“Futures—Past,” A Reflection of 40 Years of the Sociology of Sport Journal: An Introduction
Letisha Engracia Cardoso Brown, Chen Chen, Tomika Ferguson, Courtney Szto, Anthony Jean Weems, and Natalie Welch
Volume 16 (2023): Issue 4 (Dec 2023)
Volume 18 (2023): Issue 12 (Dec 2023)
Volume 31 (2023): Issue 6 (Dec 2023)
Volume 39 (2023): Issue 6 (Dec 2023)
Volume 17 (2023): Issue 4 (Dec 2023): JCSP Special Issue Burnout in Sport and Performance, Part 2
Volume 40 (2023): Issue 4 (Dec 2023): SPECIAL ISSUE “Futures—Past,”: Liberation, Futurity, Intersectionality, and Interdisciplinarity: Reading Sport, Physical Culture, and the (Physically Active) Body
Volume 37 (2023): Issue 4 (Dec 2023)
“Learn to Function in the System”: The Organizational Socialization of Urban Physical Educators
Colin G. Pennington, Galila Werber-Zion, and Tanya Prewitt-White
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how urban physical educators’ experiences influence their motivations toward vocational persistence emphasizing health and fitness. Methods: Participants included 16 urban physical educators who participated in semistructured interviews about their experiences teaching in urban settings. For minority youths, who predominantly attend urban public schools, fitness rates are lower than the national average. Physical education has been discussed as a potential solution to combating this public health trend; however, considering Common Core reforms in public education by which health and physical education has been de-emphasized as a curricular requirement, scholars are pursuing knowledge of how the experiences of urban physical educators are evolving. Using occupational socialization as the operating theoretical framework, this study seeks to explore how 16 urban physical educators’ experiences are evolving with the changes in public education, including administrative support and other indicators of marginalization and attrition. Results: Qualitative data analysis resulted in the construction of six themes which suggest that teaching students to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle remains a powerful motivator for urban physical educators’ persistence despite feelings of marginalization and burnout. Conclusions: The authors provide practical suggestions for practitioners and scholars to overcome feelings of marginalization and lack of resources.
