Gender Equality in NCAA (Research Paper Sample)

Gender Equality within the NCAA
Name
University
Research Methods
September 13, 2021

Table of Contents u

1.0 INTRODUCTION 2

1.1 Statement of Problem 4

1.2 Research question 5

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 NCAA Governance Structure 6

2.2 Gender Wage Gap: Gender theory and the devaluation theory 7

2.3 Lack of Women in leadership or Masculine Stereotyping? 7

2.4 Opportunities to achieve career goals 8

2.5 Workplace Discrimination 9

2.6 Gender Inequality 10

2.7 Conceptual Framework. 10

3.0 RESEARCH METHODS 11

3.1 Research Philosophy 11

3.2 Research strategy and Approach 11

3.3 Data analysis and measurement: Validity and reliability 11

3.4 Population and Sample 12

3.5 Data collection procedures 12

3.7 Limitations 12

4.0 ANALYSIS RESULTS 14

4.1 Table 1: Leadership Structure 14

4.2 Table 2: Gender composition for Division 1 Governance (2015-2020) 14

4.3 The NCAA program initiatives 14

4.4 Head coaches of Women collegiate teams 15

4.5 Head Coach Turnover 15

4.7 Gender Disparities by Sport 16

4.8 Gender Wage Gap 17

5.0 DISCUSSION 17

5.1 NCAA Governance and Leadership 17

5.2 Career Development Programs 18

5.3 Head Coaches of Women Collegiate Teams 18

6.0 PRACTICAL APPLICATION 20

1.0 INTRODUCTION
For many decades, basketball has been a major sporting activity among both male and female college students. Each spring the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sets the stage for March Madness, the championship tournament season, in which both male and female teams compete for a national title. Many schools provide funding for both male and females teams depending on their budgets and their teams’ abilities to progress through the league. Over the years, the NCAA has undergone a lot of transformation with regard to diversity, equity, and inclusion (Evans & Pfister, 2020).
The issue of gender balance and equality in the NCAA can be analysed from two major sections of the US federal constitution, Title VII of the civil rights act (1964) and Title IX of the education amendment act (1972), which prohibits discrimination based on a person gender, race, colour, ethnicity, natural origin in educational institutions receiving federal funding (Alvarez, 2020). These statutes serve all Americans' interests and are meant to bring equality between race and gender into higher learning institutions. As a result of these statutes, many females and minorities have been encouraged to participate in sporting activities across various US states, despite their significant participation, they continue to lag behind in terms of resources and leadership opportunities that are available to them. For instance, a few weeks ago in the NCAA, an athlete raised concerns over disparities in amenities provision between males and females (Assimkoupolus, 2021). There were huge disparities in weight room equipment, foods, and swag bags. In addition, there are huge disparities in female leadership, yet the female athletes’ participation in NCAA is overwhelming, with over 200000 women participating in various leagues and tournaments across the USA.
The NCAA is considered an educational program, subsequently making it eligible for federal funding. Therefore, the NCAA must comply with the requirements of Title IX. An accurate implementation of Title IX in this program would mean that the NCAA provides both men and women equal opportunities (Alvarez, 2020). Unfortunately, over the years, the NCAA has been in existence, majority of leadership positions have been dominated by male (Evans & Pfister, 2020). The push to have equality in within the hierarchy of NCAA continues to face many challenges.
Throughout the NCAA from the president to the middle-level managers, males hold more positions of power which is also reflected at the member institution level (LaVoi, 2019). It seems this representation is a mirror of current society where males dominate major leadership positions from politics, corporate leadership, and other sporting activities. For instance, there are only eight female governors in the United States, while there are over 7700 male directors in intercollegiate athletics out of 1100 positions. In addition, there are gender disparities in earnings where women earn an average of 80 % of what their male counterparts are taking home (Alvarez, 2020). The disparities are even worse for women of color, the indigenous populations, and other minority groups) (Grez & Martin, 2021). For example, a recent study has shown that African American women earn 63% of what the males earn, likewise Hispanics earn 54% of what the average male earns.
This “stagnation” in women leadership has been apparent since soon after the Title IX law came into effect (Longman, 2017). In the 1970s, more than 90 percent of the head coaches for women’s sports at the collegiate level were women themselves. But, after Title IX was enacted, that number dropped to about 40 percent, where it has stayed over the decades Longman (2017), and LaVoi’s (2020, April) numbers provide solid evidence of that fact. A reason offered for this decrease in female coaches is that once the payment was mandated to be better – equal – between the men’s and women’s divisions, women suddenly found themselves competing with an influx of male applicants for coaching positions that were previously expected to be filled by women. “When the pay and power associated with these jobs increased after title IX, men were suddenly interested” (Elsesser, 2019).
Arguably, as women had played on the teams and had coached the women’s teams in the past, females should have been given preference in the head coaches' hiring process, but they were not. Yiamouyiannis and Osborne (2012) provide further history surrounding the era of Title IX and note that when the law came into effect, the overall amalgamation of the women’s and men’s divisions saw men placed into 85% of the athletic administrator positions that controlled both the men’s and women’s programs. Those numbers have not changed much – these researchers find that women make up only 19.3% of collegiate athletics directors, with even less representation when broken out so that the highest level of administrators can be counted – in 2012, there were only enough women to make up 9% (Yiamouyiannis & Osborne, 2012). With gender equity laws in place, how is this still possible?
Regarding the lack of female leadership within the NCAA, many scholars have focused on identifying the barriers that prevent female from entering these professions while other have focused on the challenges of keeping females from advancing in their professional careers (Alvarez, 2020; Elsesser, 2019; Tumber, 2019; Yiamouyiannis & Osborne, 2012). Despite numerous publications in this area, little research has attempted to gain access to NCAA administration. Previous studies in terms of leadership and gender have specifically focused on white females, where race and leadership have concentrated on black males. The author examined female coaches and administrators' characteristics with particular attention to race, gender, and pay, and more so through the lens of the intersectionality theory to see if possessing these particular traits impacts female leadership positions in NCAA. If the reasons are not linked to pay, gender equity efforts, or availability of females with experience or coaching ability, then the causes for low female coaching numbers must lie elsewhere. Instead of looking at the tangible issues like dollars and cents, bodies, or physical abilities, issues might lie in the intangible and might affect more than just the workplaces of the NCAA. These three effects of workplace discrimination can also be looked at within the NCAA organization: is there a gender wage gap, a lack of women in leadership, and lag in women achieving their career goals, and if there are, is it due to workplace discrimination?
1.1 Statement of Problem
This research seeks to explore where there is gender inequality in senior leadership and management positions within the NCAA. Females are well represented in this league as student-athletes. However, when it comes to management and leadership positions, they lag behind. The numbers are indisputable: there is a disproportionate number of female coaches within the realm of the NCAA in comparison to the number of coaches who are male (Longman, 2017). Considering that half of the sports within the NCAA are played by females, it would only seem to follow that half of the coaches across the respective leagues might also be female. Or, perhaps at least a majority of the coaches of the women’s teams might be female. But, neither of these statements is the case. As of the 2018-2019 season, females held only 41.8% of the head coach positions for Division I teams in the NCAA (LaVoi, 2019). This research will focus on the senior leadership, coaching, and management roles. These leadership roles include the Athletic Director, Senior Women's administrator, Associate athletic director and assistant athletic director.
LaVoi, through the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota, has been conducting a longitudinal research series over the past seven years that gives grades to Collegiate institutions according to how well they are doing with regards to the number of women that make up their non-player athletic organizations. By following the same groups year ...