MT240 Unit 5 Access and Participation Report Example

Two in Three Against One in Three: A Unit 5 Access and Participation Report on Youth Sport in One County

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT240: Sport in Society

Unit 5 Access and Participation Report

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The county, its participation figures, costs and field locations are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

Summary

Organized sport participation among children aged 6 to 17 in the composite county rises sharply with household income. The main causes are cost, transportation and the location of facilities, not children's interest. Four changes, fee waivers, lights on east-side fields, school-based leagues and a youth bus pass, could raise participation among lower-income children by an estimated 8 to 10 percentage points for roughly $480,000 in yearly spending plus a one-time lighting cost.

The Data

The county has about 68,000 children aged 6 to 17. A household survey conducted with the school district last spring, combined with registration records from the recreation department and local clubs, estimated that 34 percent of children in the lowest third of household incomes were on a team or in a league during the past twelve months, against 49 percent in the middle third and 66 percent in the highest third. The gap was present at every age but widest among teenagers, where it reached nearly 40 percentage points.

Children in all three groups reported similar interest. When asked whether they would like to play a sport they do not currently play, about 58 percent of lower-income children said yes, slightly more than higher-income children. Interest is not what separates them.

The Cost Ladder

Each path into youth sport has a price. A recreation league season, run by the county, costs about $95 for a soccer or basketball season of ten weeks, plus shoes and a uniform. A school team costs about $205, including a required physical, a participation fee and equipment, though some sports cost more. A competitive club team, for children who want to play at a higher level, costs about $1,800 a year in fees alone. A travel club, the route many families see as necessary for high school and college opportunities, costs about $5,300 a year once tournament travel, hotels and private training are counted.

For a household earning $40,000 a year, a single travel club season would take more than 13 percent of income. Even the $205 school fee is a real cost for a family with three children. Coakley (2021) describes youth sport in the United States as increasingly privatized, with public programs shrinking while private clubs grow, which pushes costs up the ladder.

Geography

The county has 41 public sports fields. Twenty-nine of them have lights, which allow practice and games after work hours and in winter. Of those 29 lighted fields, 23 are in the western and northern parts of the county, where most higher-income households live. The east side, home to most lower-income households, has 12 fields, only 4 of them lighted, and the nearest indoor gym open to youth leagues is a 25-minute drive away.

The geography compounds the cost problem. A child on the east side who wants to play in a league that practices at a lighted west-side field needs a ride at 6 p.m., and many east-side parents work evening shifts. Public transit to the west-side parks runs every 40 minutes and takes about an hour each way.

The lights are where the families with cars already live.

Barriers Families Named

Focus groups with 32 east-side parents named four barriers in order of how often they came up: cost, including hidden costs like tournament fees and shoes; getting children to and from practice; schedules that conflict with work shifts; and a sense that some leagues favored children who had played since they were small. Holt et al. (2011), interviewing low-income families in Canada, found similar barriers, with parents valuing sport highly but describing cost and time as the main obstacles.

What Higher-Income Families Do Differently

Higher-income families in the survey were more likely to start children in sport by age 6, to pay for private coaching and to drive to games in other counties. Those early advantages mean that by the time teams become selective, around age 11 or 12, children from higher-income families have years more experience, which can look like talent to a coach.

Schools as the Main Door

School teams are the most important route for lower-income children, because they are cheap, close and run during or right after the school day. In the survey, 61 percent of lower-income children who played any sport played only on a school team, against 22 percent of higher-income children, who mostly played on clubs. But school teams start at middle school, and the county's middle schools offer only four sports each, with cuts on popular teams. A child who does not make the basketball team at age 12 often has no affordable second option, while a higher-income classmate joins a club the same week.

The Cost of the Gap

The gap matters beyond who plays. Children who play organized sport are more likely to meet recommended activity levels, and research on low-income families describes benefits parents value, including friendships, discipline and time supervised by adults after school (Holt et al., 2011). A county that leaves a third of its children outside organized sport is also leaving them with fewer supervised hours between the end of school and the end of the parents' workday, which is the time youth workers in the focus groups worried about most.

Recommendations

A national youth sport playbook recommends making sport affordable, bringing it close to where children live and training coaches to welcome beginners (Aspen Institute, 2015), and the recommendations below apply that approach to the county. First, waive recreation league and school sport fees for any child whose family qualifies for subsidized school lunch, about $210,000 a year. Second, add lights to four east-side fields, about $360,000 once, plus maintenance. Third, fund a school-based after-school league at east-side middle schools, where children are already present, using school gyms and fields, about $180,000 a year. Fourth, provide a youth transit pass during sports seasons, about $90,000 a year. Recreation leagues should also add a beginner division for children aged 10 to 14 who have never played, so late starters are not placed with experienced players.

Expected Effect and Measures

Based on participation increases in counties that removed fees and added nearby programs, the changes could raise participation among lower-income children from 34 percent to about 42 to 44 percent within two years. The county should repeat the household survey every two years and track recreation registrations by school, so it can see which changes work.

References

Aspen Institute. (2015). Sport for all, play for life: A playbook to get every kid in the game.

Coakley, J. (2021). Sports in society: Issues and controversies (13th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Holt, N. L., Kingsley, B. C., Tink, L. N., & Scherer, J. (2011). Benefits and challenges associated with sport participation by children and parents from low-income families. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 12(5), 490-499. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2011.05.007