The Cultural Significance of a Smile

Abstract

This article explores meaning-making in Norwegian youth sport. More specifically, how sport media becomes a tool in the instruction of youth athletes. Throughout the 2011–12 season I observed how coaches used portrayals of elite women handballers to educate their 13-year-old girl athletes. Depictions of smiling women were used in contextual attempts to convey the pragmatic benefits of smiling girls. I apply cultural sociology to investigate the processes where coaches mobilize and mould media depictions to inform youth’s sport praxis. The account shows why and how the smile’s pragmatics is shaped by and shape broad conceptions of youth, sport and gender. Analysis reveals that the smile encourages what the coaches perceive as appropriate strategies towards success. The cultural significance of the smile resides within its capacities to better the performance, to resolve tensions in team hierarchies and allow appropriate displays of aggression in girl handball.