Gender and Race Patterns in the Pathways from Sports Participation to Self-Esteem

Bibliographic Data

ID2481981
AuthorsAllison J Tracy (0000-0002-2699-8476, Wellesley College), Sumru Erkut (Wellesley College)
Year2002
Volume45
Issue4
Pages445-466
Publication date2002-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0731-1214 • E-ISSN: 1533-8673
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1525/sop.2002.45.4.445
PMID21399740
PMCIDPMC3051198
OpenAlexW2052027511
LanguageEN
Citations received20
References cited63

Athletics is the most prominent extracurricular activity in U.S. secondary schools in terms of student participation and school budgets. The latter is often justified on the grounds that healthy bodies produce healthy minds, that school sports boost school spirit, and that participation in school-based sports increases students' self-esteem. In this article we examine the interrelationships among participation in a school-based sport and the benefits assumed to be associated with it. Specifically, we test a model that postulates that school spirit, operationalized as attachment to school, and healthy bodies, operationalized as a sense of physical well-being, mediate the relationship between school sports and self-esteem. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health on Caucasian and African American girls and boys were employed to test the model. School attachment and physical well-being absorbed the statistical effect of participating in a sport for all four gender-by-race groups. Among Caucasian girls a negative residual effect of sports participation was observed, which suggests that sports participation encapsulates multiple effects with contradictory influences. For African American girls school attachment by itself was not a significant mediator of the effect of sports participation on self-esteem. For all groups a sense of physical well-being was the more powerful mediator

Developmental psychology · Operationalization · Self-esteem · Sociology · Gender Studies · Motivation and Self-Concept in Sports · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Youth Development and Social Support

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