Nuanced Narratives (Asynchronous Session)
Featured Sports Injury and Athletic Identity: Impact of Traumatic Injury on an Athlete’s Psychological Wellbeing, Adherence to Sport, and Athletic Identity View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Christopher Castagno, Laurel Dacus
Athletic identity is an emerging field of study within sports psychology, and its impact is vital to improving the mental wellness and overall well-being of athletes before, during, and after their athletic careers. Previous research has shown that the identity of athletes and their association to being an athlete throughout their lives is extremely significant and a powerful contributor to how athletes seem themselves in the community and their adherence to sport. The stronger an athlete’s self-identification as an athlete and their embodiment to the role of an athlete within their community, showed statistical significance and improvement on their athletic performance. Furthermore, the ability to focus and channel pre-event/post-event meditation and performance flow during competition, also greatly increased their ability to perform on the field. One of the neglected areas of focus is how an athlete is mentally able to overcome an injury and how that translates into athletic identity and performance flow. The athlete’s ability to balance their physical and mental performance post injury varies greatly and the need for physicians, coaches, and trainers to treat the mental aspect of their athletes/patients is becoming more and more apparent. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how a traumatic sports injury effects an athlete’s psychological wellbeing, adherence to sport, and athletic identity.
Mediated Citizenship: The FIFA Statutes, National Identity, Mobility View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Daniele Iannucci
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) well documented changes to their national eligibility laws, that is, the requirements a player must meet in order to represent a given nation, were expanded during the 1990s and well into the 2000s, thus allowing players to more freely switch from one nation to another. Changes made to the 1994 statutes outline that a player who holds dual nationalities is committed to one association only when they participate in their first international match in an official competition for that association. Additionally, the 2004 statutes delineate that a player is free to change associations only if they have not played a match at the A international level for their current association. With the conditions for nation switching being contingent upon “official competitions” and “A international level” matches – both of which are televised and closely documented appearances – how might FIFA be implying their own form of mediated citizenship, a process that documents players as they exist in a variety of FIFA-sanctioned media, from television to the FIFA video game franchise? This paper explores the distinction between nationality (general belonging), citizenship (documented belonging), and mobility as their conditions are implemented, maintained, and enmeshed in the rapidly growing media landscape of international football between the mid-1990s and early 2000s.
Enhancing Socio-emotional Learning Through Culturally Responsive Movement-based Programs View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Keane Wheeler
There is urgent need to redress Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child health and development inequalities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child development is confounded by multiple factors, including underlying trauma from colonisation, dispossession, and instability related to cultural and socioemotional learning during the first 2000 days. A growing body of evidence, not yet tested with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, shows that fundamental movement skills (FMS) combined with socioemotional learning (SEL) incorporated into the Move2Smile program, builds learning capabilities and improves child development outcomes, to better prepare children for a meaningful life. Our project highlights the importance of co-design with community before community-controlled implementation and evaluation with an example of how the Move2Smile with Culture program was co-conceptualised in partnership with the Yarrabah Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in Australia. Our new program, Move2 Smile with Culture will centre around a movement-based program embedded with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing which will promote the cultural reflections of the curriculum. The key objective of this study is to explore co-designing the Move2Smile with Culture program through embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being, and doing using inclusive early learning practices.
Women in Sports: What Does the Presence of the Glass Ceiling Do to Career Development? View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sanjit Sudarsan
The purpose of this research is to conceptualize the effect of the glass ceiling on the career development of women in the sports industry. Gender equality issues must be spoken about and people should be educated on them to understand them. A systematic review using thematic literature review was conducted to obtain the theoretical background for the paper. Forty-three research papers in the field of career development, gender equality, and sports were examined. Findings reveal that the presence of the glass ceiling hinders women to move up the corporate ladder in sports. This causes a lack of representation of women employees in top management positions (decision-making roles.) The authors analyze the ceiling and provide possible solutions. The conceptual framework developed based on the literature review is called the WinS Holistic Analysis Model. This model is also vetted through fields outside of sports to inspect similar patterns of the ceiling. It is critical that women feel confident of an equal opportunity to reach top management positions. With the world looking to promote gender equality and efforts being taken to support that, it is essential now more than ever to highlight the ceiling and break that.
Exploring Race and Marginalization in the Sport Industry: Using Narrative to Interrogate Racialization in Canadian Sport Systems View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Richard Norman
Sport research related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (EDI) covers numerous areas of study, such as gender, race, age, sexuality, ability, and how those constructions affect notions of discrimination and marginalization. In addition, the year of 2020 reshaped conversations about EDI highlighting the violence against Black persons emphasized by the killing of George Floyd and ensuing Black Lives Matter protests, as well as contributing factors associated with the lockdown conditions of COVID-19 further exacerbating attention on those social issues. Scholarship largely centers on American sport systems (Hylton, 2009; Long & Hylton, 2002). In Canada, the focus centers on notions of multiculturalism (P Donnelly & Nakamura, 2006; Frisby, 2005; Kidd, 2013b) rather than ‘race’ in understanding ongoing inequity. By framing inequity through ‘race’ ongoing barriers to access and participation can be seen as an extension of ongoing anti-Blackness that informs Canadian sporting institutions. This paper offers insights from a study examining EDI within the Canadian sport industry. The study’s central research question is: “To what extent does the Canadian sport industry demonstrate principles of diversity, equity and inclusion; and to what effect are their corresponding values evident via policy and lived experiences?” The methodology uses narrative inquiry to analyze the rich, lived experiences of participants to offer insights into the systemic barriers affecting racialized persons within the sport systems and sport industry. The outcomes support senior leadership in affecting change through diversity programs in sport and the sport industry for those identifying as belonging to racialized and marginalized communities.
Can You Speak Football?: When the Senses of Belonging Matter more than the Country of Origin View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Marianna Pavan
Migration – both economic and forced – has significantly contributed to the change of European ethnic population composition over the past three decades. As a result, how to manage such a phenomenon has attracted the interest of academics, policy makers, and civil society. The major objective pursued has been the so-called social inclusion of migrants – especially asylum seekers and refugees. Sport has been considered one of the potential mediums to be used to avoid a “clash of civilisations” (Huntington, 1996) and foster social cohesion. Yet, there is no universally agreed definition of social inclusion and its indicators vary. Hence, in this study I critically assess the potential of football in engendering friendship and various senses of belonging for asylum seekers/refugees. The senses of belonging – albeit subjective and as a result, multifaceted – depict the standpoints and perceptions of migrants. Indeed, they do not rely on objective indicators. On the contrary, they express feelings and multiple identities that football has the potential to make dialogue. To elicit this purpose Street Soccer in Glasgow – a recreational football team made of local and international players – is taken as case study. The qualitative research carried out, gives voice to the players using semi-structured interviews. Finally, the paper outlines some of the determinants that render the sport plus project (Coalter, 2007) a positive agent of social change in asylum seekers’ and refugees’ lives.
The Spirit of Play: Fun and Freedom in the Professional Age of Sport View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sam Duncan
In Johan Huizinga’s most prolific study of play, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture he states that for play to be considered authentic, genuine and real it must be fun, free, spontaneous and creative. Huizinga believed that play ought to be separate from ordinary and real life with the outcomes of play baring little to no consequences beyond the play contest. While Huizinga acknowledged that play could be utterly absorbing it should only be serious within the contest itself and not thereafter. Yet given the serious, structured, commercialised nature of the professional sports industry how can Huizinga’s discussion of play be useful today? This paper highlights that even in the professional world of sport, Huizinga’s play characteristics still have an important role to play in ensuring professional athletes and teams can reach their full potential. Indeed, the confrontation between Huizinga and professional sport leads us to re-think Huizinga’s account of play. Using the Richmond Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL) as a case study, this paper highlights how making the club environment and playing the game as fun and free as possible assisted the Tigers in winning their first AFL Premiership for 37 years in 2017.
