“Your voice is power!” Examining motivations and opportunity structures for high school athlete activism in U.S. interscholastic sport

Whereas scholars have established increasing insights into professional and collegiate athlete activism, high school athletics within the United States has rarely been examined as a site for activism. Utilizing an interpretive approach and informed by critical positive youth development theory and sociopolitical development theory, we conducted semistructured interviews with twelve high school athlete activists in interscholastic sport to understand what motivates high school athletes to engage in activism and what structures facilitate their engagement in activist efforts. Primary motivations for pursuing activism included lived experience with exclusion, a sense of responsibility to advocate for change, and national momentum for justice movements. Among the opportunity structures identified were educational (curricular and extracurricular) influences, involvement in interscholastic sport itself, relational support, and support from the broader community. We close by discussing managerial implications to empower those managing high school sport to create spaces where youth athletes can thrive as activists.