Exploring Gendered Stereotypes: Sports Participation and Adolescent Closeness to Mothers

Abstract

Recent research suggests positive links between adolescents' participation in sports and the quality of their relationships with their fathers. It is unclear, however, the degree to which the gendered nature of sports, and in particular the ways sports have been used to define and express masculinity, mean that these important links between sports participation and parent–child relationships might or might not extend to relationships with mothers. Recent scholarship connects joint recreational activities to mother–child relationships, but here we extend these ideas in connection to adolescents' formal sports participation. We use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health from the United States to evaluate potential connections between adolescent sports participation and maternal relationships, focusing on the adolescent's perspective on joint activities with mother, closeness to and warmth and communication with mother, and satisfaction with the relationship with mother. We also examine whether these associations differ for boys and girls. We found that adolescents' sports participation was good for relationships with their mothers, but also that there were gender differences in how sport paid off for boys and girls. We discuss our findings in terms of contemporary shifts in gendered norms and conclude that gender may remain salient to how sports participation can promote mother–child relationships.

Citation

Leppard, T.R. and Dufur, M.J. (2023), "Exploring Gendered Stereotypes: Sports Participation and Adolescent Closeness to Mothers", Ortiz, S.M. (Ed.) Family and Sport (Research in the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 19), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 25-42. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1476-285420230000019003