Title IX Awareness Among Undergraduate Students

Purpose: In 1972, legislators passed a law, Title IX, to eliminate sex discrimination in federally funded educational institutions. Despite progress, gender equality has not been achieved; a potential reason is a lack of public knowledge and awareness of Title IX. The purpose of this study was to measure undergraduate students' knowledge of and attitudes toward Title IX. Methods: Participants, 84 male, 65 female, and 4 unreported, with an age of 21.43 years (SD = 2.67), completed a demographic questionnaire, a Title IX Attitudes & Awareness Survey and the Social Roles Questionnaire. The T9AA includes 4 items regarding exposure, 17 true-false awareness items, 2 items regarding beliefs, and 7 attitude items. The SRQ consists of two subscales, gender transcendent (5 items) and gender linked (8 items). Most participants reported having heard of (73.5%) or knowing what Title IX is (61.5%).

Analysis/Results: Chi-square analyses revealed that more men than women incorrectly believed Title IX requires universities to cut men's sports and that football and men's basketball teams finance the other athletic programs in universities. About one-third of participants who reported being knowledgeable about Title IX believed that it was not intended to open the door for gender equity in the fields of engineering and mathematics. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed that female participants had more favorable beliefs about Title IX than male participants (Wilks' Lambda = .94, F(2, 135) = 4.42, p < .05, eta²= .06) and that the men and women differed in their Title IX attitudes (Wilks' Lambda = 67, F(7, 138) = 9.92, p< .05, eta² = .34). For example, men, compared to women, more strongly endorsed the attitudes that Title IX had done its job and is no longer needed and that women do not take sports seriously (ps< .001). Participants' views of Title IX were related to their perceptions of gender; those who more strongly endorsed traditional gender roles had less positive beliefs about and attitudes toward Title IX (ps< .05).

Conclusions: More work is needed to better understand the factors contributing to beliefs about and attitudes toward Title IX. Educational interventions geared toward raising Title IX knowledge and awareness may be useful so that students are knowledgeable about their educational rights. With more knowledge of Title IX, students and athletes should be better equipped to point out inequities and justly advocate for a law that passed 35 years ago.