Gender role expectations and the prevalence of women as assistant coaches

ABSTRACT

While the percentage of women head coaches of collegiate teams has consistently declined since 1972, the number of women assistant coaches continues to rise and currently represents the largest group of women employed in college athletics. Because the positions of head coach and assistant coach place similar demands on the women in these roles, the differing trends for these positions are perplexing. Utilizing a framework of role congruity theory and symbolic interactionism, this study considers whether women are clustered in the assistant role because head and assistant coach positions are gender typed, with the head coach being masculine typed and the assistant coach being feminine typed. 403 male and female college athletes were asked to match gender traits with either an assistant coach or a head coach. Results show that masculine traits are aligned with head coaches more than assistant coaches.

KEYWORDS:

• Bem sex role inventory (BSRI)
• role congruity theory
• symbolic interactionism
• coaching
• gender stereotype

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Rachel Madsen received her PhD from the University of Connecticut and is a former collegiate basketball coach, Assistant Athletic Director, and Senior Woman Administrator. Currently she is an Assistant Professor at Ithaca College in the department of Sport Management. Her current research focus is on gender in sport leadership and athletes in higher education.

Laura Burton received her PhD from the University of Connecticut and is a former collegiate athletic trainer. Currently she is an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut in the department of Educational Leadership. Her research interests include understanding leadership in organizations (particularly sport organizations) and exploring development, access and success in leadership. In her work, Laura focuses on issues of gender in leadership contexts and specifically how stereotypes and discrimination impact women in sport leadership.

Brianna Clark received her PhD from Clemson University and was previously an Assistant Professor at Temple University in the department of Sport and Recreation Management.