ToriRussotti

Citius5b

Catelli

ProjectIX:IstheWindsorHighSchoolincompliancewithTitleIX?

Introduction

Project Nine is a student led project bytheExerciseScienceCoreatWindsor

High School. We formulated this project around our Athletic Issues unit on gender

equality. The main objective was to explore gender equality within the Windsor

School District based on our focus questions. We were curious to find out if there

are gender equality problems within our school, and if young female students feel

empowered to follow their passions without roadblocks, physical and/or mental,

standingintheirway.Ourgroupchosetoexploregenderequalityfromthestudents

perspectives at Windsor High School. We did this by creating a questionnaire, and

sending it out toourpeersthroughourteachers.Thequestionnairewasdesignedto

ask the students questions regarding Title IX, and gender equality within their High

School.Wehopedthesurveywouldprovideanswerstoourinitialguidingquestions.

Procedures:

1. Startdevelopingquestionsforquestionnaire

2. Putquestionsintogoogleformforquestionnaire

3. FinalizeQuestionnaire
 4. Each group member creates a rough draft email to send to teachers of

Windsor High School asking if they would give the questionnaire to their

students

5. Revieweachemailandcollaboratetomakeonefinaldrafttosend

6. Sendstarteremailwithoutlink

7. Sendfollowupemailwithlinktoquestionnaire

8. Separatechartsintomaleandfemaleresponses

9. Analyzethedata

10. Demonstratedataintheformofalabreport(datareport)

DataTable:https://goo.gl/ECyc1Z

Graphs:https://goo.gl/1pkdE9

DataAnalysis

- 65% of boys and 73% of girls do not feel like they have ever been unable to

play a sport of their choice. The data shows that over of Windsor High

Schoolfeeltheyhavebeengivenfairopportunityinsports.

- 58% of male athletes have felt inferior to the opposite gender, while 88% of

females athletes have never felt inferior to the opposite gender. This data is

really

- surprisingtomebecauseIpredicteditwouldbeopposite.

- 73% of females and 74% of males have attended a females sporting event.

While 93%offemaleshadattendedamalessportingevent(nodataonmales

attending males sporting events). The data demonstrates that about of

 both males and females equally support female sports, while 9 out of 10

womenwillsupportmales.

- 81% of females and 82% of males dont know if Title IX provides equal

opportunity in sports. ThismeanstheyeitherdonthaveacluewhatTitleIXis,

or they arent aware of how our school is implementing equal opportunity

betweenthesexes.

- 67% of both males and females believe that Title IX might only apply to

females. WHS students are obviously unclear on what Title IX is since it

appliestobothgenders.

- Gender equality is important to 71% of both females and males. The data is

showing that 30% of females and males either arent sure, or know if gender

equalitydoesntmattertothem.

- 40% of females and males dont believe our campus is free of sexual

discrimination. 40% is a fairly large number but still does notrulethemajority

with60%believingthatourschoolisfreeofsexualdiscrimination.

- It is interesting how 88% of females have neverfeltinferiororlessthantothe

opposite gender, yet 40% of females also said that they didnt believe our

campus is free ofsexualdiscrimination.Seeingasthereisastrongcorrelation

between these two survey questions, yet the data shows two different

patterns,conclusionscannotbedrawnfromthisdata.

- 81% of females and 82% of males claimed they did not know what Title IX is,

67% of both females and males also claimed that Title IX mightonlyapplyto
 females. Based on the answers given, it is clear thatnoneofthedatarelating

to Title IX is conclusive. The only argument that can be made is that the

majorityofourschoolisnotawareofthelaw.

- There were four instanceswherethedatacollectedfromtheanswersofboth

gender were within1%orlessofeachother(threeinstanceswereexactlythe

same percentage). It was very puzzling and unexpected to find that both

genders agree for the majority of the questionnaire. I was expecting much

morediversity.

Conclusion

Based on the data collected, it is unclear if students feel there are gender

equality problems at Windsor High School. It was very difficult to come to a

conclusion because the data contradicted itself. 88% of females claimed that they

had never felt inferior or less than to the opposite gender, yet 40% of females also

said that they didnt believe our campus is free of sexual discrimination. There is a

strong correlation between these two survey questions, yet the data shows two

different patterns. Because there is no such thing as 128%, at least 28% of students

did not answer this question truthfully, thereforeprovingthedataisflawed.Icannot

makeaclaimfromtwodatapointsthatdontcorrespondtoeachother.

In addition, the majority of young female students at Windsor High School

feel empowered to follow their passions without roadblocks, physical and/or

mental, standing in their way. 65% of boys and 73% of girls at WIndsor High School

do not feel like they have ever been unable to play a sport oftheirchoice.Notonly
do almost of of girls feel empowered tofollowtheirpassions,butthedatashows

that boys actually feel morerestrainedtoplayasportoftheirchoiceby8%. Female

entitlement doesnt prove to be the problem here. The next step would be to send

out a second survey designed to go further in depth regarding equality with male

athletes,ratherthanprioritizingwomen.

To conclude this report, it is important to recognize this was a very flawed

experiment that had many limitations. Our initial problem was wedriftedawayfrom

our guiding questions when creating the questionnaire.WefocusedalotonTitleIX,

overlooking the fact that Title IX had nothing to do withtheanswersweweretrying

to find. I believe we also could have formulated our questions more strategically,

guaranteeing more accurate data results. If I could create a new questionnaire, the

first question would be asking their gender, and if they are an athlete. The

questionnaire would then branch into two sub branches where they would only

answer questions only correlating to their profile. Lastly, I would design a true or

false questionnaire. Including answer options I dont Know and maybe as an

answer was a large error that likely ruined what could have been accurate data.

Students tend to pick answers that dont require a lot of thinking, and Im positive

this was the case. Altogether it was an interesting experience investigating myown

high school, but I would plan a more qualitative experiment if I were to redo this

project.