Sport psychologists work with athletes from a vast array of cultural backgrounds. Numerous factors comprise the cultural composition of both the client and the practitioner, including, though not necessarily limited to, ethnicity, socioeconomic background and status, race, socialization, sexual orientation, religion, gender, and geographic location. These intersecting and often deeply ingrained personal variables can certainly impact the nature of the therapeutic relationship, intervention strategies, and intervention outcomes with athletic clientele. Yet, while other domains of professional psychology have long embraced the integration of cultural aspects, the field of sport psychology has been slow to join the dialogue or to learn from these relevant sources. Therefore, this special issue of the Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology was conceptualized and constructed with the intention of opening these lines of discussion to help ensure that sport psychologists are gaining a comprehensive understanding of the athletes with whom they work, demonstrating respect for and integration of cultural constructs in the treatment room, and maintaining personal and professional self-awareness. As Co-Editors of this unique special issue, Drs. Robert Schinke and Zella Moore provide the present paper to begin this important dialogue. This paper sets the stage for six informative articles by leading professionals in their areas, including both theoretical articles and articles highlighting culturally informed direct service provision with athletes from around the world. We hope that this timely special issue leads to numerous additional questions, cutting-edge research ideas, and most importantly, an enhanced or renewed commitment from sport psychologists to integrate the concepts found within these pages, and those already found within the professional literature of mainstream psychology, into their daily work with athletes.
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Robert Schinke and Zella E. Moore
Alessandro Quartiroli, Justine Vosloo, Leslee Fisher, and Robert Schinke
The integration of cultural competence as a core competency (cf. Rodolfa, Bent, Eisman, Nelson, Rehm, & Ritchie, 2005 ) has encouraged psychology practitioners to recognize their clients as moving from being considered a “homogeneous group to [be] a mosaic of people with diverse customs and
Mário Borges, António Rosado, Babett Lobinger, Francisco Freitas, and Rita F. de Oliveira
Imagine a Portuguese football coach hired to manage an English Championship team. The team is owned by an American, and its players are of 16 different nationalities from four continents. Cultural diversity in European football has increased over the past few decades because of increased
Megan N. Sears, Dani M. Moffit, and Rebecca M. Lopez
Cultural competence (CC) is defined as a healthcare provider’s ability to understand and incorporate cultural differences to effectively provide medical services in a manner that respects the individual. 1 , 2 Culture is defined as an individual’s customs, beliefs, language, race, ethnicity
William D. Parham
The ascendance of cultural sport psychology as a concentrated focus of academic inquiry is timely, and emergent investigations therein represent welcome areas of scholarship. The invitation embedded in this forthcoming discussion to sport psychology researchers and practitioners to stretch beyond their comfort zones is being extended with a request to consider pursuing sport psychology research and practice with a “more of thee and less of me” mindset. The North Star goals articulated herein are to stimulate avant-garde and imaginative thinking by expanding the concepts of reflective practice and reflexivity, thereby creating a portal through which to see how perceived stumbling blocks to overcoming traditional approaches to the study of sport psychology can be transformed into stepping stones. Six premises provide the context within which this discussion is presented. Collectively, these premises support and raise caution about the scientific method and suggest that the time has come to rethink commonly held beliefs about color-blindness, melting pot formulations, and alleged-to-be-absent historical and contemporary cultural influences on in-the-moment interpersonal interactions. A context-sensitive across-cultures communication model is offered as a way of synthesizing the premises and creating a portal through which to enter into new domains of investigative inquiry. Implications for the future of sport psychology relative to research, practice, training, and consultation will be offered for consideration.
René Revis Shingles
Cultural competence is considered a foundational behavior of professional practice that “should be incorporated into instruction” ( National Athletic Trainers’ Association, 2011 , p. 3). Health care professionals are expected to demonstrate knowledge, skills, and abilities to understand customs
Dominic Malcolm
in the United Kingdom. The DFME should be understood as part of the cultural crisis around concussion, in which a growing number of sports across the globe have become subject to existential and axiological debates about the impact of sport practices on brain health ( Malcolm, 2020 ; see also
Sara B. Flory, Rebecca C. Wylie, and Craigory V. Nieman
only 49.7% of schoolchildren were White ( Strauss, 2014 ). The discrepancy between the cultural backgrounds of teachers and students in schools is likely to lead to incongruence among teachers’ and students’ viewpoints and experiences. This incongruence can undermine educational pursuits ( Ladson
John Valentine
national interest. However, research reveals that this decision was not necessarily made because it was in the national interest, but more so to assist the new struggling private television network, CTV. The important content, allegedly linked to cultural citizenship, was not the national championship, but
Miranda Brunett and René Revis Shingles
Clinical Scenario People from different cultures, races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, and other social locations have different beliefs about illness and different needs and preferences when it comes to receiving health care. Cultural competence in health care can generally be defined as the
