Culturally relevant interscholastic athletics involvement: the impacts on student engagement and identification with school

Native Hawaiians, once one of the most literate groups of people in the world, experienced a nearly one-hundred year removal of Hawaiian language and culture in schools. Such removal created school environments that lacked cultural relevancy to Native Hawaiians, which in many cases still exist today. Currently, Native Hawaiian academic achievement and attainment is less than adequate. Overall, the purpose of the study was to explore the connection between participation in culturally relevant interscholastic athletics and student engagement and identification with school, research an understudied topic, and improve school identification and engagement of Native Hawaiian students. ❧ The literature review for the study covered the following themes: student involvement, student identification with schools, student engagement, Native Hawaiian academic achievement, culturally relevant education, benefits of interscholastic athletic participation, and the cultural history of surfing in Hawaii. The study at hand is qualitative. Data was collected through interviews with eleven participants, all of Native Hawaiian ancestry. Nine of the eleven participants were former interscholastic varsity outrigger canoe paddlers and three of the eleven participants are current varsity outrigger canoe paddling coaches. ❧ The major findings of the study revolved around the themes of student involvement, academic success, and identification with school. Participants involved in paddling demonstrated development of critical life skills such as: focus, work ethic, teamwork, and leadership. Overall, participants in the study were highly involved in high school and showed high levels of engagement and identification with school. ❧ The study produced several implications and recommendations for further research. Such implications are for school to: integrate cultural relevancy within schools, add sanctioned varsity interscholastic surf teams across the state, and make ocean sports more accessible to students. The study recommends a quantitative study as well as additional qualitative studies to explore the impacts of culturally relevant athletics and identifies the competitiveness of athletic teams as an additional variable to measure. Limitations of the study were the setting, sample size, a lack of teacher perceptions, and researcher questions may have impacted participant responses.

曾跻身全球受教育水平最高群体之列的夏威夷原住民（Native Hawaiians），在近百年间遭遇了学校教育体系中夏威夷语言与文化被系统性剔除的境况。这种文化剔除行为构建起了与夏威夷原住民文化脱节的校园环境，且此类状况至今仍在多数地区存续。当前，夏威夷原住民的学业表现与学业成就仍未达到理想水平。本研究的核心目标为：探究参与文化适配性校际体育活动与学生校园参与度、校园认同度之间的关联，针对这一尚未得到充分研究的议题展开探索，并提升夏威夷原住民学生的校园认同度与参与度。
❧ 本研究的文献综述涵盖以下主题：学生参与度、学生校园认同、学生校园参与、夏威夷原住民学业表现、文化适配性教育、校际体育参与的益处，以及夏威夷冲浪文化史。
❧ 本研究为质性研究。研究数据通过对11名均为夏威夷原住民血统的参与者的访谈收集获得。11名参与者中，9人曾为校际校代表队舷外独木舟桨手，另有3人现为校代表队舷外独木舟划桨项目教练。
❧ 本研究的核心发现围绕三大主题展开：学生参与、学业成就与校园认同。参与划桨项目的参与者展现出多项关键生活技能的养成，包括专注力、职业道德、团队协作能力与领导力。总体而言，参与本研究的参与者在高中阶段参与度极高，且展现出较高的校园参与度与校园认同度。
❧ 本研究提出了多项实践启示与后续研究建议。实践层面的启示包括：学校应在校内融入文化适配性内容、在全州范围内增设官方认证的校际冲浪校代表队、并提升海洋体育项目对学生的可及性。研究建议后续开展量化研究与补充质性研究，以探究文化适配性体育活动的影响，并提出可将运动队的竞技性作为新增测量变量。本研究的局限性包括研究场景限制、样本量较小、缺乏教师视角，且研究者的提问方式或对参与者的回答产生了影响。