Do the sports and physical activity we undertake while in high school effect our later lives either through academic performance or future earning potential?
Brief kind of script:
At the urging of Simone who knows my strong bias against team sports I did some research on how team sports amongst school children affect them later in life
Before jumping into the research on this subject I had ambiant knowledge that at least some studies showed sports in high school had a positive effect on academics. I just was not aware how many such studies there were.
For starters, and rather surprisingly, a correlation with physical activity and grades have been shown across the board. I say unspringly, as this is a pretty well established and commonly known effect.
If you are physically fit you will do much better on almost any test of mental ability than those who don't exercise.
It needs to be pointed out that these effects are not small either: the fittest kids in school score almost 30% higher or standardised tests and 20% on class grades than the leat fit group.
What was more surisng was how important team sports apear to be. Out of all extrercuriclars studied, from depate to drama, team sports was the only one that seemed to reliably make a positive impact on Academic grades
team sports also made a large increase in the likelyhood that partipants would continue on to higher education and complete higher education
And impact doesnt stop there. those who partipate in highschool athletics earn 31% higher wages when they are in their 30s
These results where indpanent of mental ablity, socia economic status, race, and measures of aspiration.
The only factor that seemed to diminish these positive effects where sex in which women would either exprience the positive effects less or not at all depnding on the study.
So, depsite the cultural archtype of the dumb jock who gets suprassed by the gangly nerd statics say those who do sports in highschool do better in life.
Sources:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1022137619834#page-1
http://www.livestrong.com/article/506980-do-sports-help-improve-grades/
http://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/41/7/7.2.full
http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=parkplace
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.167.6965&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330445/Why-team-sports-really-improve-grades-Link-self-esteem-better-performance-classroom.html
http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1365&context=doctoral
http://academic.csuohio.edu/kosteas_b/Clubs%20Participation%20and%20Earnings.pdf