If many women of color have often been in the limelight of sport media, they have not received much attention from sport researchers. Indeed, much of the existing research on "people of color" in sport has focused on men of color and, even more pointedly, on African-American male athletes. In parallel fashion, a majority of research on women of color in sport has focused on African-American women athletes. In contrast, Latinas and Asian-American women athletes have not been the focus of scholarly investigation. Recently some research is beginning to shed needed light on Latina athletes in high school settings.
Julie Laible, Ph.D. is completing a qualitative study of Mexican-American females in two Texas-Mexico border high schools. Dr. Laible is on the faculty of the College of Education, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. She was interested in finding out what kinds of educational experiences produce favorable social and academic outcomes. Her research quest is made all the more significant because so many Mexican-American girls who attend border schools experience academic difficulties and fail. Her findings are based on focus group interviews with teachers, administrators, and girls.
Her findings show that participation in sports contributed to the academic success among Mexican-American girls. She also discovered that coaches, especially Mexican-American female coaches, exerted a key influence on the girls' gender identity development, social adjustment, and educational performance. Participation in sports helped Mexican-American girls to challenge and resist the "Maria paradox," which steers females toward passivity and submission to male authority. Laible's findings show that this identity transformation translated into higher rates of success in the classroom.
These qualitative findings echo key results from The Women's Sports Foundation Report: Minorities in Sports (1989), a quantitative nationwide survey of the effects of varsity sports participation on the social, education, and career mobility of minority students (African-American, Latino, and Caucasian females and males). A cluster of findings from this analysis of the High School & Beyond, U. S. Department of Education data base showed that Hispanic female athletes derived a variety of positive outcomes from high school athletic participation. Hispanic female athletes, especially from rural schools, were more apt than nonathletes to improve their academic standing while in high school, to graduate, and to attend college following high school. (For additional analysis of these findings see Melnick, Sabo & Vanfossen, 1992).
As more girls and women become involved with sports and physical activity, the racial and ethnic diversity of women athletes will also grow. Future researchers need to develop a knowledge base for understanding the experiences, challenges, and contributions of all women of color in sport. Dr. Laible's research is doubly commendable. First, it focuses on a group of women athletes who previously have gotten short shift from researchers. Second, she is generating insights that appear to have the potential to help educators tap the positive potentials of high school sports in order to enhance the educational experiences and outcomes of Mexican-American female student-athletes.
References
Melnick, M., Sabo, D. & Vanfossen, B. (1992). Educational effects of interscholastic athletic participation on African-American and Hispanic youth. Adolescence, 27(106): 295-308.
D. Sabo, S. C. Jansen, D. Tate, M. C. Duncan, & S. Leggett, Televising international sport: Race, ethnicity, and nationalistic bias. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 20(1):7-21.
The Women's Sports Foundation Report: Minorities in Sport (1989). New York: Women's Sports Foundation.