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12. “If You Let Me Play . . .”: Does High School Physical Activity Reduce Urban Young Adult Women’s Sexual Risks?
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12 “If You Let Me Play . . .” Does High School Physical Activity Reduce Urban Young Adult Women’s Sexual Risks? Allison J. Tracy and Sumru Erkut Sociohistorical Background Glen Elder (1998) points out that “individual lives are influenced by their ever-changing historical context . . . [such] that changing lives alters developmental trajectories” (p. 1). The cultural shift toward greater gender equity represents a significant historical change that has the potential to alter the course of girls’ development. One watershed event brought about by this cultural change is the 1972 federal legislation known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in any educational environment that receives federal support. Included in Title IX is a provision that entitles girls and women equal access to athletic facilities and funding. Although girls’ participation rates, their athletic facilities, and funding for girls’ sports are still far from achieving parity with those of boys (Women’s Sports Foundation, 2002), the number of girls participating in sports has skyrocketed. In its report card for Title IX, published on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the legislation, the Women’s Sports Foundation (2002) reported an 847% increase in girls’ participation in high school athletics from 1971, when girls made up 7% of varsity athletes, to the 2000–2001 academic year, when they made up 41.5% of varsity athletes. The increase in women’s and girls’ sports participation is also integrally related to society-wide changes in gender roles. In the last quarter of the 20th century, more and more women and girls were engaging in recreational physical activities that a decade or two earlier had been considered 263 gender inappropriate (Cahn, 1994; Connell, 1987, 1995; Desertrain & Weiss, 1988; Hargreaves, 1994; Kane, 1995; Messner, 1992). These social and historical changes have affected the country as a whole, but the pace of social change can be uneven across subcultural niches (Rogers, 1995; Strang & Soule, 1998). As diffusion theory suggests, new ideas are spread unevenly across social groups. The uneven diffusion has two related consequences. The first is the initial relative absence of norms that support engagement. For example, an uneven diffusion of cultural attitudes toward girls’ athleticism can manifest itself in differing degrees of opportunities and/or encouragement for girls’ physical activities. In communities or cultural niches where new ideas about the appropriateness of sports for girls have not yet become the prevailing norm, girls who participate in sports can be considered tomboyish (Hasbrook, 1995), or norms persist that these girls ought to grow out of the desire to play sports by the time they attend high school. These communities may not provide adequate practice fields, equipment, or field time devoted to girls’ sports teams. They may even limit the possibility of forming certain girls’ teams (e.g., see Prine, 2001, for poor school districts that raise money for boys’ sports but declare lack of funds to support girls’ teams). The second and related consequence of the uneven diffusion of ideas and new ways of doing things is the novelty effect: People who initially and readily adopt new ideas and practices tend to be different from late adopters. Early adopters tend to be more comfortable with change; they have greater self-confidence in their ability to succeed in novel endeavors; they are highly motivated and resourceful. When an activity is novel and lacking community endorsement, people who engage in it tend to be a selected group, whereas in communities where novel ideas and practices have become the norm, the selection factor ceases operating. Diffusion theory suggests that what is a norm in some communities may be a new practice in other communities. Ideas and practices that originate in one sociocultural niche can be dispersed easily and quickly through global mass media, but their adoption is conditioned by several “boundaries.” Race/ethnicity, region, and urbanization are three such boundaries that play a role in how widespread the adoption of a new practice will be. Different racial/ethnic groups tend to have values and practices not widely shared by other groups. Region also forms a boundary. Historically there has been a legacy of cultural differentiation both along North-South and East-West dimensions, generating different values and practices among contemporary American subcul264 c h a p t e r 1 2 [44.204.94.166] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:21 GMT) tures. Rural-urban differences, on the other hand, can be located within regions and include differences in population density, homogeneity, and availability of resources, as well as the complexity of social...