Overview
Because of its restricted comprehension and connection with other essential occupations in the professional industry, athletic training may be perplexing to many people, irrespective of the sector. The athletic trainer, like fitness and endurance instructors, efficiency experts, physiotherapists, and even occupational therapists, serves an important role in the development and upkeep of its players. Athletic training involves the management, assessment, and intervention of emergent, intermittent, and long-term medical disorders, including disability, occupational restrictions, and impairments. Fitness development, which is more prevalent in corporate gymnasium settings, is sometimes mistaken for strength and conditioning training. While athletic trainers possess many of the same talents as fitness experts, their roles and obligations are very diverse.
For instance, as athletes develop bigger, subtler, and quicker bodies; athletic trainers have a greater obligation to adjust to their unique demands. These requirements may encompass, but are not confined to, pain evaluation and diagnosis, recuperation, massage treatment, nutritional support, and accident prevention. According to Ford (2003), when a therapist and a patient are from different cultures, power equilibration becomes more difficult. Furthermore, the hegemonic contemporary cultural background and mindset have had a long-term influence on racial power dynamics, impacting everyday issues linked with prejudice and bigotry. When likened to prior years, the industry is generating more unsatisfied experts, and even more are wishing to quit totally because of racism and ethic disparity. In athletics, athletic trainers’ anxiety levels might rise due to a variety of factors, including the athlete’s desire to return to the field as soon as possible after facing such discriminating actions, or the manager might decide to play someone despite the trainer’s advice.
Because sporting organizations make so many choices, it may be challenging to assign responsibility when problems arise. In this case, the sports trainer is in a strange role since they are responsible for a wide range of concerns inside a single institution. When examining an athletic illness, for example, particularly one involving a star athlete, the trainer’s recommendations might have far-reaching consequences that influence not just the trainer and the player, but perhaps the whole program.
Apart from physical and health-related issues, inclusivity and diversity in sports training is a contemporary and expanding issue in the field of kinesiology. Because of ethnic gaps, racism, and job complexity, there is increased stress within the profession, making it increasingly difficult to perform at the training center. Every aspect of a curriculum might have an influence on how one makes a choice. For example, there is a considerable demand from sportsmen who want to participate and may be required to contest in order to get an education.
The manager’s desire, the urge for an athlete to fight for wins, and lastly, the firm’s pressure to fill seats may generate money and pay checks, though at the cost of the trainer. The sports trainer may be faced with scenarios in which not just one, but all of these demands need attention and inclusion. Because the intrinsic unique connection between the two entities makes incompetent legislation so appealing for players to utilize against trainers, it is all too simple to over include coaching staff and instructors. With the present chain of leadership and bureaucratic structure on college and professional sporting teams, it is unrealistic to hold the trainer liable for negligence allegations if the participant was fully informed of their situation and the hazards of participation.
If injury prevention educators and instructors are not cautious of the significantly bigger cultural and academic roles associated with education, they may become accomplices in the research and manufacture of immensely experienced and talented technocratic experts who may not possess the critical threshold of abilities that epitomizes the institution’s romantic ideals and its broader academic intent. If this is permitted to continue, many future sports trainers may find themselves unable to contribute to the bigger, more vital tasks necessary for real democratic participation. To be clear, the assertion made here does not assume that sports training should not be subjected to and held responsible for quantifiable outcomes that “characterize” the admittance level of athletic training consultants (Adams et al., 2021). Moreover, athletic training does not advocate for the marginalization of contemporary academic benchmarks based on insights that influence the athletic profession and training. Rather, all the institutions’ instructors have a goal that is simultaneous and as significant as the corresponding main program of athletic training.
Maintaining awareness of and reverence for higher principles of personal learning and development is critical for all learners. Sports training instructors, as members of the institution, must also consider intellectual awareness as a necessary prerequisite for legally performing the leading professional tasks connected with academia. However, although instructors have little power over the overall culture of sports, their individualized efforts in the sports training room may have a tremendous impact (Maurer-Starks et al., 2008). One strategy for sports training instructors to improve the minimum threshold of their curriculum and pedagogy is to aggressively incorporate inclusive practices and promote diversity into all elements of their training materials.
Professional athletic trainers cannot be solely athletic trainers since athletic coaching is now legally recognized as an affiliated healthcare profession and its practitioners operate in diverse settings with a broad range of patients, trainees, and coworkers. Athletic trainers, on the other hand, must constantly aspire to become lifelong learners competent at connecting with and comprehending a wide range of perspectives, ideas, skills, and viewpoints. Irrespective of the specific corporate setting or work requirements, most sports therapists are challenged on a constant basis with problems of racism, class, sexual orientation, and ethnic diversity (Day et al., 2021; Maurer-Starks et al., 2008). Because different sociocultural influences occur in both personal and intellectual athletic training environments, trainees must be adequately instructed to accept and handle crucial challenges.
Now it is clear that all sports exercise physiology experts will require a substantial multicultural perspective that surpasses competent knowledge and expertise. One that allows for a vital and compassionate perspective on “others’” opinions, and one that empowers the sports training and athletics expert to optimize the landscape and access to care and outreach programs. As a result, sports training curriculums must officially, phenomenologically, and cognitively equip their learners for their upcoming relational, civic, and corporate duties. The previous National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) report emphasizes the importance of incorporating cultural competency and diversity training into education programs. For these and other reasons, current and future sports training experts, instructors, and learners must become more multiculturally knowledgeable, culturally competent, and socially experienced.
Athletic trainers currently operate in a wide range of professional contexts, as seen by the demographic data. In the next few years, instructors and future sports trainers will face an exciting and demanding dynamic in the diversified professional context. Historically, the difficulties involved with racial desegregation among athletic trainers were likely similar to those experienced in wider society. There are concerns about how sports trainers function in various environments. For example, how athletic training students are equipped to deal with problems of racial, socioeconomic, gender, cultural, and ideological variety may impact, if not determine, athletic trainers’ relative social and professional performance in these varied environments.
Aside from technical proficiency, if sports trainers in varied contexts manage the complicated concerns of diversity relationships properly, their professional efficiency and societal approval may flourish. Conversely, if sports trainers struggle with the greater social, political, and interpersonal aspects of their work, their career possibilities may decline with time. As a result, as part of the pedagogical and curricular change underway in exercise science, an increasing number of schools are pursuing plans or designs in order to continue their sports training students. Therefore, more in-depth activities that enable students to identify and explain their own ethnocultural origins will help learners feel connected to the course’s wider learning goals, as well as more open-ended programs to encourage learners to talk about their own experiences. More study is needed to determine how athletic trainers can play a role in inclusion and diversity in sports, therefore bridging the gap produced by individuals who quit due to feelings of marginalization and institutional racism.
Review
Source 1
Due to a lack of diversity in the profession’s workforce and academia, there is a dearth of culturally competent sports training therapists and instructors. The foundation for a culturally sensitive setting will be laid by qualified sports trainers and therapists’ readiness to raise awareness and combat prejudices and misconceptions. According to Ford (2003), professional sports trainers and clinicians should be aware that culture influences a person’s decisions, actions, and reactions. As a result, the study was directed by the following question: what criteria should be incorporated into an academic curriculum to prepare a proficient sports training specialist in an ethnically varied society? Despite the ambiguity, data were gathered through critical examination of other papers, and the findings were organized into themes and subthemes. Ford (2003) conducted research that defined cultural competency in mental health services in order to satisfy the conflicting demands of highly skilled athletic trainers in NATA.
Ford (2003), although relying on second-source material emphasizes the need for cultural understanding and cultural competence instruction in pedagogic and practical curricula in order to produce a qualified sports trainer. According to Ford (2003), instructors should be given reference materials and texts that represent their racial and cultural heterogeneity. To add to that, Ford (2003) states that sports training sessions should include such elements as cognitively savvy seminars and tutorials led by clinicians with nursing skills that are also culturally conscious. For Ford (2003), establishing culturally competent educators is a lifetime effort that should be given more significant attention for both professional progress and the wider public’s safety.
Source 2
According to Adams et al. (2020), many people have worked hard to promote the athletic training profession’s diversity and equality, but there has been little progress in one critical area: raising the proportion of culturally minority coaches and trainers. As a result, the writers were driven by two key questions in order to answer the hurdles: (1) what factors, with an emphasis on sports training instruction, may impact the overall plurality and inclusiveness aspect of kinesiology?
Data collection methods and designs were clearly defined in order to support the topics of multiculturalism, equality, and inclusivity as they relate to the route of becoming an athletic trainer. For example, the demographic profile of the United States based on current Census data was compared to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association member’s statistics. Additionally, test results from particular college programs were gathered. Adams et al. (2021) used the notion of program evaluation based on the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE) to examine the lack of representation in higher education. The results of the data analysis hint at a lack of diversity in the NATA’s recruiting process.
According to the Board of Certification (BOC) standardized test results, students of color have a more difficult time obtaining certification as sports trainers. As an example, 70% of the ten students who failed the BOC test on the first attempt in the master’s sports training course were non-White. It was found by Adams and colleagues that race and cultural differences are persuasive proof against the adoption of this statistic. As a result, a concerted effort is essential to provide culturally competent treatment and actual access to sports trainers for everyone.
Source 3
An athletic trainer, as an affiliated health practitioner who works in a variety of contexts, is concerned about the health of the wider public. In Maurer-Starks et al. (2008), the strength of communication, the force of uneducated guesses, and society’s exclusionary character are critical to overcoming all forms of prejudice. The research was driven by the question: “What is sport’s position in society, and how does it reflect those societal standards inside their profession?”
The study included qualitative systematic evaluations of publications from repositories including MEDLINE, ERIC, SportDiscus, and CINAHL Information Systems utilizing the keywords bisexual, multiculturalism, homosexual, heterosexism, and homophobia in sports as well as lesbians. As reported by Maurer-Starks et al. (2008), relevant papers were cross-referenced in order to gather further knowledge about the subject. Several studies have shown that homonegativity has had a long-term impact on the cultural context of sport, particularly that of elite athletes.
For example, notwithstanding suggestions from the prestigious National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and other health-care organizations, the NATA has refused to publicly examine the topic of sexuality as it pertains to athlete therapy. According to Maurer-Starks et al. (2008), sports practitioners should better recognize and analyze their sexuality in linguistic conversation and its impact on the milieu in which experts, patients, and trainees coexist. For example, according to Maurer-Starks and co-authors (2008), a fundamental component in defining the cultural life of sport as it pertains to female athletes is the assumption of women being objects of heterosexual men’s gaze. As a result of this study, it has been concluded that the field of exercise science has to assess itself and its stance on sexual orientation and tackle challenging concerns about how to incorporate sexual orientation into its concept of heterogeneity.
Source 4
Athletic instructors, as per Day et al. (2021), are the most prominent members of the athletic medical team and are charged with taking care of the well-being of student-athletes. However, the ethnic diversity of NCAA members has not been adequately explored or properly researched. The study was prompted by the inquiry: what is the percentage of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) athletic instructors in NCCA member institutions? To comprehend the valuation of the group members on the association, Day et al. (2021) used a retrospective study to obtain data from the NCCA demographic database in order to objectively tabulate the findings. Chi-square tests were used on the raw data to analyze variations in ethnic and cultural incidences by partition, year, and sexual identity.
According to the data analysis, the results show that the majority of NCAA coaches and trainers (88 percent) are white, which is represented in both senior figures and leaders (90.8 percent) and deputy executives (87.2 percent). Day et al. (2021) found that black physical therapists were the most underserved, accounting for 3.4 percent of senior executives and 4.6 percent of assistant trainers.
History, Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) had a advanced proportion of BIPOC athletic trainers in both the directors and deputy directors than traditional schools. However, there was a statistically substantial rise in several of the cultural groups for both directors and deputy sports trainers based on the linear regression models. In this respect, Day et al. (2021) found that BIPOC athletic trainers make up a tiny fraction of all elite athlete instructors working at NCAA member colleges. Despite an upsurge of BIPOC athletic instructors over the last 10 years, there is still a significant ethnic disparity between student athletes and the athletic trainers who care for them.
Conclusion
Religious ideology, status, gender, sexual orientation, and a wide range of ethnic cultures are all part of the definition of diversity. This is the first principle that all people seeking significant change must recognize and embrace. Unfortunately, it is also a conceptual roadblock that often stymies genuine development as evidenced in the four articles. As a result, if athletic training instructors desire to fully engage in promoting a more analytical, diverse, and ethnic education, they must be prepared to face the pedagogical and life issues that such a program will bring. As educationalists continue to grow by learning more about pedagogies and various perspectives on cultural diversity, they must progressively become more confident in partaking in significantly bigger discussions about racism, injustice, and marginalization, thus a contributing associate of an authentic and impartial institution.
One of the basic ideas of analytical diversity is that there is no one blueprint for achievement, and that efforts to define or endorse a single way would be unproductive and harmful to the overall goal. As a conclusion, before deciding on a specific response plan to address some of the directions proposed, it must be noted that research by Ford (2003) and Maurer-Starks et al. (2008) provide outdated information and might not represent the true and current issues of athletic training with regards to culture, racism and sexuality. Though Adams et al. (2021) provided current information; it relied majorly on second-sourced information, from the NATA demographic profiles that are prone to human interference. In this regard, Day et al. (2021) passes this validity test by the value that it is current, and uses retrospective study. However, issue of athletic training representation with regards to culture, racism, and sexual orientation is a subject that requires further investigation to unlock the overarching barriers for total inclusivity and diversity.
References
Adams, W. M., Terranova, A. B., & Belval, L. N. (2021). Addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in athletic training: Shifting the focus to athletic training education. Journal of Athletic Training, 56(2), 129–133. Web.
Day, C., MacKenzie, S., Issac, L., Sanchez, A., Jones, C., & Rizzone, K. (2021). Racial and ethnic diversity of athletic trainers of the national collegiate athletic association: A retrospective study.Journal of Athletic Training. 1-23. Web.
Ford, M. G. (2003). Working toward cultural competence in athletic training.International Journal of Athletic Therapy and Training, 8(3), 60-66. Web.
Maurer-Starks, S. S., Clemons, H. L., & Whalen, S. L. (2008). Managing heteronormativity and homonegativity in athletic training: In and beyond the classroom.Journal of Athletic Training, 43(3), 326-336. Web.