the media at Croatia is generally reflective of the dominant trend of focusing on such sport such as Football and Tennis more than anything else and thus, sports practices have gained significant social importance within the socio-cultural fabric of the Croatian society. Šimić-Banović, Jurčić and Petronijević (2017) have observed that the combination of such perceptions and practices have inevitably fostered the culture of sports centricity within the Croat society and also connected such practices to the general stream of Croatian customs and traditions.

On the other hand, the research of Wise and Harris (2017) have suggested that mass sporting disciplines, with an overt emphasis on football, have been consummately emblematic of the nationalistic cultural expressions within the Spanish social scenario. Bellamy (2018) has further specified that sports and related physical educational discourses within the Spanish socio-cultural perspectives have consistently defined the development of political and moral community spirit. One particular assumption has been lent credence to regarding the historical experience of the Spaniards regarding development of sports culture that sporting disciplines, such as Football or Tennis, do possess one of the most intrinsic capabilities of assisting in the formulation of the national sense of identity and thus, could be also utilised as a tool of identity politics. Such a development could occur with similar intensity at the national state level, such as that of Spain, in tandem with that of the level of any aspiring nation.

Furthermore, Vaczi (2015) has propounded that, regarding the sporting culture of Spain, the sphere of football holds a particular significance since this specific sport could furnish differentials of team spirit based representation of community ideals. Within the sphere of this dominant sporting discipline, every Spanish team generally represents itself as emblematic of the national ideals. Moscoso-Sánchez, Rodríguez-Díaz and Fernández-Gavira (2015) have outlined that this is an obvious conclusion regarding the fact that the national football team of Spain embodies the country itself while the Catalan football squad team symbolises the regional ideals and identities of Catalonia. Apart from these, the various private football clubs also could be observed to be representative of such perceived affinities to specific regions or cultural representations within the Spanish national premises. Examples have been drawn by Torrebadella-Flix, Olivera-Betrán and Bou (2017) as the Basque teams embodying the Basque regional ideals and identities, the representation of Catalonia having been taken up by the football club Barcelona and the national Spaniard spirit being represented by the most famous of Spanish football clubs, the Real Madrid.

To this effect, Puig (2018) has stated that various other examples could be highlighted in this context. The first could be comprehended as the historical perspective of the Athletic Club of Bibao whose representation of Basque nationalism based ideals and political inclinations have been a consistent source of contention within the general sporting structure of Spain. Campos-Izquierdo, González-Rivera and Taks (2016) have observed that the consistent policy of the Youth Academy (La Cantera) related to this club has been to lend active support to the Basque nationalistic doctrines and this has been evidenced by the active participation of various managers, players and supporters of the club into political campaigns which have been launched in favour of Basque separatist independence from Spain. Such a historical trend could have been observed since the inception of the II Spanish Republic (1931-1936) and this trend has continued till to this date.

Furthermore, this context of the influence of sports discipline on the mainstream politics could be further enumerated from the historical instance of the incident which occurred pertaining to the goal keeper José Ángel Iribar, who is considered to have been one of the most politically active and conscious players of his time. According to Viñas and Spaaij (2017), during the month of September, 1975, the goal keeper and his team mates from the Athletic Club expressed their resentment and protest against the execution of three members of the Spanish Marxist revolutionary movement FRAP and two members belonging to the Basque separatist nationalist organisation ETA, through dawning black armbands while they had been participating in a football match. Then again, the sporting culture at Spain had been utilised as a platform to project the political consciousness and partisanship of the players and athletes during 1976, when, José Ángel Iribar, declined from participating into one of the most important matches for the Spanish National Football Team, in spite of the fact that he and his fellow players had been invited purposively for such an occasion.

In case of Croatia, as has been observed by Hodges and Stubbs (2016), the historical roots of the modern sporting disciplines at Croatia could be traced from the Sokol Movement during the year 1862. It was a movement of liberal political alignment concerned with social, economic and cultural independence of the Southern Slavic populace. The initial Sokol society had founded the first sporting organisation during 1874 at Zagreb. Novak, Doubova and Kawachi (2016) have observed that by the year 1914, upto 169 organisations had been established at different parts of the Croat territory by the Sokol organisations. The sports association of Croatia had been also established during 1909. The reflection of the political culture of the nation of Yugoslavia during the post WW I period could be observed in the sporting culture of the Balkan territories as well and the contention between the Yugoslav national movement and the Croat national sentiments came to the forefront of the general sporting discourse during the 1930 transfer of the headquarters of the football association to Belgrade from Zagreb (Tregoures, 2017). This incident highlighted the rift between the Yugoslav and Croat players who declined to participate within the same team during the 1930 Uruguay world cup. During the post WWII era, the formulation of Socialist Yugoslavia had led to the emergence of the socialist associations involving physical cultures. The sports culture of the Croat territories within the overall Yugoslav perspective were provided new leases of life with special emphasis on the national sporting teams such as the football one so as to signify the unity of the country through the same. However, prior to the 1991 split of the country of Yugoslavia, the internecine political conflicts emerged to the forefront in the manner of the conflict between the Red Star Belgrade and Dinamo Zagreb on the date of 13th May, 1990 and during the 26th September 1990 in the manner of the Hajduk club fans burning Yugoslav national flags against the loyalist Partizan club of Belgrade.

According to Edelman and Wilson (2017), the system of national health surveillance and monitoring at Spain had been established during the year 1987. This system primarily operates on the various measures which are based on the national population profile and the utilised data is collected through the Spanish National Health Survey which is conducted through the Ministry of Health, social Services and Equality of the national Spanish Governments. The National Institute of Statistics at Spain also assists in the monitoring and survey as well as the government sports policy formulation procedures. Schaillée, Haudenhuyse and Bradt (2019) have stated that the recommended levels of physical activity and sports for the National Physical Activity for Health statute (2010) of Spain outline the various cut off points regarding the sports policy based physical education and activity propagation measures.

Furthermore, according to Stubbs et al (2017), Integral Plan for Physical Activity and Sports could be identified as the most crucial and central governmental policy initiative at Spain to promote and monitor the sporting practices within the national scenario. The primary objective is to ensure that the entire Spanish populace could be provided with the universal opportunity for accessing and participating in the sporting disciplines which are endorsed under the purview of such a government initiative. Additional objectives are reduction of varying measures of physical depredations including the inactivity based complications of obesity and the promotion of the most healthy lifestyle straits. Wijnhoven et al (2015) have stated that the Spanish National Council of Sports Development, working under the direction of the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Education, with the representation of the autonomous communities as well as from the Olympic Committee, consistently works in this direction of implementation of the multiplicity of policy initiatives undertaken by the Spanish governments.

Jess, Keay and Carse (2016) has outlined that the Spanish Agency for Consumer Affairs, Food Safety and Nutrition (AECOSAN) has been another Spanish government organ which has been operating at the forefront of the government apparatus at Spain to implement the Nutrition, Physical Activity and prevention of Obesity Strategy (NAOS) which had been launched during the year 2005 and had been amended in 2011 under the legislative ambit of the Spanish government. This organisation, in tandem with the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality, had been working for ensuring of the multiplicity of approaches which have been propounded in the NAOS Strategy demarche. One such approach has been to ensure that students at Spanish schools are provided with the amplitude of opportunities to undertake physical education based activities and sporting practices so as to address the prevailing complications of obesity amongst children. The aforementioned ministry has been collaborating in such ventures with that of the Ministry of Education of the successive national governments of Spain.

According to Lang and Hartill (2014), the Health-Enhancing Physical Activity (HEPA) has been promoted by the Croatian national government since 2015 under the purview of the Strategy for Science, Education and Technology (2015-2017). This strategic approach involves the promotion and consistent development of system, which has to be of high quality and could be sustained over the longer period of time, with the inherent ability to consistently encourage sports and PE related activities throughout the general population perspectives of the Croatian society. There are three critical strategy dimensions related with such an approach. These have been identified by O'Sullivan and Macphail (2010), in the form of promoting sports related activities from the earliest of ages amongst the children, promulgation of policies through which equal participation opportunities could be made available to the students under consideration and to the children in general and renovation as well as the maintenance of the facilities which could already be in existence at various regions of the country of Croatia. Furthermore, this initiative is also reflective of the plans to construct new facilities. According to Tulle and Phoenix (2016), the implementation of such plans could be considered through the coordination based collaboration in between various institutions so that the activities of most of the organisations and governmental agencies could be aligned and could be brought to the same page. The ultimate goal for such Croatian Governmental initiatives is to adopt the most effective national guidelines as well as recommendations concerning the promotion of physical activities related to the entirety of sporting and PE disciplines.

According to Bel-Serrat et al (2017), the implementation of the HEPA strategic plans has been premised upon the development of the strategic approach based working materials and inclusion of the same within the working architecture of the health promotion policy of Croatia. One such policy has been the Croat action plan for Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) prevention within the duration of (2015-2020). This plan has been undergoing governmental review and is at the final stages of getting official approvals. Furthermore, the Croat governmental intervention has achieved considerable success, as per the research of Dagkas, Azzarito and Hylton (2019), through the implementation of the global recommendations of WHO regarding ensuring physical activities of adults and children. The national guidelines had been implemented completely by the end of 2018. According to Novak, Doubova and Kawachi (2016), the Global Health Observatory(GHO) of WHO had estimated during 2016 that 20.7% of the adolescents of Croatia, categorised within the 11 to 17 years of age groups, have achieved the recommended levels of physical education based activities. This group has been comprised of 27.4% of the boys and 14.6% by the girls. The same data source has also demonstrated that 80.2% of the entire adult (18+) population of Croatia could be considered to be physically active as well. This lot of subjects has been comprised of 83.2% of males and the 77.5% of adult females who have managed to reach the physical activity levels specified by WHO.

On the other hand, as has been outlined by Wellard (2015), the Spanish national survey based data from the 2015-16 had outlined the outcome that 66.4% of the adults in Spain within the age group of 18 to 69 years had managed to attain the level of recommended physical activity including that of the sporting disciplines. Furthermore 68.1% of the older adults could be also categorised to have obtained such participation measures in terms of PE based activities, within the age groups of 50 to 69 years of age. Furthermore, the GHO based survey during the year 2016 also brought forth the corroboration of such outcomes which could be observed from the Spanish National Survey based undertakings. The WHO based GHO also concluded that 66.6% of the adults, with both the genders, had participated in the governmental initiatives. This observation had categorised the participation of the males to be that of 70.8% and that of the females to be 62.6%, in terms of aggregation by adult age populace based values.

Conclusion

The analysis has taken into consideration the historical perspectives associated with sporting disciplines as well as PE to judge the impact of these on the current situations at both of these selected countries. The study has also undertaken the evaluation of the governmental intervention policies and the associated extent and nature of the effects on the PE and sporting disciplines within the respective national contexts. This has considered the contemporary facets which have become significant in the context of sporting culture development. Finally, the evaluation of the efficacy of government intervention policies in terms of the participation rate management within the sporting disciplines and PE programmes of both Spain and Croatia has been also perofrmed.

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