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The health and physical activity (PA) needs of people living with disabilities are underserved and understudied. This article provides an overview of research on PA and health research in people with disabilities. Research gaps and inequities are highlighted, along with their impact on advancing the fundamental rights of people with disabilities to fully participate in PA. The importance of translational PA research to disability communities is described. We provide case studies from two lines of PA and disability research that have been moved along the translational spectrum and into practice. The article concludes with three calls to action to kinesiology research and practitioners: (a) to include people with disabilities in research; (b) to advocate for adequate resources and support in alignment with equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts; and (c) to work in meaningful partnership with people with disabilities to support translational research programs that have real-world impacts.

This paper begins with the premise that the purpose of physical education is to help young people grow personal and durable playgrounds. That is, its goal is to allow students in schools to develop the skills and understandings about various movement topics to the extent that they can engage with these in deep and meaningful ways long after their lessons in the gymnasium have concluded. The paper presents a schematic that links how a physical education curriculum should be framed with the necessary ingredients of high-quality teaching to allow for successful forays into various movement cultures. The next section includes a justification of the schema using the very best of research in sport pedagogy that has been translated into school physical education settings. Two specific grand adventures that are the vehicles for creating enduring playgrounds are presented, these being sport education and student-designed games.

In the past decade and a half, scientific discoveries brought to light the prospect that tackle football causes serious brain trauma. This raised questions about the sport’s ethical permissibility. By employing scientific, philosophical, sociological, and historical findings, I consider whether it is ethically defensible to permit adults to play the game. My approach works within the bounds of both the ethical theory of liberalism and incorporates several sociological theories focused on gender. I propose that external cultural influences deserve some credit for shaping decisions to participate in America’s most popular spectator sport and contend that societies must establish genuinely pluralistic and inclusive gender ideologies and structures to ensure football’s permissibility. In particular, I suggest that to ensure that tackle football is ethical for adults, the presence and prominence of gender pluralism and inclusivity in youth settings are necessary.

In this expository paper, we reflect upon our understanding of how disabled people are discussed and treated in kinesiology and adapted physical activity in higher education and explore potential areas of unintentional harm that may be present in our everyday practice. There are three particular aspects of kinesiology in higher education that we discuss: access, language, and assessment. We discuss the challenges of access of disabled people in positions in higher education, language in higher education which serves as centers for knowledge creation, and the problematic nature of assessments based on societal norms, and for us, it is important to shine a spotlight on the many systemic limitations and barriers that disabled persons experience, in hope to amplify the importance of these issues.

Meritocracy continues to dominate conventional thinking in the postmodern West. Yet, recently, an increasing number of critics have highlighted how meritocracy has gone wrong. One such critic is Daniel Markovits, author of The Meritocracy Trap. In this article, we highlight the major themes of Markovits’s book, identify how the ideology of meritocracy has infiltrated kinesiology and sport, and then propose how to reconceptualize and redirect kinesiology toward a more humane and morally sound discipline, which can avoid the pitfalls of the meritocracy trap. Most notably, we propose that kinesiology should (a) recognize the frailty and temporality of humans, (b) embrace the wide middle of human skill performance capabilities, (c) value mid-level jobs and occupations such as physical education teaching and YMCA and/or city recreation department positions, and (d) redefine what counts as success.

Community engagement creates evidence-based, experiential learning opportunities for kinesiology programs seeking to enhance student experiences through meaningful connections. We argue that increasing community engagement through hands-on experiential learning opportunities should serve as a model for effectively creating a stronger sense of belonging among kinesiology students. Two cases explore kinesiology program initiatives at private universities emphasizing activist learning models with established community-service pedagogy. Both cases conceptualize research activities, including the design and implementation phases, as well as relevant outcomes developed on the respective campuses. We discuss how experiential learning and community engagement enable students’ sense of belonging and improve student engagement outcomes for kinesiology programs.