Social Justice in Practice—Integrating Ethical Leadership, Inclusive Excellence, and Community Engagement in the Undergraduate Kinesiology Curriculum

Abstract

Creating opportunities for undergraduate students’ personal and professional development including advocacy for social justice is a relevant topic for kinesiology faculty and administrators. Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach to promote self-awareness, behavior change, and social justice in kinesiology, the purpose of this article is to share and discuss high-impact practices and strategies to infuse ethical leadership, inclusive excellence, and community engagement within the kinesiology curriculum. Principles from kinesiology, public health, sport psychology, leadership studies, pedagogy, and human resources are integrated to help kinesiology faculty facilitate and enhance students’ future professional practices. Frameworks for behavior change for social justice in kinesiology include the decolonizing kinesiology ethics, inclusive excellence, stages of change, and effective communication. Readers are encouraged to “take back to their departments” practices and strategies that can be further modified and integrated into their own kinesiology curriculum.