Emma Guillet

Dr Philippe Sarrazin
email: philippe.sarrazin@ujf-grenoble.fr

Paul Fontayne

Robert J Brustad

Understanding female sport attrition in a stereotypical male sport within the

Keywords: dropout, sport, masculinity, femininity, motivation

Understanding female sport attrition in a stereotypical male sport within the framework of Eccles' expectancy-value model.

In France as in many Western countries, more and more females are regularly involved in sport and physical activity. Between 1971 and2000, the total level of female sport involvement increased by a factor of 3.27, and in the year 2000, 55% of females reported that they practiced physical activity at least one time per week in comparison to 65% of men (Ministry of Youth and Sports, 2001). Nevertheless, there is great diversity in the nature of sport involvement between males and females. For example, females are more likely to practice sport activities outside of traditional or organized structures (only 33% are affiliated with a sports union), and are three times less numerous than men in competitive sport activities.

In the same way that differential levels of involvement in sport seem to occur in relation to sex, different patterns of sport dropout also seem to be evident. Females appear to withdraw from the sport role more frequently than do males, particularly during adolescence [START_REF] Russel | Youth sport in New Zealand[END_REF][START_REF] Sallis | Physical activity guidelines for adolescents: a consensus statement[END_REF][START_REF] Wankel | Canada[END_REF]. For example, in the case of French female handball players, there is a dropout rate of approximately 50% (against 35% for males) between the ages of 13 and 15 years [START_REF] Sarrazin | Mais pourquoi ne se réinscrivent-ils plus!" Variables et processus de l'abandon sportif ("But why are they not involved anymore?[END_REF].

Given the numerous psychological, social, and physical benefits that accrue from the regular practice of physical activity and sport (see [START_REF] Martinsen | Exercise and mental health in clinical and freeliving populations[END_REF], for a review), it is unfortunate that a large number of children and teenagers terminate their participation in this domain during adolescence. Moreover, some experts have identified adolescents as a group "at risk" due to declining physical activity and subsequent health-related outcomes [START_REF] Sallis | Physical activity guidelines for adolescents: a consensus statement[END_REF]. If we desire to increase the physical activity level of the teenage population, more research is needed with regard to factors related to their physical activity involvement.

The gender role socialization explanation

In general, each culture directs and encourages some behaviors, features and activities considered as characteristics suitable for each sex [START_REF] Cross | Models of the self: Self-construals and gender[END_REF] and gender roles reflect consensual beliefs about the attributes of women and men. Consequently, many social activities are sex-typed (e.g., [START_REF] Maccoby | Le sexe, catégorie sociale. [Gender as a social category[END_REF], and sport doesn't make exception to this gender marking. Each sport conveys certain attributes of masculinity and femininity according to cultural stereotypes. In relation to gender appropriateness, research has supported the idea that certain sports are more commonly considered to be masculine or feminine in nature (e.g., [START_REF] Czisma | Sports stereotypes and gender[END_REF][START_REF] Ignico | Development and verification of gender-role stereotyping index for physical activities[END_REF][START_REF] Koivula | Rating of gender appropriateness of sports participation: Effects of gender based schematic processing[END_REF][START_REF] Koivula | Sport participation: Differences in motivation and actual participation due to gender typing[END_REF][START_REF] Matteo | The effect of sex and gender-schematic processing on sport participation[END_REF][START_REF] Matteo | The effect of gender-schematic processing on decisions about sexinappropriate sport behavior[END_REF][START_REF] Salminen | Sex role and participation in traditionally inappropriate sports[END_REF].

Characteristics of male sex-typed sports include the use of heavy objects, bodily contact, face-toface opposition, and endurance. On the other hand, sports that typically place an emphasis on aesthetics or gracefulness have been viewed as female sex-typed sports (e.g., [START_REF] Ignico | Development and verification of gender-role stereotyping index for physical activities[END_REF][START_REF] Kane | The female athletic role as a status determinant within the social systems of high school adolescents[END_REF][START_REF] Metheny | Connotations of movement in sport and dance[END_REF]. In the same vein, [START_REF] Colley | Sex-role identity, personality and participation in team and individual sports by males and females[END_REF] found that the majority of team sports are commonly considered inappropriate for females because they are more frequently perceived to contain more masculine attributes such as assertiveness and aggressiveness in comparison to individual sports. For example, team handball is an activity considered to have more masculine characteristics whereas gymnastics fits more strongly with stereotypes of femininity [START_REF] Fontayne | Les pratiques sportives des adolescents: une différenciation selon le genre. [Sport practices of French teenagers: A gender differentiation[END_REF][START_REF] Koivula | Rating of gender appropriateness of sports participation: Effects of gender based schematic processing[END_REF][START_REF] Koivula | Sport participation: Differences in motivation and actual participation due to gender typing[END_REF].

When sports are gender stereotyped, females participating in "gender inappropriate" sports have been found to experience more conflict between their roles as women and as athletes than do female participants in more gender appropriate sports (e.g., [START_REF] Anthrop | Role conflict and the high school female athlete[END_REF][START_REF] Sage | The female athlete and role conflict[END_REF]. This conflict could become particularly salient during the period of adolescent socialization because the female child begins the transition toward womanhood [START_REF] Brown | Factors influencing the process of withdrawal by female adolescents from the role of competitive age group swimmer[END_REF].

Researchers have suggested that early adolescence is a time when gender role stereotypes and expectations are likely to become particularly influential (e.g., [START_REF] Eccles | Adolescence: Critical crossroad in the path of gender-role development[END_REF][START_REF] Hill | The intensification of gender-related role expectations during early adolescence[END_REF]. [START_REF] Hill | The intensification of gender-related role expectations during early adolescence[END_REF] labeled this phenomenon gender-role intensification which is accompanied by an increase in the pressure to conform to social stereotypes. Indeed, being pretty and looking feminine can be in conflict with the regular practice of a sport, in particular if the sport is regarded as more appropriate for males [START_REF] Duncan | The politics of women's body images and practices: Foucault, the panopticon and shape magazine[END_REF][START_REF] Thorne | Gender play: Girls and boys in school[END_REF]. As a consequence of this gender role conflict, and in order to avoid compromising their femininity, some girls may drop out of sports and physical activity [START_REF] Kane | Sport typing: The social "containment" of women[END_REF]Young, 1990).

Differences related to gender role orientations

As there are individual differences in the tendency to use gender-related information [START_REF] Bem | The lenses of gender: Transforming the debate on sexual inequality[END_REF], one might expect differences between individuals in sport participation and withdrawal patterns depending on their gender role orientation. Indeed, the theoretical proposition advanced by Bem suggests that individuals can be identified as gender-typed or non-gender-typed according to attributes that are regarded as constitutive or not of their self-system. Generally, these are characteristics that pertain to communal and agentic attributes (e.g., [START_REF] Eagly | Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation[END_REF][START_REF] Eagly | Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal[END_REF]. Communal characteristics primarily refer to a concern for the welfare of other people [START_REF] Eagly | Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal[END_REF]. These qualities tend to be ascribed more frequently to women. In contrast, agentic characteristics primarily describe assertive, controlling, and confident tendencies [START_REF] Eagly | Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal[END_REF]. These characteristics are more frequently ascribed to men.

Although other types of attributes or behaviors are also differentially ascribed to women and men (e.g., [START_REF] Athenstaedt | On the content and structure of the gender role self-concept: including gender-stereotypical behaviors in addition to traits[END_REF][START_REF] Deaux | Structure of gender stereotypes: Interrelationships among components and label[END_REF], it is very often these communal and agentic attributes that characterize the masculinity and the femininity dimensions, and which are measured in the self-report instruments intended to assess gender role orientation (e.g., BSRI: [START_REF] Bem | Measurement of psychological androgyny[END_REF]; PAQ [START_REF] Spence | The Personal Attributes Questionnaire: A measure of sex-role stereotypes and masculinity-femininity[END_REF]. With these tools each respondent receives a Masculinity/Instrumentality (or agentic) and a Femininity/Expressivity (or communal) score, whatever his/her biological sex (see [START_REF] Blanchard-Fields | A confirmatory factor analysis of the Bem Sex Role Inventory: Old questions, new answers[END_REF]Marsh & Myers, 1986, for reviews). Those who score high on the sex-congruent scale and low on the sexincongruent scale are considered gender-typed. Those who show the opposite pattern are considered cross-gender-typed. Those who score high on both scales are considered androgynous while those who score low on both scales are considered undifferentiated. Those individuals low on both are considered to be non-gender typed.

According to gender role theory, gender-typed individuals differ from non-gender-typed individuals in their use of gender as a dimension to encode and organize information even when other more relevant dimensions are equally available. Gender-typed individuals are motivated to avoid behaviors that violate these images and to choose behaviors that conform to cultural norms for masculinity and femininity [START_REF] Bem | Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex-typing[END_REF]. In the sport domain, several studies have provided support for the theory, indicating that (1) female athletes and sport participants are more likely to be higher in masculinity orientation than are female nonparticipants and dropout athletes (e.g., [START_REF] Colley | Sex-role identity, personality and participation in team and individual sports by males and females[END_REF][START_REF] Engel | Sex roles and gender stereotyping in young women's participation in sport. Special features: Doing it by degrees: Feminist undergraduate dissertations[END_REF][START_REF] Guillet | If it contradicts my gender role, I'll stop!": Introducing survival analysis to study the effects of gender typing on the time of withdrawal from sport practice: A 3-year study[END_REF][START_REF] Marsh | Multidimensional self-concepts, masculinity, and femininity as a function of women's involvement in athletics[END_REF][START_REF] Matteo | The effect of sex and gender-schematic processing on sport participation[END_REF][START_REF] Salminen | Sex role and participation in traditionally inappropriate sports[END_REF]see Gill, 1992, for a review); (2) gender-typed individuals are more likely than others to categorize sports as appropriate or inappropriate on a gender basis and to restrict their participation to what they perceive as gender appropriate sport and exercise activities (e.g., [START_REF] Colley | Attitudes of the female sex-role and sex-typing of physical activities[END_REF][START_REF] Koivula | Rating of gender appropriateness of sports participation: Effects of gender based schematic processing[END_REF][START_REF] Mead | Children's gender-typed perceptions of physical activity: Consequence and implications[END_REF]; and (3) gender-typed individuals cite more gender-based explanations and related gender-based reasons as important to their decisions for rejecting sex-inappropriate activities than do non-gender-typed people [START_REF] Matteo | The effect of gender-schematic processing on decisions about sexinappropriate sport behavior[END_REF].

Theoreticians have also proposed the existence of certain motivational processes associated with gender role orientations and achievement behaviors. For example, Eccles and her colleagues (e.g., [START_REF] Eccles | Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors[END_REF]Eccles, Wigfield, & Shiefele, 1998;[START_REF] Wigfield | Expectancy-Value theory of achievement motivation[END_REF] have developed an expectancy-value framework that incorporates gender role stereotypes along with achievement cognitions in order to explain people's choice of achievement tasks and persistence or dropout on those tasks. According to Eccles' model, the two important predictors of choice behaviors are individuals' expectations for success and the subjective task value that they associate with the domain or activity (see [START_REF] Eccles | Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors[END_REF]. In her model, expectations refer specifically to individuals' level of expectancy about attaining success in a particular domain. Research studies (e.g., [START_REF] Eccles | Understanding women's educational and occupational choices. Applying the Eccles et al. Model of Achievement-related choices[END_REF][START_REF] Eccles | In the mind of the achiever: The structure of adolescents' academic achievement related-beliefs and self-perceptions[END_REF] have shown that expectations closely correspond to self-conceptions of ability (i.e., competence beliefs). On the other hand, Eccles and her colleagues (e.g., [START_REF] Eccles | Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors[END_REF][START_REF] Eccles | Motivation to succeed[END_REF][START_REF] Wigfield | Expectancy-Value theory of achievement motivation[END_REF] have defined subjective task value in terms of four components: (1) intrinsic value (enjoyment of the activity); (2) utility value (usefulness of the task in terms of current and future goals); (3) attainment value (personal importance of doing well at the task); and (4) costs (perceived negative aspects of engaging in the task). Empirical studies have focused on the first three of these characteristics.

Previous studies have shown that both task value and expectations predict current and future activity choice across a variety of domains including taking math classes, engaging in sport activities, and choosing a college major (see [START_REF] Eccles | Motivation to succeed[END_REF], for a review). Gender differences in competence beliefs and task values have been found with females usually reporting lower competence beliefs and task values than do males in sport (e.g., [START_REF] Fredricks | Children's competence and value beliefs from childhood through adolescence; Growth trajectories in two male-sex typed domains[END_REF][START_REF] Wigfield | Change in children's competence beliefs and subjective task values across the elementary school years: A 3-year study[END_REF]. Nevertheless, no study to our knowledge has endeavored to examine the relationships among gender-role orientation and expectancy/value components of the model in the sport domain

The present study

The purpose of this study was to apply Eccles and colleagues' expectancy-value model to the explanation of sport dropout among girls. A particular emphasis of the research was on the application of this model with a European sample that has not been well represented in the socialization literature to date. The main hypothesis of this study was that gender role orientations would predict girls' intention to dropout and their dropout behavior indirectly, as mediated by the motivational variables hypothesized by Eccles and her colleagues (e.g., [START_REF] Eccles | Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors[END_REF][START_REF] Eccles | Motivation to succeed[END_REF][START_REF] Wigfield | Expectancy-Value theory of achievement motivation[END_REF].

To test the mediation hypothesis, three models were compared (see Figure 1) in order to thoroughly examine the three requirements for mediation as defined by [START_REF] Baron | The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations[END_REF] that we could summarize as follows: (a) variations in levels of the independent variable account for significant variations in the presumed mediator (i.e., path a), (b) variations in the mediator account for significant variations in the dependent variable (i. e., path b), and (c) when Paths a and b are controlled, a previously significant relation between the independent and dependent variables (i.e., path c) is no longer significant.

The first model reflected by Figure 1 represents an unmediated (NM) model. It allows us to test if individuals' intention to dropout of their activity is directly predicted by their gender role orientation (i.e., if path C is significant). Indeed, in accordance with the postulates of social cognitive approaches (see [START_REF] Ashmore | Sex/gender and the individual[END_REF] and previous studies (e.g., [START_REF] Colley | Sex-role identity, personality and participation in team and individual sports by males and females[END_REF][START_REF] Engel | Sex roles and gender stereotyping in young women's participation in sport. Special features: Doing it by degrees: Feminist undergraduate dissertations[END_REF][START_REF] Guillet | If it contradicts my gender role, I'll stop!": Introducing survival analysis to study the effects of gender typing on the time of withdrawal from sport practice: A 3-year study[END_REF][START_REF] Marsh | Multidimensional self-concepts, masculinity, and femininity as a function of women's involvement in athletics[END_REF][START_REF] Matteo | The effect of sex and gender-schematic processing on sport participation[END_REF][START_REF] Salminen | Sex role and participation in traditionally inappropriate sports[END_REF], females high in femininity would be anticipated to be more likely to decide to discontinue a stereotypically masculine sport such as handball in order to maintain a feminine self-image in relation to prevailing cultural norms of femininity. In contrast, females high in masculinity would be anticipated to be more likely to decide to continue their practice of handball.

The second model represents a fully mediated (FM) model which allows for simultaneous examination of the two first requirements for the mediation (see above). It is hypothesized that girls' gender role orientations (the independent variables) are linked to both of the motivational variables (the mediators) which, in turn, are related to players' intention to dropout (the dependent variable). According to the [START_REF] Eccles | Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors[END_REF] model, we anticipated that participants high in femininity would perceive themselves to be less competent than those individuals high in masculinity, in activities which are more commonly gender stereotyped as masculine, such as team handball. On the other hand, if a particular achievement activity is not congruent with an individual's gender role it is anticipated that the subjective task value of the activity would also be low. In other words, females high in femininity should perceive less value in team handball participation than those females high in masculinity because the activity is perceived to be less consistent with their gender identity.

In sum, when girls are involved in team handball, a stereotypically masculine activity, we hypothesized that (1) a high masculinity score should be more positively related to, and a high femininity score should be more negatively related to, an individual's perceptions of competence in team handball (Path A2) and the value that they perceive in engaging in this activity (Path A1); (2) in turn, the less value the players ascribe to the activity and the less confident they feel in their abilities, the stronger should be their intention to discontinue the activity (Paths B1 and B2, respectively).

The third model represents a partially mediated (PM) model in which an additional path was added to the FM model between the girls' gender role orientation and their dropout intention (Path C). This model allows us to see if path C is reduced, or is near zero, when Paths A and B have been controlled for, thereby testing the third requirement for the mediation effect.

We anticipated that intention to discontinue an activity represents the key proximal predictor of dropout behavior in relation to previous research in the attitude literature, particularly those studies carried out in the field of leisure [START_REF] Ajzen | Application of the theory of planned behavior to leisure choice[END_REF], sport (e.g., [START_REF] Sarrazin | Motivation and dropout in female handballers: A 21-month prospective study[END_REF] and exercise involvement (see [START_REF] Hausenblas | Applications of the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior to exercise behavior: A meta-analysis[END_REF], for a review). To check this postulate, ancillary analyses will be performed in order to examine if gender role orientations and/or motivational variables are possibly directly related to the actual behavior.

The three models were tested using an 8-month prospective design and structural equation modeling (SEM). SEM allows for the examination of hypothesized relations among all of the constructs involved in a model, using a latent representation of those constructs that is not biased by the presence of error in the indicators (see [START_REF] Maccallum | Applications of structural equation modelling in psychological research[END_REF].

Method

Participants

This study is part of a four-year multi-wave longitudinal project on teenaged girls' sport attrition processes (Sarrazin & Guillet, 2002) which began in spring 1998. Teenaged girls were recruited through their sport clubs each year over a period of four years. The present study used data collected during the final wave of data collection. The sample consisted of 333 female team handball players between the ages of 13 and 15 years (M age = 14.08 years, SD = 0.80 years.).

All players were regular participants in local and regional competitions and leagues. Participants represented 56 sport clubs located in the southeast of France.

Measures

Feminine and Masculine Role Orientation. Players completed the French short version of the Bem Sex Role Inventory [START_REF] Fontayne | The Bem Sex-Role Inventory: Validation of a short-version for French teenagers[END_REF]. The Bem Sex Role Inventory has been considered to be an appropriate means for the examination of gender-typed behaviors because it does not adhere to previously popular bipolar views of masculinity and femininity but rather considers these gender characteristics to be bidimensional in that individuals can be high or low on each. Elaborated from the original Bem scale, this questionnaire measures only the features that seem constitutive of the masculinity (M) and femininity (F) orientations of French teenagers of today. Indeed, societal changes have contributed to variations in the attributes that are currently considered to be characteristic of M and F. [START_REF] Auster | Masculinity and femininity in contemporary American society: A reevaluation using the Bem Sex Role Inventory[END_REF] observed, for example, that feminine traits of greater current importance seem more reflective of sensitivity and compassion rather the dependency or subservience focus of years past.

The tool is an 18-item questionnaire hierarchically ordered to assess gender role orientation in terms of two higher order factors, labeled F and M, and five lower order factors, two assessing the F dimension, and three assessing the M dimension. F dimensions consist of items reflecting tenderness (5 items, e.g., "I am affectionate"), and sensitivity to others (5 items, e.g., "I am always ready to listen to others"). M dimensions consist of items reflecting assertiveness (3 items, e.g., "I am forceful"), leadership (3 items, e.g., "I act as a leader"), and self-confidence (2 items, e.g., "I am self-confident"). Ratings were made on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (never true) to 7 (always true). In this study, the scales demonstrated acceptable Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients of .85 and .76 for F and M scales, respectively.

Although the BSRI has often been used to classify participants into various gender role categories (e.g., "androgynous" or "undifferentiated") via methods such as median splits performed on subscale scores, this approach is inherently weak, throwing away much systematic variance in the M and F responses, and has been broadly criticized (e.g., [START_REF] Marsh | Differentiated additive androgyny model: Relations between masculinity, femininity and multiple dimensions of self-concept[END_REF].

Consequently, following the recommendations of several authors (e.g., [START_REF] Marsh | Differentiated additive androgyny model: Relations between masculinity, femininity and multiple dimensions of self-concept[END_REF] M and F scales were treated as continuous variables (i.e., participants received an overall score and were not classified into specific group) in the current investigation.

Subjective activity value. The participants completed the French version of the scale of subjective activity value [START_REF] Sarrazin | Construction et validation de l'Echelle de la[END_REF]. This scale was translated from the activity value scale of [START_REF] Eccles | Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors[END_REF]. It contains four items which assess perceived utility value (e.g., "I think I will be able to use what I learn in handball in other domains of my life"), two items that assess perceived attainment value (e.g., "It's important for me to perform at a good level in handball"), and four items that assess the intrinsic value of the activity (e.g., "I find the game very exciting"). Previous research [START_REF] Sarrazin | Construction et validation de l'Echelle de la[END_REF] has indicated the presence of the three hypothesized factors, and a second-order factor analysis revealed that the three factors are correlated and comprise a single factor. In this study, this scale possessed adequate internal consistency (Cronbach α =.81).

Competence beliefs. Competence beliefs are defined as the player's perception of her current competence at the target activity, in this case team handball competence [START_REF] Eccles | Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors[END_REF][START_REF] Wigfield | Expectancy-Value theory of achievement motivation[END_REF]. Four items were included on the scale (e.g., "I feel that I am better than my teammates"). Responses to these different items were rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not all in agreement) to 7 (completely in agreement). This scale had a Cronbach alpha level of internal consistency of .81.

Behavioral Intention. The participants answered five questions (based on the work of [START_REF] Ajzen | Application of the theory of planned behavior to leisure choice[END_REF], which assessed their future intention regarding their perceptions of their likelihood to discontinue handball participation, on a scale ranging from (1) not at all to (7) definitely, (e.g., "Are you determined to continue handball?"). This scale used reverse scoring in certain instances (e.g., "Have you seriously planned to stop handball participation yet"). In this study, internal consistency proved to be satisfactory (Cronbach α = .87).

Procedure

Toward the middle of one team handball season, the participants received the questionnaire by mail with a stamped return envelope. An accompanying letter explained the purpose of the study, and it was clearly stated to participants that anonymity and confidentiality of their answers would prevail at all times. Eight months later, at the beginning of the following season, we contacted the French Federation of Handball to establish a list of female handball players who did not re-enroll in any handball club. Through these procedures a total of 74 dropout players and 259 persistent players were identified.

Results

Data Analysis

Two main types of analyses were conducted. The first type was a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), which assessed the differences between the persistent and dropout players on the set of measured variables. The second analysis involved structural equation modeling (LISREL 8.30, Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1996) in order to test the relationships among the variables as hypothesized in the three models of Figure 1.

To investigate the issue of mediation, the requirements advocated by [START_REF] Baron | The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations[END_REF] were carefully examined (see above). Moreover, a chi-square difference test between the PM and an FM models was carried out to see whether the global fit was improved by including path C (i.e., the path between gender role orientation and intention). The PM and FM models were directly compared (see [START_REF] Tabachnick | Using multivariate statistics[END_REF].

Descriptive statistics and preliminary analyses

Means and standard deviations for the players who persisted and those who discontinued participation are presented in Table 1. A MANOVA was conducted with type of player (dropout vs. persistor) as the independent variable and subjective activity value, perceived competence, femininity and masculinity orientations and intention to dropout as dependent variables. Results revealed a significant effect for type of player, Wilks' lambda = .75, Rao's R (5, 327) = 21.07, p < .0001. Follow-up univariate analysis (see Table 1) revealed a player by type main effect for subjective activity value, F (1, 331) = 21.19, p < .001, perceived competence, F (1, 331) = 6.48, p = .01, and intention to dropout, F (1, 331) = 100.1 p < .001. The persistent players reported higher subjective handball value and perceived competence, and lower intention to withdraw than those who dropped out. A main effect was also found for type of player in relation to the masculinity dimension, F (1, 331) = 5.30, p = .02. In this regard, the persistent players had higher masculinity scores than did the dropout players. Finally, as shown in Table 1, there was no significant player main effect for femininity scores (p > .05).

Comparison of Structural Models

The hypothesized relationships among the six variables were estimated and the three proposed models (see Figure 1) were tested using structural equation modeling. In light of the already large number of variables in the model, we decided to reduce it to keep the degrees of freedom of the model reasonable. In this regard, several item parcels, rather than all of the items on each construct were used (e.g., [START_REF] Bagozzi | A general approach to representing multifaceted personality constructs: Application to state self-esteem[END_REF]West, Finch, & Curran, 1995).

For constructs with several subscales (masculinity, femininity, and value) the score for each subscale was used as the manifest indicator of the underlying construct. For perceived competence and intention to dropout variables, the items from each construct were randomly aggregated into two parcels. For instance, the four items of perceived competence were grouped into two 2-item averaged scores via random splitting of the scales. Ultimately, the models (see Figure 2) included 12 manifest indicators constituting five latent variables: Femininity, Masculinity, subjective handball value, perceived competence, intention to dropout, and one observed variable representing actual dropout behavior (0= persistent, 1= dropped out) 1 .

Consistent with standard LISREL notation, observed variables are presented as rectangles, whereas latent variables are presented as circles. Because the variables were highly non-normal (tests of zero multivariate skewness = 8.64, p<. 0001 and zero multivariate kurtosis = 2.46, p < . 0001), PRELIS 2 [START_REF] Jöreskog | Prelis 2: User's reference guide[END_REF], a preprocessor of LISREL, was used to generate the polychoric correlation and its corresponding asymptotic covariance matrix [START_REF] Jöreskog | New developments in LISREL : Analysis of ordinal variables using polychoric correlations and weighted least squares[END_REF].

Both matrices were used as input for the LISREL 8 program [START_REF] Jöreskog | Lisrel 8: User's reference guide[END_REF] and analyzed by the Generally Weighted Least Squares (WLS) method of estimate [START_REF] Jöreskog | New developments in LISREL : Analysis of ordinal variables using polychoric correlations and weighted least squares[END_REF][START_REF] Jöreskog | Lisrel 8: User's reference guide[END_REF] 2 .

The following fit indices [START_REF] Bollen | Structural equations with latent variables[END_REF][START_REF] Hoyle | Writing about structural equation models[END_REF] were used to evaluate the adequacy of the proposed model: chi-square statistic (χ 2 ), goodness of fit (GFI; [START_REF] Jöreskog | Lisrel 8: User's reference guide[END_REF], comparative fit index (CFI; [START_REF] Bentler | Comparative fit indexes in structural models[END_REF], normed fit index (NFI; [START_REF] Bentler | Significance tests and goodness-of-fit in the analysis of covariance structures[END_REF], and root mean square residual (RMSR; [START_REF] Jöreskog | Lisrel 8: User's reference guide[END_REF]. For GFI, NFI and CFI values above .90 are considered satisfactory. For RMSR, values below .10 indicate a good fit of the model to the data.

With the exception of chi-square complicated by sample size: χ²(57, N = 333) = 146.98, p < .001, other goodness-of-fit indices revealed that the NM model presented an adequate fit to the data: GFI = .98, NFI = .97, CFI = .98, RMSR = .10. Masculinity (γ =-.85, p < .001) and Femininity (γ =.30, p < .01) significantly predicted girls' intention to dropout and accounted for 50 percent of its variance.

The FM model presented a better fit to the data, χ²(58, N = 333) = 141.46, p < .001, GFI = .98, NFI = .97, CFI = .99, RMSR = .08. Structural, measurement coefficients, explained variance for each constructs, and residual variance for each observed variable are displayed in Figure 2. The results revealed that masculinity orientation had a positive influence on perceived competence (γ =.98, p < .001) and subjective handball value (γ =.85, p < .001). On the other hand, femininity orientation was negatively related to perceived competence (γ =-.44, p = .029) but not with the value of the activity (γ =-.13, p = .31) 3 . In turn, the lower the perceived competence and value, the higher was the future intention to dropout of handball (β =-.10, p = .05 and β = -.74, p < .001, respectively). Finally, these intention was directly linked to dropout behavior (λ = .70, p < .001) . This model accounted for 62 percent of the variance of girls' intention to dropout.

The PM model presented an adequate fit to the data: χ²(56, N = 333) = 136.84, p< .001, GFI = .98, NFI = .97, CFI = .99, RMSR = .08. Nevertheless, girls' gender role orientation did not predict dropout intention (Path C; γ = .40, p = .10 and γ = .07, p = .45, respectively for Masculinity and Femininity). The comparison between the PM and FM models suggested that the addition of Path C did not significantly improve the fit [∆χ 2 (2) = 4.60, p =.10], hence the simplest model (i.e., the FM model) should be preferred.

Inspection of the relevant parameters indicated that the three criteria for mediation listed by [START_REF] Baron | The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations[END_REF] were fully achieved: (1) Masculinity predicted subjective value and perceived competence (i.e., Paths A1 and A2) and Femininity predicted perceived competence (i.e., Path A2); (2) subjective value and perceived competence were linked to the intention to dropout (i.e., Paths B1 and B2); and (3) the direct paths (i.e., C) from Femininity and Masculinity to intention to dropout were nonsignificant when Paths A and B were controlled for (ps ≥ .10, in the PM model), whereas these paths were significant (p <.01) when the Paths A and B were removed (in the NM model).. Ancillary analyses were carried out to test the possibility that perceived competence and subjective value and/or masculinity and femininity directly predicted the actual dropout behavior.

The results showed that none of these paths were significant. In other words, and in line with other previous researches (e.g., [START_REF] Ajzen | Application of the theory of planned behavior to leisure choice[END_REF]Sarrazin et al., 2002), intention constituted the key proximal predictor of behavior in this study.

Discussion

Sport involvement clearly has a positive and pervasive influence on numerous life domains, including physical health, psychological well-being, and self-esteem [START_REF] Martinsen | Exercise and mental health in clinical and freeliving populations[END_REF]. Consequently, it is important to attempt to maximize the opportunities to practice sport activities for children, adolescents, and adults. At the same time, adolescents, especially females, have been identified as a special social group at risk for compromised health due to their declining level of physical activity during adolescence [START_REF] Gould | Understanding attrition in children's sport[END_REF][START_REF] Russel | Youth sport in New Zealand[END_REF][START_REF] Sallis | Physical activity guidelines for adolescents: a consensus statement[END_REF][START_REF] Wankel | Canada[END_REF].

The aim of this study was to test a model grounded in the [START_REF] Eccles | Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors[END_REF] expectancyvalue framework, which proposed to examine the influence of various motivational variables and gender role orientation characteristics in order to explain the attrition phenomenon in a stereotypically male sport practice like team handball. This model posits that gender role orientations are linked to perceived competence in handball and the perceived value of this activity, which, in turn, are related to behavioral intention, a proximal predictor of dropout behavior. Results from this prospective study provided some support for this hypothesized framework. First of all we will discuss the links between gender role orientations and dropout from a stereotypically masculine activity and then focus on the mediating role of the motivational variables in the model.

Gender role orientation effects

Many social activities are sex-typed [START_REF] Maccoby | Le sexe, catégorie sociale. [Gender as a social category[END_REF] and sport doesn't make exception to this sexual marking. Adherence to one's gender role may be so central to an individual that merely knowing, even at subconscious level, that a particular activity is stereotypically gender marked may be sufficient to prevent further consideration of participation in that activity [START_REF] Eccles | Gender differences in sport involvement: Applying the Eccles and al. model[END_REF]. As a consequence, it was hypothesized that adolescent girls with a high femininity level would be inclined to dropout of a stereotypically masculine sport. In contrast, adolescent females with a high masculinity score would be anticipated to be more inclined to practice this sort of sport for a longer period of time, because it was more consistent with their gender role. The findings partially conform with these hypotheses because the players who continued their handball participation the following season were higher on masculinity orientation than the ones who dropped out. This result is congruent with other studies that have found female athletes to have higher masculinity orientations than nonparticipants, particularly in team sports [START_REF] Colley | Sex-role identity, personality and participation in team and individual sports by males and females[END_REF][START_REF] Colley | Attitudes of the female sex-role and sex-typing of physical activities[END_REF][START_REF] Gill | Gender and sport behavior[END_REF][START_REF] Guillet | If it contradicts my gender role, I'll stop!": Introducing survival analysis to study the effects of gender typing on the time of withdrawal from sport practice: A 3-year study[END_REF]. Nevertheless, femininity was not related to dropout.

The motivational mediators of the model

The model we tested posited that gender role orientation is linked to the intention to discontinue sport participation indirectly, as mediated by two motivational variables hypothesized by Eccles and her colleagues (e.g., 1983): an individual's perceived competence and the value that they assign to an activity. Three SEM models were tested in order to carefully examine the requirements for the mediation effect proposed by [START_REF] Baron | The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations[END_REF]. The results support the mediational influence of the motivational variables. First, the SEM results of the FM model showed the positive and important influence of masculinity on the individual's subjective activity value and perceived competence in that individuals with a stronger masculinity orientation ascribed higher subjective value to handball participation and perceived themselves to be more competent in this activity. On the other hand, SEM revealed that femininity was negatively related to perceived competence. In this respect, players with a stronger female role orientation reported lower perceived competence. But, in contrast with our assumptions, the relation between femininity and subjective value was not significant. A first explanation for the finding is that the social cost of being a woman handballer, to whatever extent this may have been an issue in the past, is declining. It is possible that the good results of the French female team of handball since the beginning of 2000 (first in the World Championships and qualification for the Olympic Games) have modified the gender typing of this sport, in particular because of greater media coverage.

Additional studies are necessary to test this hypothesis.

It is also possible to explain this result using [START_REF] Marsh | Masculinity, femininity and androgyny: Their relations to multiple dimensions of self-concept[END_REF][START_REF] Marsh | Differentiated additive androgyny model: Relations between masculinity, femininity and multiple dimensions of self-concept[END_REF] differentiated additive androgyny model of self-concept-Masculinity/Femininity relations. This author has proposed that the relation of masculinity and femininity to several variables such as self-concept depends on the aspect of the variable that is being measured. Support for this model was found in [START_REF] Marsh | Differentiated additive androgyny model: Relations between masculinity, femininity and multiple dimensions of self-concept[END_REF] study, in which the positive contribution of masculinity was greater in those areas in which men had higher self-concept responses (e.g., perceptions of athletic abilities), and the contribution of femininity was more positive in the areas of self-concept in which women had higher self-concept responses (e.g., perceptions of relations with parents).

The results of our study fit with the differentiated additive androgyny model. They showed that the contribution of masculinity was greater than femininity in predicting the subjective value, perceived competence and persistence in a stereotypical male activity. In accordance with this model, femininity had only a very limited impact in the prediction of these same variables, insofar as it proved to be moderately negatively related to perceived competence, and was not correlated at all with value. Stronger support for the differentiated additive androgyny model applied to sport dropout would necessitate evidence that the contribution of femininity is more important than masculinity in predicting subjective value, perceived competence and persistence in a stereotypical female activity, particularly with a male sample. It would be worthwhile to conduct such a study in the future.

Secondly, the results revealed that higher perceptions of value, and to a lesser extent higher perceptions of competence, were negatively associated with athletes' intention to dropout. These findings are consistent with Eccles' predictions (see [START_REF] Eccles | Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors[END_REF][START_REF] Wigfield | The development of achievement task values: A theoretical analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Wigfield | Expectancy-Value theory of achievement motivation[END_REF], which presume that perceived competence and activity value are critical determinants of motivated behavior in achievement contexts. These authors have found that high subjective activity value and perceived competence influence perseverance in a physical activity (see also [START_REF] Eccles | Gender differences in sport involvement: Applying the Eccles and al. model[END_REF].

Thirdly, the comparison between a fully mediated and a partially mediated model shows that the mediation of motivational variables is complete, insofar as the direct paths between gender role orientations and intention to dropout were nonsignificant when the paths between motivational variables to intention were controlled for. Finally, our results suggest that intention to discontinue an activity represents the key proximal predictor of dropout behavior which is consistent with some previous research (e.g., [START_REF] Ajzen | Application of the theory of planned behavior to leisure choice[END_REF]Sarrazin et al., 2002) This study highlights the influence of motivational variables, particularly perceived competence and subjective value, on dropout intention. The more value the players ascribed to the activity and the higher their levels of competence, the lower were their intentions to discontinue practice of the sport. This study similarly suggested that gender role orientation had only a distal influence on actual dropout behavior through the influence of motivational variables in that players high in masculinity tended to perceive themselves as more competent and tended to more highly value the activity. Moreover, femininity orientation was negatively related to perceived competence in that the more the players had a stronger femininity orientation, the less they perceived themselves to be competent in the activity. Ultimately, the results of this study showed that the masculine gender orientation was particularly related to the handball withdrawal process among girls, with players low in masculinity more vulnerable to dropout from this activity. By contrast, the femininity orientation seems less strongly related to such an outcome. These findings are consistent with some previous studies (e.g., [START_REF] Marsh | Multidimensional self-concepts, masculinity, and femininity as a function of women's involvement in athletics[END_REF], which indicated that female competitive athletes are substantially higher in masculinity than are female nonathletes, whereas the two groups do not differ in terms of femininity.

Although the present results provided support for the proposed model, some limitations should be highlighted when interpreting these findings. First of all, as with all path analytic studies, these results must be interpreted cautiously, because it is always possible that a relevant variable was omitted (see, e.g., [START_REF] Judd | Data analyses: A model-comparison approach[END_REF]. Secondly, this study was limited to adolescent girls playing a stereotypically masculine activity. The extent to which these results generalize to adolescent girls participating in a stereotypical feminine activity or to adolescent males playing a stereotypical masculine or feminine activity are unknown and should be explored. Thirdly, Eccles and her colleagues [START_REF] Eccles | Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors[END_REF][START_REF] Eccles | Gender role stereotypes, expectancy effects, and parents' socialization of gender differences[END_REF]Wigflield & Eccles, 1992) have shown that beliefs and behaviors of significant others have an important influence on children's perceptions. A broader approach which would take into account the influence of other social agents (e.g., parents, coach, and peers) as well as media, on youngsters' beliefs would be beneficial as this would allow for a greater depth of understanding to the nature of gender role socialization as such socialization processes may affect motivation and continued sport involvement.

West, S. G., Finch, J. F., & Curran, P. J. (1995)

  . Structural equation models with nonnormal variables: Problems and remedies. In R. H. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation modeling: Concepts, issues and applications (pp. 56-75). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Young, I. M. (1990). Throwing like a girl and other essays in feminist philosophy and social theory. Bloomington. IN: Indiana University Press.

Figure caption Figure 1 .

 caption1 Figure caption Figure 1. Series of tested models. From top to bottom: non-mediated model (NM), fully mediated model (FM), and partially mediated model (PM).

Figure 2 .

 2 Figure 2. Structural equation model of the fully mediated model. Standardized solutions are presented. * p <.05 ** p <.001

Table 1

 1 Means (M) and standard deviations (SD) of dropout and persistent players on the different subscales.

		Persistent players	Dropout players
		(n=259)	(n=74)		F(1, 331)
	Subscales	M	SD	M	SD	p
	Femininity	5.44	0.85	5.49	0.91	.65
	Masculinity	4.55	0.89	4.27	0.99	.02
	Subjective Activity Value	5.52	0.82	5.00	0.95	<.001
	Perceived Competence	3.59	1.35	3.14	1.35	.011
	Intention to dropout	1.91	1.14	3.63	1.75	<.001

Note: Means differ significantly at p-value listed.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Professor Philippe Sarrazin, Laboratoire Sport et environnement social, UFR APS BP 53, Université Grenoble I, F-38041 Grenoble Cedex 9-France. E-Mail: philippe.sarrazin@ujf-grenoble.fr Footnotes 1 Dichotomous variables require special handling in SEM. Following the [START_REF] Jöreskog | Prelis 2: User's reference guide[END_REF] guidelines, we have specified in the PRELIS software that the dropout variable was a categorical variable. The categories of this variable were then converted in thresholds of the underlying (latent), normally distributed, continuous variable. SEM carried out by LISREL proceeds by using polyserial correlations rather than covariance procedures as the basis of the analysis so as to not violate the basic assumptions of SEM when a variable is not continuous.

2 WLS does not assume multivariate normality. However, it does require analysis of an asymptotic covariance matrix of the elements in the variance-covariance matrix, and the asymptotic covariance matrix requires a large sample to get stable estimates. [START_REF] Jöreskog | Prelis 2: User's reference guide[END_REF] defined the minimum sample size required for estimating asymptotic covariance matrix as k (k -1)/2 cases where k is the number of variables. In this study, the Jöreskog and Sörbom' s criteria of sample size was met (k = 13). This covariance matrix is available from the first author.

3 Additional analyses were also carried out to test if there was an interaction between masculine and feminine gender role orientations to predict both perceived competence and subjective activity value. To investigate this possibility, we performed hierarchical multiple regression analyses in which either perceived competence or subjective value was predicted from masculinity and femininity orientations (step 1) and then from the interaction terms between the two (step 2).

Following [START_REF] Aiken | Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions[END_REF]