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WS WC 12 Promote Diversity in Swimming and Aquatic Imagery in Media

Key area

WS WC Swim

Promote diversity in any imagery depicting swimming, aquatic activities and sports including advertising, film, print, television, and social media.

Spectrum level: Changing Organizational Practices Promoting Community Education

Evidence level: Medium

Implementation levels: Community County National State

Rationale:

Evidence shows that role models are critically important. The hiring and development of diverse leadership, along with exposure to representative aquatic professionals, to communities of color, religions and disabled persons is a key factor in equity, inclusion, and drowning prevention efforts nationwide.

Anticipated Impact:

After implementing this recommendation, you can expect to experience the following outcomes.

  • Including imagery of people of color demonstrating competency in all aquatic activities including athletes, teams, families, organizations, communities leads to increased diversity among aquatic professionals, better reflecting local, state, and national diversity statistics.

Evidence:

Karunanayake and Nauta (2004): Several theorists (e.g., Bandura, 1977, 1986; Gottfredson, 1981; Hackett & Byars, 1996) have argued that individuals seek career role models whom they perceive as similar to them regarding some easily identifiable characteristics because they assume that such role models' experiences would apply to their own lives as well. In other words, a role model will be inspirational only to the degree that a person is able to identify with that model, and "evidence that dissimilar persons succeed from time to time does not necessarily persuade observers that they, too, can attain such outcomes from their efforts" (Bandura, 1986, p. 302). This thought is known as the similarity hypothesis. With respect to gender, the similarity hypothesis has been well supported by empirical data (Basow & Howe, 1979; Erkut & Mokros, 1984; Gilbert, 1985).
Karunanayake and Nauta (2004) that “Role models may be especially important for minority individuals' career development because a history of discrimination and limited career options may have decreased their self-efficacy and outcome expectations, leading some minorities to have lower educational and career aspirations (Greene, 1990; Hackett & Byars, 1996)” (p. 226) Norwood, Waller, and Spearman (2014) “Black youth need to see more images of people who look like them participating in swimming to plant the seed of their own swimming participation being a possibility and eventually a reality” (p. 272).

Evidence Sources:

  1. Karunanayake, D., & Nauta, M. M. (2004). The relationship between race and students' identified career role models and perceived role model influence. The Career Development Quarterly, 52(3), 225-234.
  2. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological review, 84(2), 191.
  3. Bandura, A., & Cervone, D. (1986). Differential engagement of self-reactive influences in cognitive motivation. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 38(1), 92-113.
  4. Gottfredson, L. S. (1981). Circumscription and compromise: A developmental theory of occupational aspirations. Journal of Counseling psychology, 28(6), 545.
  5. Gottfredson, D. C. (1981). Black-white differences in the educational attainment process: What have we learned?. American Sociological Review, 542-557.
  6. Hackett, G., & Byars, A. M. (1996). Social cognitive theory and the career development of African American women. The Career Development Quarterly, 44(4), 322-340.
  7. Basow, S. A., & Howe, K. G. (1979). Model influence on career choices of college students. Vocational Guidance Quarterly.
  8. Erkut, S., & Mokros, J. R. (1984). Professors as models and mentors for college students. American Educational Research Journal, 21(2), 399-417.
  9. Gilbert, 1985
  10. Greene, 1990
  11. Norwood, D., Waller, S., & Spearman, L. (2014). Going deep: Experiences of a Division I university’s first black female competitive swimmer. International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education, 8(3), 5.

High Risk Populations Addressed:

The population whose risk of drowning decreases the most with the implementation of this recommendation

  • Racial and ethnic communities that have been historically marginalized

Evaluation Metrics:

Indicators of intermediate impact:

  • The percentage of professional aquatics positions held by persons of color increases.

Indicators of initial impact:

  • The percentage of candidates for professional aquatics positions reflects local, regional, state, and national diversity statistics.

Implementation:

Consider the following to ensure successful implementation:

Potential Facilitators:

The following factors might facilitate the implementation of this recommendation.

  • Review the NFL’s Rooney Rule for guidance on effective implementation in the context of the aquatics professional. https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/12/31/rooney-rule-explained-nfl-diversity-policy https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/04/14/ap-fbn-rooney-rule

GAP Recommendation:

None