ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors utilize a large, longitudinal, quantitative dataset to examine how high-school boys' backgrounds, sports participation, and academic achievement are related. They ask what aspects of one's background lead to participation in what sports and how both background and specific sports participation affect different aspects of academic achievement. If the social reproduction argument has validity, one would expect that such family factors as cultural capital and household educational resources would be associated with both participation in sports and the subsequent advantages sports would offer the participant. With regard to family cultural capital, the effect that differs by race is the influence of taking cultural classes on basketball participation. The authors examine whether the same relationships exist for different races. Their serious consideration of measurement issues and their carefully presented statistical results demonstrate how sociologists often construct and test multivariate analytical models.
