We here at the Title IX Blog tend towards the qualitative in our own research, but we greatly appreciate the people in our lives who are more quantitatively minded. This is especially true of Linda Jean Carpenter and Vivian Acosta whose 35-year longitudinal study of Title IX and women's participation in intercollegiate athletics (as student-athletes, coaches, administrators, trainers/medical personnel) has been invaluable to our work and arguably to everyone who studies Title IX. And so we were a little dismayed to discover that Carpenter and Acosta may be done with data collection. We understand and agree with Carpenter who noted that 35 years is indeed a very long longitudinal study.
But, as also noted, tracking the trends remains crucial to understanding Title IX and sport culture more generally. And so we hope someone takes up where they left off. Smith College's Project for Women and Social Change currently funds the study. It would be great if Smith could take over data collection as well. Seems like a good opportunity for grad student and faculty collaboration.
