Students with multiple marginalized identities face barriers to sports participation

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (09/16/2024) — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Healthy People 2030 plan sets a national objective to increase youth sports participation from 50% to 63% over the next five years. For adolescents, staying active offers benefits to their overall health and their social and academic lives. However, the number of youths participating in physical activity and sports is on the decline. While participation gaps based on single social identities are well-studied, little research has examined adolescents’ multiple, intersecting marginalized social identities. 

Research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health examined the inequities that exist at the intersection of multiple identities — including assigned sex, gender modality, sexual identity, racial and ethnic identity, access to economic resources, weight status, and mental health, behavioral and emotional problems — and their impact on sports and physical activity participation. 

The study, led by Sarah Kaja, PhD, of the Equitable Sport and Physical Activity Innovations Lab and an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School, analyzed intersections of seven social identities among specific subgroups of adolescents in grades 9 and 11. The research used 2022 Minnesota Student Survey data — in which over 60,000 students self-reported their social identities as well as team sport and physical activity participation. They found:

• While 50% of the students played sports and 25% participated in physical activity lessons, participation varied substantially at the intersections of social identities. For example, participation prevalences were as low as 8-17% among groups of students least involved in sports. 
• Students with the highest sports participation were predominantly white, heterosexual and had high access to resources, while participants with the lowest sports participation held multiple marginalized social identities.
• Physical activity lessons had more participation among youth of color and gender and sexual minority youth, but participation was still most often in combination with high access to resources. 
• Students in all the lowest sports participation groups held at least one marginalized social identity, and the majority held more. 
• The lowest sports participation groups included students with a marginalized sexual identity and at least one other marginalized social identity, such as low access to resources, a transgender or gender-questioning identity, or a higher BMI percentile.

Previous research has shown context-specific stressors — such as insufficient policies, victimization and harassment — can limit LGBTQ+ people's motivation and participation. This new research suggests those stressors may compound further for those with multiple marginalized identities, and that initiatives meant to reach adolescents based on a single identity may fail to reach the adolescents who need the most support to participate. 

“By revealing more nuance in young peoples’ level of engagement in organized sport and activity, our work is an important step to address which students need support to play,” said Dr. Kaja. “With these building blocks, we hope to continue working to reduce health disparities, achieve national public health priorities and encourage school and community-based organizations to cultivate inclusive environments and layer recruitment, retention and policy initiatives to support under-involved youths.”

Future research should prioritize adolescents with social identities over-represented in the lowest prevalence sport and physical activity involvement groups to further identify and address specific social and structural barriers to participation.

Dr. Kaja was supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Other authors were supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

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