Success and Gender: Determining the Rate of Advancement for Intercollegiate Athletic Directors

Since the demise of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), female sport administrators have continued their struggle to reestablish their place as athletic directors. The purpose of this study was to assess the rate of advancement (success ratio) of intercollegiate athletic directors, with a primary focus on gender. Athletic directors from 157 NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) member institutions participated in the study. The preliminary results confirmed the expected findings that hegemonic masculinity was entrenched within intercollegiate athletics. The success ratio of male athletic directors differed from that of female athletic directors, and the difference was significant (p ≤ .05). The success ratio for men was higher than the ratio for women. Further analyses, however, showed that female athletic directors had higher success ratios than their male peers at lower level institutions. Although parity in numbers has not yet been achieved across the NCAA, the glass ceiling at Division I institutions may begin to crack as more women achieve success at the lower level institutions.     

Sustaining Male Dominance in Interscholastic Athletics: A Case of Homologous Reproduction…or Not?

To establish if male hegemony continued to exist in high school athletics within the USA and to determine the extent that homologous reproduction (hiring people of the same gender) might be a contributing factor, the administrative structures of 480 high school athletic departments were analyzed. The gender of each school’s principal, athletic director, and coaches were collected from The National Directory of High School Coaches. Male hegemony was found to exist since men dominated both principal (76%) and athletic director (85%) positions, however evidence of homologous reproduction was only evident at the coaching level. The culture of hegemonic masculinity within athletics might be sustained more as a result of sex-role theory or gender-based schematic processing, rather than homologous reproduction.     

Amount of newspaper coverage of high school athletics for boys and girls on sports page and newspaper circulation

This study analyzed the amount of coverage for high school athletics in 43 newspapers with small circulation by devoting 40% of their interscholastic athletics coverage to girls in athletics, printed significantly more articles about girls' athletics than did the newspapers with medium (33%) or large (32%) circulation. Therefore, the smaller the newspaper circulation, the more equitable the coverage of athletics for girls and boys. This finding was consistent with some prior work but not all.     

How Women Have Fared as Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Since the Passage of Title IX

The purpose of this study was to assess how well women have fared under Title IX at the interscholastic level, not as participants or coaches, but beyond the playing field into the offices of the athletic director. Demographic data were collected pertaining to the gender of members who belong to state high school athletic director associations identified by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA). An analysis of the gender composition of those state organizations showed that significantly (p < .05) fewer women (13%) than men (87%) held interscholastic athletic administrator positions. Additional analyses showed that there were state as well as regional differences in the percentage of women serving as interscholastic athletic directors. The findings demonstrate that although women have made extensive gains on the playing field as participants, they have been denied access to the positions of power within interscholastic athletics. Remedies and the potential effects of this segregation on girls and women, beyond the playing field, are also discussed.