Extracurricular activities have long been recognized as a socializing agent fostering subsequent life achievements and success orientations in the status attainment process. In particular, minorities and disadvantaged high school students who may not succeed in traditional academic classes benefit greatly from extracurricular activities, especially sports. In the case of basketball, young Black males are more likely to both participate in basketball as an extracurricular activity and pursue a career as a professional basketball player than their White peers, even to the detriment of their formal education. This thesis uses the Wisconsin Status-Attainment model as a framework for examining the extent to which the educational attainment of these young men affects their eventual occupational status (salary and career longevity), specifically a ten-year sample of first-round NBA draft picks. In the end, White players averaged more post-high school educational attainment than their Black counterparts, but the variable that affected salary and longevity was on-court performance. Although the educational attainment of these players did not directly affect how much they make and how long they play, the results presented here still provide insight into how young men are socialized into a NBA career trajectory.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BGMYU2/oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-4624 |
| Date | 02 July 2013 |
| Creators | Yost, Christian Evers |
| Publisher | BYU ScholarsArchive |
| Source Sets | Brigham Young University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/ |
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