Kinesiology—A “Homeless” Field: Addressing Organization and Leadership Needs

Abstract

Motivated by her belief in the contributions of physical activity to the “good life” for all people, Amy Morris Homans was infl uential in the development of physical education as a viable and respected academic field of study in higher education. Over the past 100 years, however, as the field faced pressures to become more scientific, it has become increasingly decentralized into subdisciplinary units, thus, losing much of its unified mission and focus as an integrated field of study in academia. This fragmentation, along with the lack of an “umbrella” professional association or organizational home for the field (now most commonly called kinesiology) has hampered the field's ability to gain national recognition as a disciplinary field of study, its effectiveness as a political voice, and its ability to conduct the kind of cross-disciplinary research needed to best address important questions and issues in the field. Such overspecialization, together with a lack of a common name and common purpose, has raised concern about the field's identify and importance in higher education, with program cuts continuing to be the unfortunate result at a number of major universities. This paper addresses the importance of reconnecting the field and suggests a possible strategy for developing a new umbrella professional association dedicated to the unification and advancement of the field.