A massive 192 page study from the Women’s Sports Foundation published in October, 2008 covers a tremendous amount of ground.
The findings and conclusions in this report are based on two nationwide surveys. The Women’s Sports Foundation commissioned Harris Interactive to complete a school-based survey of youth drawn from a random selection of approximately 100,000 public, private and parochial schools in the United States. The school-based survey method yields highly reliable results. The nationwide sample consists of 2,185 third- through 12th-grade girls and boys. In addition, phone interviews were conducted with a national cross-section of 863 randomly selected parents of children in grades 3 through 12. Parents were asked how they think and feel about their children’s interest and involvement in sports and physical activity. African-American and Hispanic parents were over-sampled in order to deepen understanding of the needs and experiences of underserved girls, boys and their families.
Some of the primary conclusions include:
- Sports help create healthy, well-adjusted children.
- participating in organized or team sports helps enhance girls’ quality of life.
- You can find the benefits of youth sports in children as young as sixth grade.
- There is a gender gap in sports and physical activity – but that gap exists in rural and urban areas where girls are less active than boys and not in suburbs where involvement is equal.
- Girls begin their involvement in sports later and are more likely to drop out earlier than boys.
- Children involvement in youth sports is associated with higher levels of family satisfaction.
- Many parents believe their daughters are being shortchanged.
- There is evidence that many girls are shortchanged by dads who channel more energy into mentoring sons than daughters.
- Girls of color are doubly hit by by gender and race discrimination in sport.
There are more conclusions but these some that jumped out at me.