When dominant racial ideology has been used to explain the success of athletes with white skin, there has usually been an emphasis on the importance of

• A. Economic status
• B. Training quality
• C. Cultural factors
• D. Genetic predisposition

Answer: (C)

The idea being tested is how racial ideologies explain white athletes’ success by pointing to culture rather than biology. When dominant racial explanations are used, they usually foreground cultural factors—habits, values, family and community support, and the social environments that encourage participation in sport. This framing suggests success comes from learned behaviors, access to networks, and exposure to sport within a particular cultural context, reinforcing whiteness as the norm by attributing outcomes to culture and upbringing rather than innate ability.

Economic status, training quality, and genetic predisposition don’t align with that cultural emphasis in the same way: economic status is a material factor that can underlie cultural patterns but is not the cultural explanation itself; training quality is more about resources and systemic access than the cultural narrative; and genetic predisposition is a biological claim, which this ideologically-driven framing tends to avoid in favor of culturally situated explanations.