Ethnic diversity and cohesion in interdependent youth sport contexts

Team sports are a group environment in which individuals from various backgrounds often come together in pursuit of a common goal. Building on the findings of recent research that examined the effects of ethnic diversity in professional and intercollegiate sport contexts, we examined the association between ethnic diversity and youth athletes' perceptions of cohesion in interdependent sport teams (e.g., soccer), and tested ethnic identity as a moderator of this relationship. Multilevel analysis of data from 272 youth athletes nested within 24 teams revealed that ethnic diversity negatively predicted both task and social dimensions of cohesion, but ethnic identity did not emerge as a moderating variable. These findings are divergent from recent work that examined similar relationships in intercollegiate contexts. This highlights the complexity, and the importance, of examining the effects of ethnic diversity on team functioning-oriented variables at different levels of sport competition. Although replication studies are necessary to understand the reliability of the current findings, our study provides insight into the effects of ethnic diversity in youth sport and emphasizes pertinent developmental processes (e.g., identity formation) that scholars should take into consideration in future research.