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There has been a growing trend in examining how life skills can be developed through sport programs (Danish, 2002). Four components of life skills central to the current study were interpersonal communication, problem solving, health maintenance, and identity development (Darden & Gazda, 1996). The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of participation in Girls on Track (GOT), a sport-based life-skills program, to the effects of participation in soccer programs and the Girl Scouts. The GOT program is a running program intended to teach girls physical, personal, and social skills. Nineteen girls from the three programs were interviewed individually. Results revealed that all four components of life skills emerged from the interviews with GOT participants. In comparison, only three components emerged for the other two programs. These data suggest that the GOT program may be more successful in delivering life skills compared to the soccer and Girl Scouts programs.

High-quality mentoring is a vital component of graduate education that leads to degree completion. For many students and faculty members, the traditional model of mentorship based on a fixed hierarchy is no longer viable because of the increasing complexity of higher education, diversification of graduate student career paths, and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the success of our students and graduate programs, it is essential that kinesiology leaders place renewed effort on supporting the mentoring relationship through departmental strategies. Effective mentoring can assist students in feeling competent, autonomous, and connected with others. The purpose of this paper is to explore the three components of a contemporary model of mentorship—transparent socialization, mutually shared expectations, and the student as a whole individual.

This study examines how women’s flat-track roller derby transcends traditional feminist models of sport and reflects contradictory third-wave feminist ideologies. The authors propose a third-wave feminist model of sport that reflects a mix of contradictory third-wave social justice and (post)feminist ideologies, such as individualistic dynamics of gendered and sexual expression, gender maneuvering, inclusiveness, concern for social justice, commercialization, spectacle, and stealth feminism. Using a qualitative content analysis of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association league web sites, the authors apply the model to investigate how and to what extent the new derby reflects their model. This analysis yields four interrelated themes: (1) stealth feminism through alternative sport, (2) social justice and inclusiveness, (3) rebelling and reflecting identity performances, and (4) violent action chicks. The study concludes by exploring implications of the third-wave model of sport and women’s flat-track roller derby for the transformation of sport and the empowerment of women.

Over the past decade, a growing number of scholars in sport psychology and sport sociology have begun forging inter- and transdiciplinary research lines that attempt to follow Ingham, Blissmer, and Wells Davidson’s (1998) call for a coming together of the sport sociological and sport psychological imaginations. This paper presents the results of a thematic analysis of the stories of five early-to midcareer academics who have lived at/through the boundaries of these two sub disciplines of Kinesiology. Following an introduction in which we attempt to situate the two subdisciplines within the larger field of Kinesiology, we present a thematic analysis of the five individual stories, and attempt to tie them to the politicized boundaries and related spaces of tensions faced by those wishing to do the kind of interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary work advocated recently by the emerging areas of cultural sport psychology (CSP) and physical cultural studies (PCS).