Opportunities to Play the Game: The Effect of Individual and School Attributes on Participation in Sports

Abstract

Historically, African Americans and white girls have not had the same access to playing sports as white boys have had. Changes in laws led to racial integration of sports teams and equal athletic opportunities for girls. Yet, racial and gender gaps in playing sports persist, and intersections between race and gender, as well as different contexts of participation, may contribute to the gaps. This article uses structural resource and racial competition theories to examine the interactions among race, gender, and school environment to determine whether racial gaps persist for boys and girls and whether individual and school-level factors account for gender-specific racial gaps in sports participation. We combine data on every ninth-grade student in North Carolina public schools with data from school yearbooks and find that racial gaps in playing sports differ by gender, and that school factors-including opportunities schools provide to play sports-have unique influences on racial gaps for boys and girls.

Gender and Ethnic Differences in Health-Promoting Behaviors of Rural Adolescents

“…These disparities may be related to barriers to participation in sports commonly faced by racial/ethnic minority females. These barriers include lower SES (Biddle et al, 2005; Glennie & Stearns, 2012), the higher prevalence of overweight/obesity among racial/ethnic minority females (Kimm et al, 2002), lack of resources in the home/yard or neighborhood (Graham, Wall, Larson, & Neumark-Sztainer, 2014), and cultural differences in perceptions of various physical activities. In Grade 11 however, unexpectedly, NHW females reported significantly lower levels of physical activity behaviors than NHB females and nearly significantly lower levels in Grade 12.…”

How do youth choose activities? Assessing the relative importance of the micro-selection mechanisms behind adolescent extracurricular activity participation

“…For instance, White students and students with higher academic achievement are the most likely, and Latinos least likely, to participate in ECAs (Meier et al, 2018;Vandell et al, 2015). Frequent participation in activities is also associated with higher socioeconomic status (Dumais, 2006;Lareau and Weininger, 2008;Covay and Carbonaro, 2010), which could be attributable to cost and logistical constraints (Bennett et al, 2012), cultural repertoires (Lareau, 2011), or resources at the school-level (Glennie and Stearns, 2012). For instance, among Latinos, factors such as nativity, acculturation, and ethnic identity influence their participation in ECAs (Camacho and Fuligni, 2015;Davalos et al, 1999;Lin et al, 2018;Peguero, 2010).…”

“…However, as a form of "elective differentiation" ECAs can also promote segregation if students sort themselves based on common backgrounds or identity (McFarland et al, 2014). Studies have shown that ECAs often exhibit ethnoracial segregation that exceeds chance levels (Clotfelter, 2002;Glennie and Stearns, 2012;Schaefer et al, 2018) understanding why requires better understanding the processes driving ECA membership.…”

Understanding the impact of MSHSAA by-law 3.15.3 on participation in Missouri high school athletics from 2008-2016

“…Thus, participation rates are higher in smaller schools than larger schools (McNeal, 1999;Schoggen & Schoggen, 1988). Glennie and Stearns (2009) concluded that schools with more extracurricular activities did not have greater participation from a limited number of people, but rather schools with more activities had participation from more students than schools with limited numbers of activities (Glennie & Stearns, 2012). Consistently though, Glennie and Stearns (2009), found that school size was positively associated with the number of opportunities for students.…”