Black high school students' participation in school-sponsored sports activities: Effects on school engagement and achievement

Journal of Negro Education, The, Winter 1999 by Jordan, Will J

Myths abound about the role of sports in schooling, particularly for Black student athletes. The literature affords little guidance on the specific relationship between participation in schoolsponsored sports and various outcomes for Black adolescents. Using a nationally representative sample, this study examines: (a) the effects of sports participation on various school engagement and student self evaluative variables, controlling for important background characteristics such as SES and gender; (b) the potential differential effects of sports participation for Black students; and (c) the degree to which sports participation affects Black students' academic achievement. Sports participation was found to improve the school engagement and academic self confidence of alI student athletes. Moreover, a positive intervening relationship was found between sports participation and academic achievement.

INTRODUCTION

As a key part of the social and cultural fabric of human life, sports permeate social realities at many levels, both globally and individually (Snyder & Spreitzer,1989). Few institutions in U.S. society are unaffected by sports (Edwards, 1973). Values reflected in athletic competition-striving for excellence, fair play, sportsmanship, hard work, and commitment to a goal-are inextricably linked to our nation's mainstream cultural values. Although much has been writter_ about the role of sports in society in a broad sense (Blanchard,1995; Lapchick,1986; Rees & Miracle,1986), the social function of professional and collegiate sports has often been the primary focus of this inquiry.

The research literature affords little guidance on the specific relationship between participation in high school athletics and school-related outcomes for adolescents. Even less is known about specific benefits for African American students. To complicate matters, it is not uncommon for research on high school athletics to be combined with examination of other extracurricular activities in attempts to investigate their effects upon schooling (Crain,1981; Holland & Andre,1987; Otto,1982). The assumption that most extracurricular activities affect students similarly lacks empirical evidence. Although past research on sports and schooling has found small, positive effects for participation in athletics on various student outcome measures such as grade point averages, methodological problems have marred the results of many of these studies (Trent & Braddock, 1992).

Much of the recent scholarly attention paid to the topic of sports and schooling has been theoretical and philosophical in its focus (Arnold,1997; Sadovskii & Sadovskii,1993).

These studies have attempted to portray sports as valued human practices that have many analogues in other areas of social life. Further, they often examine the heuristic and moral qualities of sport, and focus on the degree to which sports reaffirm and break down social norms. Arnold contends, for example, that, like most social conventions, sport is valueneutral-that is, it can be viewed as either good or bad. On the one hand, sports teach perseverance and encourage respect for rules, fair play and teamwork. Indeed, Sadovskii and Sadovskii, in their study of the connections between sports and mathematics, assert that athletics can have a beneficial effect on students' intellectual growth, states of mind, and will power. However, these authors contend that sports can also breed rugged individualism, vanity, intense rivalries, intolerance, and a "win-at-all-costs" attitude.

Purpose of the Study

In light of the dearth of empirical research exploring the effects of participation in high school sports upon educational outcome measures for adolescents, the present study sets out to address three aspects of this topic. The first stage of the analysis explores the effects of participation in high school sports on various school engagement and student self-evaluative factors while holding constant important background characteristics such as socioeconomic status (SES) and gender. Second, this analysis examines differences across race/ethnicity, explicating specific results for African American high school students. The third stage examines the extent to which sports participation affects student achievement during high school while controlling for both student background characteristics (SES and gender), along with the outcome variables analyzed in the first stage.

Research Questions

Three research questions guided this study:

(1) What is the impact of participation in school-sponsored team and individual sports on students' high school grade point average (GPA), general self-concept, and academic self-confidence?

(2) What are the specific relationships between sports participation and these variables for African American 10th-grade students relative to students from other racial/ ethnic groups?

(3) What are the effects of participation in sports upon student achievement, taking into account students' GPAs, self-concepts, and academic self-confidence-the dependent variables of the first stage of the analysis-as precursors to academic achievement?