Search

This study builds on research that found a significant lack of racial diversity in Canadian university kinesiology programs. We extend previous findings by including the experiences of students who reveal how whiteness structures every aspect of their kinesiology education. We employ Critical Race Theory and theories of whiteness within a case study of eight kinesiology faculties in Canada. The mixed methods data collection included: (a) analysis of website photos and anti-racism documents to determine the perceived racial diversity and anti-racism priority; and (b) semi-structured interviews with five undergraduate students from one kinesiology program to analyze their experiences with whiteness. We found (1) white privilege was evident through an overrepresentation of white bodies among the professoriate, overlooking whiteness in research and teaching, and a dearth of policies targeting anti-racism; and (2) that white social dominance was prevalent but made invisible in student culture, which allowed the needs and experiences of racialized and international students to be ignored. Eurocentric ideologies of meritocracy, individualism, and scientific objectivity that reflect the values of the dominant group create a white racial frame that remains unnamed but centered. The aim of this research paper is to further inform how whiteness operates in kinesiology programs. We connect student experiences to whiteness theories and propose recommendations to guide the dismantling of whiteness in kinesiology.

Background: Outdoor experiential education (OEE) is often presented as a neutral and equitable curricular practice with positive learning outcomes. However, few studies have examined the experiences of racialized and queer White settler students or the representation of Whiteness in OEE curricular documents. Purpose: This article explores Whiteness, racialization, and Indigenous erasure in OEE as an undergraduate curricular practice at a Kinesiology program in a Canadian university. Methodology/Approach: Using critical race theory, a critical discourse analysis of six types of documents used to advertise and organize the outdoor experiential courses was combined with five semi-structured interviews with undergraduate students. Findings/Conclusions: This study demonstrates that students must negotiate Whiteness and settler colonialism to participate in OEE. Three main findings include the following: (a) The imagined student is wealthy and White, (b) students both assimilate to and resist codes of Whiteness, and (c) curricular documents and practices promote Eurocentricity and erase Indigeneity. Implications: OEE presents an opportunity for students preparing to become workers and educators in sport and recreation to learn about Whiteness, racialization, and Indigeneity. Kinesiology program design can use student narratives to shift from supposedly neutral curricular documents and pedagogies to ones that expose and work toward dismantling Eurocentricity.

In 2010 the Provincial Government of Ontario, Canada introduced a new play-based learning curriculum. Educational stakeholders (i.e. teachers, early childhood educators and student teachers) have been charged with the task of implementing the play-based curriculum, which upholds children's fundamental right to play, as a means to health and well-being. In this paper, we examine educator's experiences with the new play-based curriculum in Toronto, ON, Canada's largest city. While we found that a play-based curriculum has been championed with respect to health and well-being in educational policy, there are many challenges integrating play into teaching practices, especially in an era of standardized testing. We conclude that while there are benefits to play-based learning for children's health, it is important to further investigate whether current iterations of play-based curricula are a new pedagogical site for governing children's bodies or whether play-based curricula allow children to experience, and engage with the pleasure and ambiguities of play in their daily lives in schools.

Despite the benefits of physical activity for youth with congenital heart disease (CHD), most patients are inactive. Although literature has addressed medical and psychological barriers to participation, little is known about the social barriers that youth encounter. This qualitative study explored sociocultural barriers to physical activity from the perspective of 17 youth with CHD. The main theme, "what I wish you knew," was related to all other themes-youths' efforts to resolve "disclosure dilemmas," the barriers they encounter during physical education, and their struggle to understand themselves as normal. The participants' narratives illuminate the centrality of their sociocultural world to physical activity. The findings call on researchers and educators to attend to the social and cultural environments where these youth live and play. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper explores spatial theory, and particularly a Foucauldian analysis of space, power, and the subject, as a frame within which to examine moves toward security in North American urban schools. We bring into play empirical data from an ethnographic study of New York City and Toronto schools where policies and technologies of record-keeping, identification-verifying, and spatial arrangements are producing altered experiences of subjectivity and the ways in which youth, workers, and researchers experience public (school) space. What is possible to know in ethnographic studies of these new high-security school sites? We argue that notions of "risk" and "otherness" in the nation state, and the exploitation of real fears in the wake of real school violence, have permitted a culture of acute surveillance that significantly alters the enterprise of school-based, ethnographic research. (Contains 7 notes.)

This study builds on research that found a significant lack of racial diversity in Canadian university kinesiology programs. We extend previous findings by including the experiences of students who reveal how whiteness structures every aspect of their kinesiology education. We employ Critical Race Theory and theories of whiteness within a case study of eight kinesiology faculties in Canada. The mixed methods data collection included: (a) analysis of website photos and anti-racism documents to determine the perceived racial diversity and anti-racism priority; and (b) semi-structured interviews with five undergraduate students from one kinesiology program to analyze their experiences with whiteness. We found (1) white privilege was evident through an overrepresentation of white bodies among the professoriate, overlooking whiteness in research and teaching, and a dearth of policies targeting anti-racism; and (2) that white social dominance was prevalent but made invisible in student culture, which allowed the needs and experiences of racialized and international students to be ignored. Eurocentric ideologies of meritocracy, individualism, and scientific objectivity that reflect the values of the dominant group create a white racial frame that remains unnamed but centered. The aim of this research paper is to further inform how whiteness operates in kinesiology programs. We connect student experiences to whiteness theories and propose recommendations to guide the dismantling of whiteness in kinesiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]