Scheduled for Sport Management I Free Communications: Investigating Gender Issues in Sport, Thursday, April 3, 2003, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM, Convention Center: 307AB


Attitudes Toward Sexist/Nonsexist Language: A Comparison of Students in Sport-Related Majors With Students in Other Majors

Janet B. Parks, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH and Mary Ann Roberton, Madison, WI

Scholars recognize that sexist language has deleterious effects on the sport environment (Blinde, Greendorfer, & Shanker, 1991; Duncan & Hasbrook, 1988; Eitzen & Zinn, 1989, 1993; Hutchinson, 1995; Messner, Duncan, & Jensen, 1993). While affecting primarily females, sexist language tarnishes the sport experience for all participants. For this reason, sport management educators have expressed interest in teaching students to use inclusive language (Parks & Roberton, 2002). One step in designing instructional units about sexist language is to understand potential differences between the attitudes of students in sport-related majors and other majors. Since previous studies had suggested that students in sport-related fields were ambivalent toward sexist/nonsexist language (Parks & Roberton, 1998a, 1998b, 2002), the purpose of the present study was to compare attitudes of students in sport-related majors with attitudes of students in non-sport-related fields. We hypothesized that sport management/kinesiology students would be more conservative and, therefore, more resistant to inclusive language, necessitating special instructional strategies to overcome this resistance. To test this hypothesis, we used a t test (p < .05) to compare two groups of 18-20 year olds: 149 students in sport-related majors from 7 universities in the southeastern and midwestern U.S. and 281 students in non-sport-related majors at one midwestern university. The dependent variable was their score on the IASNL-G, a valid, reliable, 21-item inventory assessing attitudes toward sexist/nonsexist language (Parks & Roberton, 2000, 2001). The possible range of scores on this instrument is 21-105. Results showed that both groups scored in the neutral (i.e., ambivalent) range: The mean of the general students was 58.36 (SD=12.12), while the mean of the sport-related major students was 62.67 (SD=12.84). This difference of 4.31 points favoring the sport-related major students was significant [t (428)=3.37, p < .001), d=.35). Contrary to the hypothesis, the students in sport-related majors were less resistant to nonsexist language than were the general majors, but the difference of only a third of a standard deviation was not considered meaningful (Cohen, 1988). These results suggest that majors in sport-related fields are no more conservative in their attitudes toward sexist/nonsexist language than the general student. This revelation is encouraging because it implies that similar strategies could be used in teaching all students of this age group about inclusive language.

Back to the 2003 AAHPERD National Convention and Exposition