NEW YORKùNearly 60 percent of African American children can’t swim, almost twice the figure for white children, according to a first of-its-kind survey which USA Swimming hopes will strengthen its efforts to lower minority drowning rates and draw more Bla
Black children drown at a rate almost three times the overall rate. And less than 2 percent of USA Swimming’s nearly 252,000 members who swim competitively year-round are Black. To alter the numbers, USA Swimming is teaming with an array of partnersùlocal governments, corporations, youth and ethnic organizationsùto expand learn toswim programs nationwide, many of them targeted at inner-city minorities.
One of the key participants is Black freestyle star Cullen Jones, who hopes to boost his rolemodel status by winning a medal this summer at the Beijing Olympics. USA Swimming’s motives are twofold, said Executive Director Chuck Wielgus. “It’s just the right thing to doùmaking an effort so every kid can be water-safe,” he said. “And quite frankly it’s about performance.
We’re something of a niche sport and for us to remain relevant, considering the changing demographics of the population, it’s important we get more kids involved at the mouth of the pipeline.”
As part of the initiative, USA Swimming commissioned an ambitious study recently completed by the University of Memphis’ Department of Health and Sports Sciences. They surveyed 1,772 children aged six to 16 in six citiesù two-thirds of them Black or Hispanicùto gauge what factors contributed most to the minority swimming gap. The study found that 31 percent of the white respondents could not swim safely, compared to 58 percent of the Blacks.
The non-swimming rate for Hispanic children was almost as highù56 percentù although more than twice as many Hispanics as Blacks are now USA Swimming members. The lead researcher, Professor Richard Irwin, said one key finding was the influence of parents’ attitudes and abilities.
If a parent couldn’t swim, as was far more likely in minority families than white families, or if the parent felt swimming was dangerous, then the child was far less likely to learn how to swim. Irwin said this means learn-toswim programs in minority communities should reach out to parents. Among Black children, the study found that girls overall had weaker swimming skills than boys and were less comfortable at pools.
Irwin said this might justify experimenting with single-sex swim programs, comparable to single-sex academic programs now spreading through some schools. The minority swimming gap has deep roots in America’s racial history. For decades during the 20th century, many pools were segregated, and relatively few were built to serve Black communities.
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