Middle School Sports Participation, Sense of School Membership, and Student Delinquency

• In Event: Roundtable Session 40
  In Roundtable Session: Enhancing Learning Opportunities for Young Adolescents

Abstract

This study determined the relationship between school sports participation and delinquency among middle school students, while controlling for a number of important independent variables including ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sense of school membership, and substance use. Quantitative data were collected from 770 seventh and eighth grade students in one high SES and one diverse suburban middle school on Long Island, New York, using a modified version of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Being a student athlete was found to have no significant effect (positive or negative) on delinquency. However, substance use, sense of school membership, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, were all significant predictors of delinquency among the students in this study.

Authors

• Kevin Kurrus, North Shore High School

• Stephen J. Caldas, Manhattanville College