Inequalities in Athletic Participation

Thomas’s article “Left Behind: A City Team’s Struggle Shows Disparity in Girls’ Sports” hit the Sports section of the New York Times on June 14, 2009. The article not only highlights the inequalities facing underserved female youth versus male youth, it recognizes the differences between female youth sport experiences in urban schools versus suburban schools. According to Thomas, female participation in sport has increased since the passage of Title IX (renamed in 2002 to the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act) in 1972, growing from 7% of all participants in 1971-72 to 41% of all participants in 2006-2007; however, in suburban schools, the amount of female and male “moderately involved” athletes is approximately equal, while in urban schools, about 36% of females and 56% of males identify as “moderately involved” athletes.

One speculation for the lack of female involvement in sport in urban schools is that female youth are expected to engage in “household” duties. There are more reasons, however, hidden in the creases of society, dissuading or preventing these females from participating in sport. As an adviser of a co-ed youth development program in an urban high school this past year, I noticed the glaring absence of female student-athletes in the program compared with male student-athletes. The program is a mandatory part of the school day for student-athletes. Now, there are 2 concerns here. The first concern is that there are significantly less female than male student-athletes at this school. The second concern is that only a small fraction of the female student-athlete population actually show up for the mandatory youth development program. Where are they? Is it the case that the program, identified as an athletic program, is so unappealing to female student-athletes that the females skip class? Are the female student-athletes fearful of sweating in the program and smelling throughout the rest of the school day? Are they reluctant to participate in physical activity around male student-athletes? What’s holding them back?

Thomas’s article explains that physical education has only recently (in 2004) emerged as a priority at public schools. While the increase in attention to physical education certainly reflects progress over recent years, it appears to have emerged as a response to the health crisis facing America, rather than as a genuine interest in and acknowledged value of physical health and wellness. In 2003-2004, more than 1 in 6 adolescents (age 12-19) were overweight, tripling the amount of overweight adolescents in the late 1970s, according to the Child Trends Databank. It appears that the physical education movement has come too late to serve many of our youth; however, increasingly more organizations are hopping on the wagon, creating and delivering comprehensive health and wellness programs to American youth. When I worked as a school counselor, I was the onsite manager of a project called TEAM Nutrition, a program designed to provide nutrition education to public school students. While this program, and others with similar missions, can certainly succeed in the school systems, the most effective and sustainable way to effect change is to completely integrate health and wellness initiatives into the schools themselves to create a ‘way of living’ that evidences a healthy approach to self awareness and self care. Not only should schools ‘live’ a healthy lifestyle by integrating health and wellness into all disciplines, serving healthy snacks and meals at lunch, and providing structure within the day for required movement, schools should, of course, offer outreach to families and the community to educate on and support healthy living for all members of the community. Many schools are making great strides in supporting health and wellness, but we can never do enough.

So, HPC encourages all readers to reflect on not only why these disparities occur between males & females and urban & suburban youth, but also how we can effect change across all contexts, from the school to the home to the community?