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Volume 13 (2024): Issue 4 (Nov 2024): 2024 American Kinesiology Association Leadership Workshop: Addressing Social Justice Imperatives—Exemplars of Inclusive Excellence

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No “Failures of Kindness”

David K. Wiggins

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A Multilevel Model to Explain the Opportunities for and Experiences of LGBTQ+ People in Elite American Football

George B. Cunningham, Kelsey M. Garrison, and Umer Hussain

American football holds immense cultural significance, from its impressive youth participation rates to the coverage of professional football. However, the reach of American football extends beyond cultural significance, as societal values and norms are frequently mimicked or even amplified in major sport settings. American football is a context that highlights the privileges of heterosexuality and cisgender people, effectively discouraging people from disclosing their lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) status. Because LGBTQ+ inclusion has received less attention in the American football context, and bias against LGBTQ+ people is common in sport, this paper aimed to explore LGBTQ+ inclusion in American football. Drawing on our related scholarship in this area, we present a multilevel framework, highlighting macrolevel (i.e., societal), mesolevel (i.e., organizational), and microlevel (i.e., individual) factors that shape LGBTQ+ inclusion in American football. The discussion includes strategies to implement LGBTQ+ inclusion in American football, as well as a call for further research.

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Abolishing Amateurism: Reimagining the Future of U.S. College Football

Kirsten Hextrum and Howard Croom III

Recently, college athletes have won new rights to their name, image, and likeness; to educational benefits; to transfer; and to earn compensation based on the revenue their labor produces. Using critical race theories, we review the desegregation of college football alongside the legal protections for National Collegiate Athletic Association amateurism, as it was practiced from the 1950s through recent days. We argue that such amateurism still structures a racialized property relationship that grants ontological, monetary, and educational benefits to white stakeholders at the expense of Black football players. Throughout, we offer legal and historical insights about the limitations of the law for social change. We conclude with suggestions to dismantle amateurism and establish a labor market for college football players through which athletes can secure just compensation and workplace protections.

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Abolition or Reform? A Review of Historical Perspectives on Football Safety From the 1890s to 1950s and How They Shape Youth Football Debates Today

Kathleen Bachynski

This essay provides a synthesis of secondary literature and primary sources to trace debates about football’s safety and value. It examines ideas from the Progressive Era to the 1950s and shows that such perspectives inform how the American public grapples with increasing research on the risks of repetitive brain trauma and the acceptability of football for younger children in the 21st century. Whether football’s risks were celebrated as inherently good, treated as short-term nuisances that could be minimized through safety reforms, or decried as long-term calamities preventable only by abolishing the sport has always depended on deeply contested social values that remain in tension and unresolved.

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“One Day . . . It Won’t Be a Big Story”: Analyzing the Media Response to Female National Football League Coaches

Katie Taylor

In 2015, Dr. Jen Welter became the first woman to coach in the National Football League (NFL). Other female coaches followed. Yet, sports-studies scholars know little about the media’s response to these football pioneers. This paper presents critical themes on how popular media discussed female coaches by analyzing the hiring announcements of four women who coach or have coached in the NFL. Utilizing a critical feminist lens, this paper demonstrates that media outlets reproduced conventional media tropes by reassuring readers that women have the requisite knowledge, trivializing women’s achievements, underscoring the need for male player support, emphasizing appearance, and permitting sexist comments. However, it is evident that online publishers are simultaneously making progress. In most cases, the articles represented the coaches in ways that differ from how female athletes have been historically depicted. This research reveals nonlinear and incremental progress toward gender equality in football.

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Addressing Social Justice and Equity Imperatives: Exemplars of Inclusive Excellence

Jared A. Russell and Timothy A. Brusseau

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Context, Climate, and Red Tape: Considerations for Social-Justice Curriculum Development in Kinesiology

Karen Lux Gaudreault, Victoria Shiver, Martin Vasquez, Sean Fullerton, and Luis Sanchez Martinez

Curricula grounded in social justice are vital in higher education, including kinesiology programs. The United States has seen continued increases in diversity, with education consistently displaying poor representation of historically marginalized groups. The purpose of this paper is to offer three elements that kinesiology programs should consider when aiming to successfully engage in developing social-justice curricula: context, climate, and “red tape.” We define and describe each element and how it influences our approach to curriculum development and provide specific examples from our work in the University of New Mexico Physical Education Teacher Education program to illustrate practical implementation. We argue that social-justice curriculum development is required to prepare young professionals to enter the field with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to meet the needs of diverse communities.

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Modern Pain Science and Alexander Technique: How Might Alexander Technique Reduce Pain?

Mari Hodges, Rajal G. Cohen, and Timothy W. Cacciatore

This article brings together research from the fields of pain science and Alexander Technique (AT) to investigate the mechanisms by which AT helps reduce pain. AT is a cognitive embodiment practice and a method for intentionally altering habitual postural behavior. Studies show that AT helps with various kinds of pain, although the mechanisms of pain reduction are currently not well understood. Advances in pain science may give insight into how this occurs. Modern interventions with efficacy for improving pain and function are consistent with active approaches within kinesiology. They also share similarities with AT and may have common mechanisms such as learning, mind–body engagement, normalization of sensorimotor function, improvement of psychological factors, and self-efficacy, as well as nonspecific treatment effects. AT likely has additional unique mechanisms, including normalization of muscle tone, neuronal excitability, and tissue loading, as well as alterations to body schema, attention redirection, and reduction in overall reactivity.

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Bridging The Gap: Promoting Faculty Diversity to Align With Student Demographics

Moh H. Malek, Melissa A. Mache, Gerald J. Jerome, Matthew W. Miller, and Christopher A. Aiken

In many kinesiology and health care science departments in the United States, there is a mismatch between the demographic composition of the student population and the faculty cohort. That is, although student populations are more diverse, the faculty cohort does not reflect this same diversity. The purpose of this paper is threefold: (a) Provide background information on the faculty–student mismatch, (b) discuss reactive strategies to increase diversity among a faculty cohort, and (c) discuss proactive strategies to increase diversity among a faculty cohort. Our approach is pragmatic and concise, which will give the reader various strategies they can incorporate to increase diversity in their faculty cohort.