Graduation Date
Fall 2019
Document Type
Thesis
Program
Master of Arts degree with a major in Sociology
Committee Chair Name
Mary Virnoche
Committee Chair Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Second Committee Member Name
Elizabeth Rienzi
Second Committee Member Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Keywords
Student, Athlete, Identity, Surveillance, NCAA, Division II, Gender, Stigma, Stereotype, Dumb jock, Graduation rates, Constraining, Foucault
Subject Categories
Sociology
Abstract
Student athletes hold a unique identity at colleges and universities all across the nation. They are tasked with the high demands and time constraints of being both a college level student and athlete. While there have been growing conversations about student athletes at Division I institutions, those pertaining to Division II student athletes remain minimal.
While student athletes have a great deal in common, they all come from different backgrounds that have contributed to who they are today. When arriving to college, these unique individuals are introduced to institutional power structures that constrain and control their identities and individuality. These larger power structures have sculpted definitions of what it means to be a “good” student athlete. Meanwhile, society also has defined what a student athlete is. These preconceived notions become even more complicated when using an intersectional approach that takes into consideration the additional identities student athletes hold such as race, class, gender and more. As a result, student athletes are left with the task of living up to the “good” student athlete expectation while also managing a stigmatized student athlete identity. In this study, I used nonprobability and snowball sampling methods to conduct 14 interviews that revealed the ways in which student athletes managed these complex identities. Participants thoroughly talked about the student athlete subculture, hyper surveillance technologies, pressures to sacrifice pieces of their identity and managing a stigmatized identity. Student athletes strive to satisfy the demands of the higher power structures while their personal needs are disregarded.
Citation Style
ASA
Recommended Citation
Arrington, Jovanah, "“There's no I in team”: Student athlete identity at an NCAA Division II university" (2019). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 331.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/331