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Tompsett Master's Thesis 2017.pdf (219.93 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Inequalities in Sport Access and Participation among American High Schools

Tompsett, James
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6902-5781
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1499786737923446

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Sociology.
Decades of research have demonstrated an association between athletic participation and positive outcomes (e.g., higher grade point average, college attendance, and self-esteem), yet such work has yet to adequately recognize significant resource and opportunity disparities across schools in the United States—disparities that tend to be associated with social class and racial segregation, and that could very well carry over into extracurricular, including athletic, opportunities. In this thesis, I analyze inequalities in access to high school sports and the implications for and variations in individual participation. Drawing on the Education Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative data set on high schools and their students, I first analyze the extent to which sports availability across public high schools reflects broader patterns of concentrated social class and minority disadvantage. Secondly, I examine the consequences of the inequality patterns identified for individual sports participation. Findings reveal clear inequalities, with poor and high minority concentrated schools offering significantly fewer sports to their students than do middle/upper class and white-concentrated schools. Such structural disadvantage compounds the diminished likelihood that lower income students will participate in sports schools. The higher average individual likelihood of participation among African American students is significantly offset in segregated, disadvantaged school contexts, such that they would participate in greater numbers if resources at the school level were more equitable. I conclude by discussing these results and their implications for broader discussions of both inequality and opportunity within U.S. schooling and adolescent development in general.
Vincent Roscigno (Advisor)
Christopher Knoester (Committee Member)
Christopher Browning (Committee Member)
52 p.
Sociology
Sport Access; individual sport participation

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Tompsett, J. (2017). Inequalities in Sport Access and Participation among American High Schools [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1499786737923446

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Tompsett, James. Inequalities in Sport Access and Participation among American High Schools. 2017. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1499786737923446.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Tompsett, James. "Inequalities in Sport Access and Participation among American High Schools." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1499786737923446

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1499786737923446
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© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.