New mixed-methods research by SSI Research Chair and OSU Sociology professor Chris Knoester and PhD Candidate James Tompsett, in collaboration with professor Kirsten Hextrum (Oregon State), considers the growth and social inequalities in girls high school sports participation. 

Their study was published with open access in Sociological Focus. Tompsett’s involvement was supported by an SSI Graduate Student Research Grant.

The scholars were curious about how social class, race/ethnicity, and gender directed girls into playing any sports, playing particular sports, and persisting in their participation-- or not. Thus, they first used in-depth interviews with 47 elite track and field athletes and rowers to inquire about how these athletes understood their athletic trajectories. They focused upon the stories that the 28 collegiate women athletes told and also looked for patterns in their demographic characteristics.

The elite athletes appeared to benefit from intensive parental involvement, racially and economically segregated communities with plentiful and varied sports opportunities, and their recognized “choices” to play sports and commit to doing so. Social class and gender dynamics were evident throughout these processes as more resources bolstered opportunities and support and gender often restricted opportunities and diminished encouragement for sports participation.

So, the scholars looked to leverage the availability of a large dataset that contained information about more than 4,271 high school girls across 559 schools, with details about their high school sports offerings, participation histories, family situations, and personal characteristics, in order to see if there was more widespread evidence of parenting, wealth, and race/ethnicity mattering for girls high school sports participation, specifically. The focused on the extent to which a school’s wealth and whiteness, and a student’s social class and race/ethnicity, predicted the likelihoods that they played a high school  sport, played a variety of specific sports, and persisted in playing. They also considered how a school’s size and number of sport offerings mattered for sports participation patterns.

They found evidence that white girls were more likely to play a high school sport than girls of color-- apparently, because they were situated in environments where that was more possible, more encouraged, and more supported. Relatedly, the percentage of white students in a school was positively associated with the likelihood of an individual girl playing a high school sport.  Wealthier schools, smaller schools, and schools with more sports offerings seemed to increase girls’ sports participation levels. Most strikingly, a family’s socioeconomic status appeared to dramatically affect the likelihood that a girl would play a high school sport as well as play most specific high school sports and persist in playing.

The scholars have continued to emphasize that their findings point to a need to offer more positive, inclusive, convenient, and low-cost sports opportunities for all. Also, that there is a need to recognize the influence of parenting, racial/ethnic, gender, and social class dynamics on sports participation-- especially if higher education and employment decisions are going to continue taking sports participation histories into account.

The research was written up and featured by OSU News. The work also generated interviews with Scripps News and All Sides with Anna Staver. The Scripps News story was picked up by dozens of their digital TV affiliates and MSN, among other places.