College Athletics

An examination of the effect of collegiate athletics on attitudes toward diversity.

This paper looks at how organized sports offer players an opportunity to meet a variety of students from different backgrounds and how students from public, private, and parochial schools are brought together in a common enterprise, crossing socioeconomic and ethnic lines, so that all players broaden their sense of how other people live. It hypothesizes that males who participate in collegiate athletics have a more positive attitude towards diversity than males who do not participate on collegiate athletic teams. It examines the validity of this statement in an effort to determine how collegiate sports contribute to players’ attitudes toward diversity and how this knowledge can improve general notions about diversity. This research question is addressed through a literature review and a questionnaire that samples both male college athletes and non-athletes.

Outline
Abstract
Introduction
Literature Review
Statement of the Problem
Participation in College Athletics: An Open Door to Diversity
Potential of College Athletic Community’s Model of Diversity
Methodology
Discussion
Bibliography
“Attitudes toward diversity and the behavior patterns that accompany these attitudes are likely to affect a student’s overall adjustment to a higher education facility since they deal with a student’s ability to successfully adapt to new surroundings (Astin, 1982). For example, studies reveal that students who had positive interracial experiences had a tendency to feel more confident about their own achievements and had more positive feelings about the academic environment as a whole than students who did not have positive interracial experiences.”