The New York Times published a two-part article by reporter Katie Thomas on the relatively small participation in youth sports by girls in urban schools.
The first article focused on the struggles faced by girls' sports teams in general and a girl's middle school basketball team in Brooklyn in particular:
"The Cougars have few of the basics that suburban public school girls have come to expect, including free transportation, uniforms and full seasons of regularly scheduled games. At M.S. 61 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, each road game is a logistical puzzle for Mr. Mariner, 46, who is dean of students and coach of the school’s girls’ and boys’ basketball teams. Even when the Cougars arrive ready to play, games are sometimes canceled because the opponents — facing the same obstacles — cannot field a team. Parents rarely show up to watch."
Today's piece discussed the larger issue of getting more girls to participate in sports, and helping their families understand the value of such participation:
"But despite the heightened level of awareness and the extra effort, girls’ participation lags behind boys’. A 2007 survey by the Centers for Disease Control found that in New York City, 35 percent of girls played sports, compared with 51 percent of boys. And in 2006, New York City’s public advocate criticized the Public Schools Athletic League, which coordinates high school sports, for not doing more to increase participation for girls, whose teams made up 44 percent of the city’s squads."
The articles draw heavily upon research done by Dr. Don Sabo, Director of the Center for Research on Physical Activity, Sport & Health at D'Youville College in Buffalo, and Phil Veliz. Their comprehensive youth sports study, "Go Out and Play: Youth Sports in America," published in 2008 by the Women's Sports Foundation (WSF), can be found here on the WSF website.
This video, also released in 2008, highlights some of the points made in the study.
Go Out and Play from Womens Sports on Vimeo.
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