Exploring Latina Adolescent Athletes’ Sport Models: Profiles and Analysis of Favorite Athletes

Latina adolescent girls demonstrate a stark rate of underparticipation in sports activities. The aim of this study is to spotlight potential key factors that support their sport engagement. Operating from a Social-Cognitive Theoretical framework, this multifaceted study explores how Latina adolescent athletes’ characteristics (i.e., gender, ethnicity, sport) shared with their favorite athletes are associated with their sport engagement (i.e., sport efficacy, sport commitment, sport importance, and behavioral and attitudinal engagement with athletics). Participants included ninth- and 10th-grade Latina adolescent athletes who resided in the United States. Qualitative analysis of favorite athletes ( n = 234) revealed that Latina adolescent athletes favored racially/ethnically and gender diverse athletes. In quantitative analyses of identifiable favorite athletes, bivariate and partial correlations revealed mixed associations between shared sociocultural (i.e., shared Latinx identity) and sport characteristics (i.e., shared sport) and sport engagement variables. In regression-based indirect effect analyses, sport efficacy mediated the associations between shared sport and sport commitment and sport importance. Shared sport emerged as the most consistent correlate of sport engagement, which informs practical considerations of how favorite athletes and shared sport might be leveraged to encourage Latina adolescent girls’ engagement in sports.