Education, Women and the Olympics.

Studying the Olympics can be useful in educating elementary and secondary students to the roles women have played as athletic competitors, sports administrators, and in sports governance. Study of the Olympics can provide educational experiences which: (1) provide a picture of challenges at all levels of sport under which women have been forced to operate in the past; (2) indicate opportunities to eliminate biases against women; and (3) help in eliminating stereotypes. Contents of an educational program might include: exposure to the growth in the number of female athletic participants from 1896 (the birth of modern Olympics); examination of the roles which various national sports governing bodies have played in the advancement of women; study of the Olympic Charter in light of the absence of any sex discrimination clause; introduction to growth in the number of women in areas of governance; study of the differences in the treatment of women in different countries; and an awareness of what is currently being done to open doors of opportunity for women at the Olympic level. Several programs adaptable to elementary and secondary students, published under sponsorship of the U.S. Olympic Committee, are noted. (LL)