Sports monoculture and vehicular jargon in the educational value of school football in Spain

espanolLa relevancia y disponibilidad social del deporte en Espana se presenta como espacio cultural sobre el que se depositan filias e ilusiones. El futbol ocupa un lugar privilegiado en el entramado mediatico, que converge con la consolidacion de actividades extraescolares y conlleva un modo especifico de comprender la competicion, la gestion del tiempo libre y un lenguaje endemico en los colegios. El estudio utiliza un diseno etnografico sobre el que convergen 21 entrevistas con maestros y 207 sesiones de observacion participante con 101 estudiantes de seis y siete anos (96 ninos y cinco ninas), que juegan en 10 equipos escolares, en las que se incluye el acompanamiento de sus familias, allegados y formadores. Los resultados mas destacados revelan una monopolizacion de los espacios de ocio en el colegio a traves de la practica del futbol, que implica procesos microsociales excluyentes por no compartir aficion o aptitudes, una referencialidad unidireccional de los medios de comunicacion y el uso infantil de una jerga deportiva adquirida por inmersion linguistica, con gran volumen de tecnicismos y vulgarismos. El estudio apela a la adecuacion la mediacion adulta a las particularidades del escolar, ya que la gestion mediatica del deporte responde a unas coordenadas mercantiles cuyo valor educativo no confluye con el curriculo. EnglishThe importance and social availability of sport in Spain is presented as a cultural space in which pleasures and dreams are placed. Football occupies a privileged place in the media in a meaningful way, which converges with the consolidation of extracurricular activities and involves elementary schools in a specific way of understanding competition, the management of free time and endemic language at schools. This study uses an ethnographic design, where 21 interviews with teachers and 207 participant observation sessions were held with 101 schoolchildren (96 boys and five girls) who play on 10 school football teams, along with their relatives, friends and coaches as educational referents. The most salient results reveal a monopolization of school free-time spaces through the practice of football, which entails exclusionary microsocial processes if a child does not share the hobby or skills, a one-way media referentiality and children’s use of a sports jargon steeped in technicalities and vulgarisms acquired by linguistic immersion. The study concludes with an appeal to the need to adapt adult mediation to the particularities of children’s understanding of sports, since the media management of the sport reflects mercantile interests with no educational value or overlap with the curriculum.