The purpose of this dissertation was threefold: (1) to expand the body of literature on facilitators and barriers to African-American girls' participation in sport; (2) to ensure that the girls' own voices remain an essential part of the story; and, (3) to give girls the skills and empower them to be agents of change in their communities. In order to achieve these goals, a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) framework using the PhotoVoice method was employed. YPAR is a methodological approach to positive youth and community development based in social justice in which young people are trained to conduct systematic research to improve their own lives, the lives of their community members and promote or instigate change to the problems they identified. PhotoVoice is a participatory method which sends youth out into their communities with cameras to document their lived experiences. The narratives surrounding these photos are then used to promote dialogue about community assets, social issues and issues of access and barriers. For this project, a girl's sport leadership council in Detroit were given cameras to document their experiences in sport and physical activity in the Detroit community. The girls participated in focus groups over the course of 12 weeks to discuss their photos and identify ways that key figures in the community can address issues they have identified. Finally, the project culminated with the girls presenting their findings to decision-makers at Detroit PAL, funders and parents. Results of the study revealed that girls participated in sport for a variety of reasons including achieving a sense of personal growth and development, forming friendships and connections with teammates and coaches and the sense of pride and connection to their city that participating in sport gave them. Facilitators of their sport participation were emotional and instrumental support from their families, and increased access to public recreation spaces in Detroit. Barriers included lack of facilities and general access to sport in middle school and high school, difficulty balancing academics and sport and perceived lack of community support for girls' sport. Finally, the participant's in this study identified reasons why they believed more girls were not interested in sport. Reasons they identified included incompatibility of sport with societal expectations of beauty and girl's not seeing sport as a viable activity due to overemphasis of boys' sport.In addition to identification of facilitators and barriers of sport participation depicted through the photos that the girls took, and Critical Race Theory and gender lens analysis of the data was also conducted. The girls in the study described a heightened awareness of their race when they were at predominantly White competitions or when they were members of predominantly White teams. During focus groups, the girls would often narrate their experiences through what they believed White people perceived them as. The girls also described times when they experience racial "micro-aggressions" and ways that that affected the ways they viewed White referees, competitors and teammates.
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