Citation

Milner AN, Baker EH. J. Interpers. Violence 2017; 32(2): 268-289.

Affiliation

The University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0886260515585543

PMID

25979534

Abstract

This study used representative, quantitative data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and explored the relationship between young adults' sport participation and experiences of intimate partner violence victimization (IPVV) for both women and men. Past research has suggested that sports participation, especially among women, results in increased self-esteem, a prominent protective factor against experiencing IPVV. We found that sports participation was associated with a lower prevalence of experiencing IPVV, but only for women. In addition, this pattern held after controls for race, mother's education, age, number of relationships, and the hypothesized pathways of self-esteem and alcohol consumption. However, controls for the young adult's own education completely mediated the association between sports participation and IPVV. Additional analyses indicated that higher education reduced the risk of experiencing IPVV and increased the likelihood of sports participation. Nonetheless, even among women with the highest educational attainment, sports participation was associated with lower prevalence of experiencing IPVV.

Language: en