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Posted
Hello, I have been given an assignment to write a research proposal that will never be done. I am having a lot of trouble coming up with my research question. I am interested in sports and possibly gender. Here is my research question: 
Does an emphasis, or lack there of, on sports participation reinforce gender roles? What about the emphasis on specific sports for boys vs girls?
Is this too broad? How do I make it more creative?
Posted

I'm not usually one to help undergrads on this forum, but hopefully this will be helpful to even grad students who stumble upon the thread.

 

Even if your research is never going to be done, you need to have a question that could actually be answered. 

 

I assume you mean to ask whether an individual's participation in sports influences their agreement with traditional gender stereotypes. In other words, is a high school boy who plays football more likely to think that men should be stoic, violent, powerful and women should be emotional, nurturing, and submissive than one who does not? And, for your second question, would men's sports foster more traditional gender stereotypes while women's would break them down? But, I'm actually not sure that's what you mean because you don't articulate what you mean by emphasis. It could mean that in communities where there is a higher percentage of sports participation, or more cultural references to sports, or something like that. Similarly, I have no idea what you mean by gender roles. For every piece of your research question, you need to articulate what it is that you mean exactly and how you would measure it. 

 

As for the issues with your current question, if it's what I inferred, it seems like your biggest hurdle would be arguing that it was sports participation that led to gender stereotypes and not that people who already held those stereotypes were the ones who were more likely to participate in sports. You'll want to think about that, and look at the research on sports and gender, as there's quite a bit out there. Maybe skimming some of that will give you ideas on what you would do to improve it or the question it doesn't ask that you'd be interested in answering. 

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