Gender/Racial Differences in Jock Identity, Dating, and Adolescent Sexual Risk

Abstract

Despite recent declines in overall sexual activity, sexual risk-taking remains a substantial danger to US youth. Existing research points to athletic participation as a promising venue for reducing these risks. Linear regressions and multiple analyses of covariance were performed on a longitudinal sample of nearly 600 Western New York adolescents in order to examine gender-and race-specific relationships between "jock" identity and adolescent sexual risk-taking, including age of sexual onset, past-year and lifetime frequency of sexual intercourse, and number of sexual partners. After controlling for age, race, socioeconomic status, and family cohesion, male jocks reported more frequent dating than nonjocks but female jocks did not. For both genders, athletic activity was associated with lower levels of sexual risk-taking; however, jock identity was associated with higher levels of sexual risk-taking, particularly among African American adolescents. Future research should distinguish between subjective and objective dimensions of athletic involvement as factors in adolescent sexual risk.Keywords jock identity; athletic activity; sexual risk; adolescent; gender; race Despite declines in overall adolescent sexual activity over the past decade (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002;Santelli et al., 2000), sexual risk-taking (e.g., multiple partners, sexual precocity, unprotected intercourse) remains a substantial danger to US youth. Each year, American adolescents experience nearly a million unintended pregnancies and more than 4 times that many new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). Strategies to reduce sexual risk have commonly employed narrowly focused approaches such as contraceptive distribution, sex education, and abstinence programs To whom correspondence should be directed at the Research Institute on Addictions, 1021 Main Street, Buffalo, New York 14203; email: kmiller@ria.buffalo.edu. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript (Franklin et al., 1997). In their search for interventions that reduce sexual risk-taking, some researchers and policy-makers have begun to cast a wider net that addresses the larger social and developmental contexts of adolescents' daily lives, including routine behaviors for which the linkage to sexual risk outcomes is indirect (Kirby, 1997;Males, 1993). Adolescent athletic involvement constitutes one such area of interest. The present study examined the gender-and race-specific relationships among two distinct dimensions of athletic involvement (specifically, frequency of athletic activity and "jock" identity), dating, and sexual risk-taking in one longitudinal sample of Western New York adolescents. SPORTS AND ADOLESCENT SEXUAL RISKRecent research has identified adolescent athletic participation as a promising avenue for promoting sexually responsible behavior, particularly among girls. Female athletes at the high school and college levels report less freq...

Athletic Involvement and Adolescent Delinquency

“…A "jock" identity may place less emphasis on conformity to established norms and more emphasis on conformity to an ethic that combines elements of hegemonic masculinity, risk-taking, and personal exemption from ordinary rules. Miller and her colleagues have linked jock identity with problem drinking (Miller et al, 2003), sexual risk-taking (Miller et al, 2005), and peer violence (Miller et al, 2006). Each of those behaviors is clearly consistent with a culturally dominant vision of what it means to be a man in the United States (Connell, 1995;Sabo and Runfola, 1980).…”

“…However, when required to choose a gender-blind version of one of five identities exemplified in a recent popular movie (i.e., jock, brain, princess, basket case, or criminal), most male athletes (69%) identified themselves as jocks but a far smaller proportion of female athletes (22%) chose jock as their primary identity. Miller et al 2005 also found that jock identity was disproportionately a male characteristic; among adolescents who reported two or more hours of athletic activity per week, 55% of boys and 33% of girls identified themselves as jocks, and among those who reported fewer than two hours of athletic activity, jocks comprised 36% of boys and 15% of girls. The correlation between athletic activity and jock identity was only .31, and was significant for white but not black male adolescents.…”

“…Lantz and Schroeder (1999) concluded that subjective athletic identification more strongly predicted masculine and feminine role endorsements than objective athlete status, although both athletes and "high athletic identifiers" reported stronger endorsements of the masculine gender role than their nonathlete and low-identifying counterparts. Miller and her colleagues found that jock identity was associated with significantly higher levels of problem drinking (Miller et al, 2003), nonfamily violence (Miller et al, 2006), and sexual risk (Miller et al, 2005), whereas athletic participation was unrelated to the first two outcomes and negatively associated with the third. …”

Adolescent peer group identification and characteristics: A review of the literature

“…An elite-type group was the leading group at school and comprised of members who generally were successful in academic and extracurricular activities, held a high opinion of themselves, and were high in both other-perceived and self-perceived social competence. The 10 studies that failed to delineate Elites included seven which subsumed Elites under an Athlete label (Downs & Rose, 1991;Eckert, 1983;Fordham & Ogbu, 1986;Kipke, Montgomery et al, 1997;Riester & Zucker, 1968;Urberg, 1992), and three studies that did not attempt to study Elites per se (they compared Athletes to Non-athletes, or Loners to Nonloners (Demuth, 2004;Miller et al, 2003Miller et al, , 2005). …”

“…One study (Ashmore et al, 2002) addressed college students. Six studies (Downs & Rose, 1991;Kipke, Montgomery, Simon, Unger, & Johnson, 1997;Kipke, Unger, O'Connor, Palmer, & LaFrance, 1997;Miller, Farrell, Barnes, Melnick, & Sabo, 2005;Miller et al, 2003;Sussman et al, 1999) targeted non-school based samples. Only three studies were conducted outside the U.S., all in school-based settings (Heaven, Ciarrochi, Vialle, & Cechavicuite, 2005;Michell, 1997;Thurlow, 2001).…”