The role of athlete as contributor to peer status in school-age and adolescent females in the United States: From pre-title IX to 2000 and beyond

Abstract

Despite its importance for males, athleticism has been considered inconsequential as a predictor of peer status for females. In the United States, however, female sports have seen dramatic increases in participation, sport type variety, and role models since the passage of Title IX. An extensive literature review was conducted to determine if athletic variables have become more significant predictors of peer status for school-age (ages 7-13) and adolescent (ages 14-18) females in the United States over the past 30 years. An integration of findings suggested that the relation between athletic variables and peer status remained relatively stable across age groups. Review of literature addressing the internal perceptions of female athletes allowed for speculation regarding the increases in participation despite the lack of peer status benefits.

Role models of Australian female adolescents

“…It is encouraging to see sport celebrities nominated consistently as the third most popular role model in this study given an earlier Australian report (Commonwealth of Australia, 2006) that identified a lack of role models as a barrier to sport participation for girls. This study's identification of sport celebrities as key role models (10% or above for the three years of data collection) is consistent with increasing international media coverage for women's sports and female athletes (Daniels, 2012;Lindstrom and Lease, 2005;Lyle, 2009) and suggests girls now have an increasing array of potential sporting personalities (both male and female) to choose as role models.…”

What Protects Rejected Adolescents From Also Being Bullied by Their Peers? The Moderating Role of Peer‐Valued Characteristics

“…The current study extends Vaillancourt and Hymel's () findings regarding popular adolescents by considering adolescents at the bottom of the social hierarchy (i.e., those who are rejected or victimized) and by examining whether characteristics considered valuable and important in the peer group (i.e., physical attractiveness, wealth, academic competence, and athletic ability) moderated the relation between peer rejection and victimization. Moreover, given evidence regarding how these four characteristics are related to popularity (e.g., Buchanan, Blankenbaker, & Cotton, ; Chase & Dummer, ; Lindstrom & Lease, ; Vannatta, Gartstein, Zeller, & Noll, ), we postulated a buffering effect in the relationship between being rejected and victimized such that rejected adolescents who were high on characteristics valued by peers would be less victimized than adolescents who were low on these characteristics. Unlike behavioral characteristics that may be modified through intervention, these nonbehavioral characteristics are likely more challenging to alter.…”

Social preference, social prominence, and group membership in late elementary school: homophilic concentration and peer affiliation configurations

“…Further, in recent years, social development researchers have differentiated between sociometric popularity and perceived popularity (e.g., Babad 2001;Farmer and Rodkin 1996;Parkhurst and Hopmeyer 1998;Lafontana and Cillessen 1999;Lindstrom and Lease 2005). Building from the work of Gronlund (1959), sociometric popularity is a measure of how well children are liked by peers in general and is determined by calculating social preference scores from peer nominations of liked most and liked least.…”