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Dunks And Drunks: Depictions Of Drug And Alcohol Use Among High School Athletes In Film, Peter S. Finley, Laura L. Finley

Essays in Education

Mediated portrayals of student-athletes can provide strong role models for realworld student-athletes. This research explored the images of student-athletes in sportrelated films regarding depictions of drug and alcohol use. A content analysis of six sport-related films released between 1994 and 2000 was conducted 1) to address whether such films accurately depicted drug and alcohol use among student-athletes and 2) to consider how these presentations might impact viewers who are, themselves, high school student-athletes. Results suggested that the films reinforced the notion that student-athletes are supposed to experiment with drugs and alcohol as a part of the social role relative to …