"If it Contradicts My Gender Role, I'll Stop!" : Introducing Survival Analysis to Study the Effects of Gender Typing on the Time of Withdrawal From Sport Practice : A 3-Year Study

The present study examines the effects of gender role in teenage girls at the time of withdrawal from a sex-inappropriate sport : handball- Three-hundred and thirty-six French female handballers took a French version of the Bern's Sex-rale Inven- tor)', and were followed during titrée sport seasons. Survival analysis - a powerful set of data analysis tools that are particularly useful in understanding behavioral processes that unfold over time- was used to examine the time of withdrawal from athletic involvement according to their gender role. Feminine and undifferentiated girts stopped the practice of handball - traditionally ¡i male sport - significantly earlier than did masculine and androgynous girls. The results of this study suggest thai involvement and perseverance of girls in sport will remain problematic as long as some activities are connoted as being stereotypical!) mas- culine, particularly for girls for whom conformity with stereotypic images of femininity is all-important.