A longstanding fact in college sports in the United States (U.S.) is the reality that inequities, inequalities, and discrimination have been major issues preventing institutions from fostering harmonious diversity and inclusion. Several reasons for these persistent outcomes include the prevalence of implicit bias, homologous reproduction, hegemonic, and toxic masculinity/patriarchy, colorblind racism, and abstract liberalism to name a few. In addition, multi-level factors (macro-, meso-, and micro-) also influence the existence and salience of negative organizational cultures and climates particularly for groups that are underrepresented and marginalized in society. Despite the fact several leadership styles have been enacted and numerous policy reforms have been adopted over the years, inequities in representation, occupational mobility, position retention, and quality of experiences persist along racial and gender lines. As a result, the purpose of this manuscript is to offer innovative transformational leadership approaches that incorporate anti-racism, anti-sexism, and culturally responsive stances toward achieving true equity and inclusiveness in sport. Using interdisciplinary theories such as the anti-racism framework and culturally responsive leadership, this manuscript presents a paradigm shift for college sport leadership with the intent of cultivating paramount experiences for people across diverse backgrounds.
Service learning has been recognized as a high-impact educational practice that promotes students’ development of civic engagement and social justice outcomes. However, service-learning courses are not guaranteed to foster social justice outcomes and may perpetuate the very biases and stereotypes that social justice education is designed to counter. In addition, there is a lack of research assessing service-learning courses in sport management that are being used to promote a more critical form of social justice education rather than the mere awareness of social disparities. This article explores the ways in which an intentionally designed social justice service-learning course can potentially lead sport management students toward more equitable perceptions of service relationships. The research team analyzed reflection papers (N = 40) from students who each participated in one semester of the service-learning course across nine consecutive semesters. The following themes emerged from the data: charity-oriented relationship, social justice-oriented relationship, reciprocity, and a critique of paternalism. The findings in this study extend current sport management service-learning research by revealing how a social justice service-learning course can foster a more critical understanding of service through critical discussions, specific readings, critical reflection, and service activities.
Sport management classrooms prepare practitioners and decision makers to work in Sport for Development (SfD). A core issue within SfD is a lack of critical racial reflexivity, particularly with racially White professionals, which maintains inequitable power structures and keeps SfD programs from reaching their intended goal of facilitating positive outcomes. This study, informed by critical Whiteness studies, aimed to understand how White undergraduate sport management students critically reflected upon race while participating in an SfD service-learning course. Analyzing written reflections completed in the course, we found that students utilized Race Evasiveness and Race Explicitness, despite course content and SfD practice explicitly focused on race. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
The purpose of this study was to examine the elite youth and high school baseball socialization process as a whole and the role of professionalization and corporatization in this process. The unique nature of baseball’s development model in the United States (U.S.), through a dual-track feeder system (college or minor leagues) allows for a wide-range of challenges and sociological factors to influence elite youth and high school prospects. Understanding players’ experiences exposes these challenges and sociological factors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four former elite youth and high school baseball players, one parent of a player, two coaches, and two media members. Using Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological systems theory, the authors examined multi-level sociological factors contributing to participants’ socialization experiences. Key findings revealed corporate-level factors including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) bylaws, Major League Baseball’s (MLB) collective bargaining agreement (CBA), and related commercialized changes in elite youth and high school baseball had a pronounced influence on baseball players’ socialization processes. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.
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