Diversifying Kinesiology: Untapped Potential of Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Abstract

Increasing the involvement of African Americans in the field of kinesiology has been an ever present issue. While many colleges and universities are making attempts to diversify their undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty, many are finding this a difficult task due to the lack of minority undergraduate kinesiology majors pursuing advanced degrees. There is a body of evidence that suggests that kinesiology programs should find ways to recruit African American students to undergraduate and graduate programs as a basis for diversifying the field. The three related problems discussed in this article are: (a) how to attract quality African American physical education teacher education students to the field of kinesiology; (b) how to identify African American students with the potential to thrive in graduate level coursework; and (c) how to recruit exceptional African American students to participate in professional organizations, such as the National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education (NAKHE). Ultimately, I provide suggestions for recruiting African Americans to the field of kinesiology and ideas for involving them professionally in NAKHE.

Perspectives on exercise participation among Canadian university students

“…Research focused on the significance of physical education during college (Pate et al, 2011) has shed important light on the benefits of exercise in terms of societal engagement and health enhancing behaviour (Chiarenza et al, 2019; Kosma and Buchanan, 2018). In particular, this literature has been further advanced by sharing the perspectives of students from diverse ethno-cultural and socio-economic backgrounds (DiGiacinto, 2014; Morris-Paxton et al, 2017; Wippold et al, 2018). The growing literature highlights important barriers to exercise participation among less advantaged youth and young adults (Kosma and Cardinal, 2016; Lock et al, 1999; Myrick et al, 2016).…”

Kinesiology, Physical Activity, Physical Education, and Sports through an Equity/Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Lens: A Scoping Review

“…However, it is argued that kinesiology education is biased towards whiteness [88]. Furthermore, it is highlighted that, even though students are becoming more diverse on campus, that diversity does not necessarily reflect the students in kinesiology programs [97]. It is recommended that kinesiology programs, both graduate and undergraduate, should make an effort to recruit more diverse students [97].…”

“…Furthermore, it is highlighted that, even though students are becoming more diverse on campus, that diversity does not necessarily reflect the students in kinesiology programs [97]. It is recommended that kinesiology programs, both graduate and undergraduate, should make an effort to recruit more diverse students [97]. This need for diversity is addressed through the need for more ethnically diverse students, as well as more women in the faculty [98].…”

“…The existing literature suggests the possibilities of interdisciplinary collaborations on EDI between sports, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology, as well as other academic fields, where problems of marginalized groups, in the context of sports, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology, are noted, such as media studies [70][71][72], departments and programs that cover the global south [69], teacher education (including physical education teachers) [113,[118][119][120][121][144][145][146][147][149][150][151], and fields covering health, environmental design, and urban design [131][132][133][134][135]. EDI engagement by sports, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology could be used to engage with many social problems in the community linked to sports, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology, as well as problems flagged within university settings of sports, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology, such as group cohesion [73,74], identity formation [75], need for changing curricula [88,96,97], need for diversifying students and faculty [97,98], and need for questioning oppressive discourses and privileges [152].…”

African American pre-service physical education teachers’ learning about aquatic courses

“…According to Sato and Hodge (2012), HBCUs need to increase the number and proportion of African American teachers who can advocate for aquatic programmes. Boosting the number of African American teachers who understand aquatic culture and history in physical education (DiGiacinto, 2014) is imperative and has the potential to maximize student learning, motivation, and engagement in aquatic programmes (DiGiacinto, 2014). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to describe how African American pre-service physical education teachers engage themselves in learning aquatic content.…”