For The Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, it has been another productive and busy year. We’ll recap some of our many highlights below.
2009 was the “year of social media” for The Tucker Center. We launched this blog, a Facebook page, YouTube Channel, and maintain a Twitter page (@TuckerCenter). To this end, we brought together a panel of experts and invited guest blogs on the topic of how social media impacts women’s sports. Some of our graduate students are currently conducting research on gender and social media to forward what is known about this emerging and dynamic area of inquiry.
We were sought out for our expertise and quoted in numerous stories around the country, included TIME, The New York Times, National Public Radio, The Nation, ESPN The Magazine, The Women’s Press, The NCAA Champion magazine, Minneapolis StarTribune, and St. Paul Pioneer Press.
We spoke at numerous professional conferences, both nationally and internationally, to disseminate our cutting-edge research, and published in a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals (there are too many to list here!).
We delivered evidence-based educational workshops to hundreds of athletes, coaches and sport parents.
Diane Wiese-Bjornstal, Ph.D., associate professor in Kinesiology, and Jens Omli, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Child Development, were awarded a $212,000 grant over two years from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. The grant will implement the International Sport Connection Soccer Coach Education program in collaboration with the Federation of Uganda Football Associations.
Associate Director, Nicole LaVoi, launched We Coach: Educating and Empowering Through Sport. This initiative is an effort to increase the number of female coaches in youth and interscholastic sport.
We were awarded grants to help further our research agendas. Daheia Barr-Anderson, Ph.D., assistant professor in Kinesiology, has just received a New Connections grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The two-year grant will support Barr-Anderson’s work focusing on perceived and objective environmental influences on physical activity among high school girls. Beth Lewis, Ph.D., assistant professor in Kinesiology, has been awarded an NIH grant for her proposal entitled “Efficacy of an Exercise Intervention for the Prevention of PostPartum Depression. Maureen Weiss, Ph.D., was awarded a grant from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to conduct research on “Unsportsmanlike aggression in youth hockey: Attitudes, perceived social approval, situational temptation, and role models.”
Two of our affiliates were elected to prestigious positions within national organizations and boards. Diane Wiese-Bjornstal, Ph.D., associate professor in Kinesiology, was appointed to the 2009 Science Board of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. Maureen Weiss, Ph.D., professor in the School of Kinesiology and Tucker Center co-director was elected as the next president of The American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education (AAKPE).
We published many key position papers on the topic of sports-based youth development. Nicole LaVoi, Tucker Center Associate Director and Lecturer in the School of Kinesiology, is lead author on a new fact sheet entitled, “Sports-based Youth Development: Benefits for Girls.” A PDF of the fact sheet is available at the Up2Us: Bring Change through Youth Sports Web site. Maureen Weiss, Ph.D., and Diane Wiese-Bjornstal, Ph.D., professors in Kinesiology and the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, published a paper titled, Promoting Positive Youth Development Through Physical Activity, in the September 2009 issue of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest available online.
We look forward to another great year! Check back often to keep apprised of the many things we do throughout the year.
The Tucker Team wishes you the best as you wrap up 2009 venture into 2010.
Stay tuned for new information coming January pertaining to The Spring 2010 Tucker Table Line-Up, and the Spring Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS). Don’t miss out of seeing the DLS multimedia archives which houses many cutting-edge resources pertaining to our past lectures.
Also in 2010 look for more frequent blogs by experts and affiliated scholars. You can always keep updated on our most current news by checking our news feed, Facebook page, YouTube Channel, or Twitter page (@TuckerCenter).
We hope you will continue to check back often and follow the exciting work of The Tucker Center for Reseach on Girls & Women in Sport.
At the third Tucker Table of the fall, we had the opportunity to hear from five sport psychology colleagues and their perceptions on the relationship between gender and sport injury. Each of the scholars provided an excerpt from their presentation – and attempted to answer the question, does gender matter when it comes to sport injury?
Does gender matter in sport injury occurrence and socioculture ?
Diane Wiese-Bjornstal, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Kinesiology
Common elements in most sport injury surveillance studies reflect a three pronged definition of sport injury: an injury that (a) occurred in sport activities (b) was seen by a medical professional, and (c) resulted in time loss from sport activities. Using studies reflecting this definition along with the time- controlling standard of calculating injury rate s that reflect injuries per 1000 athlete-exposures (one athlete-exposure equals one athlete participating in one practice or game), what are the gender similarities and differences with respect to sport injury?
In interscholastic and intercollegiate sports, males and females in the comparable team sports of basketball, soccer, and base/softball show quite similar overall injury rates. Most sports for both males and females have higher injury rates (a) in games than practices, and (b) in college than in high school. Certain specific sport injuries such as ACL and concussion are often held up as reflecting gender differences. Surveillance evidence illustrates that while females have higher rates for intercollegiate ACL and concussion sport injuries than males, they have lower overall incidences of these sport injuries in both adolescence and early adulthood. With overall sport injury rates being somewhat gender- comparable, and with higher rates of ACL and concussion injury evidenced in female athletes, what injury is it that males sustain at higher rates? There is some evidence to indicate that the answer might be fractures. In sum, gender does matter in some aspects of sport injury surveillance, but not in others.
The risk of sport injury is affected by many biological, environmental, psychological and sociocultural factors. As an example, sport and gender socioculture affect athletes’ willingness to take risks and tolerate pain and injury in the pursuit of athletic excellence. Research on sport socioculture reflects that both females and males commonly embrace hiding, disrespecting, unwelcoming and depersonalizing pain, and feel pressure from coaches, teammates and other social sources to play through pain and injury. Gender-different pain and injury themes illustrate that females (a) are more likely than males to discuss injury openly with others, (b) find their feelings of attractiveness, femininity and sexuality negatively affected by physical markers of injury, and (c) report a double- gender standard in medical services and treatment that disadvantages their health and recoveries. Again it is seen that gender does matter in some aspects of sport injury socioculture, but not in others.
Does gender matter in post-sport injury psychological response?
Ayanna Franklin, B.S., M.A. Student in Kinesiology
Unfortunately, injury is a common aspect of participating in sport; therefore, athletes are constantly dealing with both the physical and psychological repercussions of sport injury. In terms of the psychological response to injury it is important to answer the question: Does gender matter? In other words, understanding how both males and females react to injury will allow for a greater perspective on how to most effectively relate to athletes as they cope with post injury situations.
According to the integrated model of response to sport injury there are various personal and situational factors that can affect an athlete’s response, as well as cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses that an athlete may experience. When examining research concerning two particular features of this model (social support and emotional response) it is clear that gender does matter! Research suggests that females often seek out and use social support more often than males, and males tend to deal more on an individual and introspective level with injury. Studies also show that both males and females experience similar feelings of anger and frustration; however, males tend to express irritability and are less likely to verbally express emotions, while females are more apt to verbally express emotions.
Overall there are many factors that affect how an individual may respond to injury, but research confirms that acknowledging gender in relation to post injury response is important in understanding the recovery process.
Does gender matter in sports medicine professional & coach interactions in sport injury situations ?
Monique Foster, B.S., ATC, M.Ed. Student in Applied Kinesiology
When discussing athletic trainers and gender it is important to not only look at the gender of the athletic trainer but also the gender of the athlete being treated. The athletic trainer needs to understand the differences between the genders on emotional and psychological levels. Research shows that athletes are more comfortable when seeking same-gender athletic trainer help for a wide range of sport injuries. Male athletes have been found to be more comfortable seeking psychological help from female athletic trainers, perhaps because women are viewed as better communicators with respect to emotions. But looking at the statistics on athletic trainers in the workplace, it is clear that males still make up well over half of the population. Significantly more female than male athletic trainers report that they have conflicts between their family responsibilities and their work, and burnout is more commonly reported among female athletic trainers. As a result, female athletes may have less access to female athletic trainers that their same-gender treatment preferences would wish.
Similar gender-disparities are evident in coaching, and these also hold consequences for sport injury situations. Since Title IX in 1972 there has been a large increase in female sports teams and participation, but a significant decrease in women coaches. According to NCAA data, head positions held by women in intercollegiate sports has gone down from 90% to 44% during this time. Research shows that female assistant coaches are less likely to pursue head positions unless they have been under the guidance of female head coaches, and so with fewer female head coaches there are also fewer female assistant coaches coming through the pipeline for future head coaching positions. These disparities affect the psychology and socioculture of sport injury situations. According to research evidence, for example, male coaches find it more acceptable to expect both their male and female athletes to play while in pain, and are more likely than female coaches to make athletes feel guilty about not playing due to injury.
Gender does matter for athletic trainers and coaches. Gender matters for athletic trainers to be able to provide appropriate care to all athletes. Gender matters in coaching with regard to expecting athletes to playing in pain, as well as being a role model for younger coaches.
Does gender matter in military training injury ?
Tara Robertson, ATC, CSCS, U . S . Army National Guard, M.A. Student in Kinesiology
Recent research has shown many similarities between sport and military performance. Researchers believe that both domains can benefit from literature cross-study. An advantage in using the military population in sport performance research is that there is a great deal of uniformity in training which equalizes risk for men and women. There is also a greater opportunity to study multiple aspects of musculoskeletal injury in the military population due to the high frequency of reported injury: 2,500 injuries for every 1,000 personnel.
The highest predictors of musculoskeletal injury in the military are gender neutral; self efficacy/self expectation and physical fitness levels. The female gender was a predictor in its self where multiple studies showed females injury rates from 2 to 2.5 times as high as males. After controlling for physical fitness levels and actual reports of injury, however, the risk rate was found not to be statistically significant between genders.
When looking at predictors of recovery from injury, women were more motivated to recover from injury and are overall more satisfied with their military career than their male counter parts. Though women seem to have a more positive experience in the military, when injured, their functional outcomes and quality of life score are much lower along with women having longer stays in the hospital versus their male counter parts with comparable injuries. This can be explained by research illustrating that women experience injury more emotionally than men, along with society feeling the need to overprotect women in part because when released from the hospital they return to their work and home related responsibilities more quickly than their recovery levels would recommend.
Does gender matter for injuries in the military? For pre-injury rates, no it does not. For predictors of recovery, yes it does.
Does gender matter in sport injury psychology interventions?
Jim Winges, M.S., Certified Consultant (AASP), Ph.D. Student in Kinesiology
Research chronicling successful and beneficial psychological intervention techniques for sport injury prevention and rehabilitation is commonplace. Conversely, there has been very little research examining gender as a factor in sport injury psychology interventions. There are two primary goals to a sport injury psychology intervention: first, to identify the subjective meaning of an injury to an athlete, and second, teaching and strengthening the athlete’s coping resources. Social support and communicative differences between the genders have been noted by several authors, whose suggest that female athletes receive greater social support and are more communicative than male peers during sport injury rehabilitation. Collegiate females also report higher average contributions of the coaches’ emotion challenge support than male peers. Of the research that has examined intervention techniques, very little has empirically compared males and females use or performance of techniques such as imagery, goal setting, relaxation, biofeedback, systematic desensitization, or positive self talk. What little research there is has resulted in questionable and conflicting results. Because of this gap in the gender and sport injury intervention literature there is not enough support to contradict the gender similarities hypothesis; however, gender may play a moderating role in the social support processes that surround injury and rehabilitation.
Marie Hardin, Ph.D., is the associate director for research in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State University, and is currently collaborating on sport media research with Tucker Center affiliates.
It’s an exciting time of year for women’s sports fans: The college basketball season – and all of the drama and promise it carries – is tipping off. With exhibition games behind us, the season is starting in earnest this week.
At Penn State – a Gophers Big 10 rival and home to the Curley Center for Sports Journalism — the team enters its third season under the leadership of Head Coach Coquese Washington. Washington came to Penn State after long-time coach Rene Portland resigned (Portland began coaching at Penn State in 1980 and compiled a 605-235 record).
As many women’s college basketball fans know, Portland’s resignation was linked to allegations of homophobia in her program – allegations that had been circulating for decades – and a successful lawsuit by a former player (Jennifer Harris) who accused Portland of removing her from the team because of Portland’s suspicions that Harris was gay.
The case involving Portland received press coverage, including an Outside the Lines piece on ESPN. At Penn State and across Pennsylvania, the case was the subject of special interest on the sports pages because of Portland’s stature.
We examined press coverage of the Portland case, wondering how journalists would handle it. After all, we know that homophobia in women’s sports is generally ignored — with devastating consequences for many female athletes. But with the Portland case, it had to be addressed. How would it be handled?
Our analysis of coverage found several themes, the most notable being the idea that homophobia is not tolerated in sports culture and that we as a culture have “moved on.” The Portland case, then, was an aberration in journalistic accounts.
Of course, the big problem with this kind of framing of the Portland case was that it allowed homophobia to go unchecked as a general strategy to marginalize female athletes and diminish women’s sports.
At the Curley Center, we often survey journalists about issues such as homophobia and sexism. When we’ve asked reporters about homophobia, only about half agree that it is a problem in women’s sports. The fact that a larger percentage don’t understand the role of homophobia as a destructive force shows a fundamental misunderstanding of its role in reinforcing gender norms and keeping the patriarchal power structure stable.
It’s also interesting that male and female reporters were divided about homophobia. Eight of every 10 women agreed that it was a problem – a far higher percentage than for men. But it is men that most often cover women’s sports. Thus, we shouldn’t be surprised when a case like Portland’s is treated like an aberration.
To position homophobia as passé gives media producers a pass on examining the ways homophobia limits the potential for women in sports. We must continue to push for more just, fair and truthful coverage of the issues that ultimately hurt the rights of female athletes.
To learn more about Portland and the history of homophobia surrounding the Penn State Women’s Basketball Team specifically and women’s sport in general, watch the award-winning documentary Training Rules, a WomanVision film.
For a full discussion of this research, please see our chapter, “The Rene Portland Case: New Homophobia and Heterosexism in Women’s Sports Coverage,” in Examining Identity in Sports Media (Eds, Heather L. Hundley and Andrew C. Billings, 2009, Sage). Marie Hardin can be reached at mch208@psu.edu.
