There have been recent developments in the way diversity has been considered in the management of performance, sport and exercise science. Contemporary diversity management approaches now recognize the intersectional identities of novice, emerging, and seasoned athletes. These identities are salient in many forms of physical-mental abilities, cultures, racial and ethnic recognition, spiritual and religious subscription, sexual orientation and gender identification. Sport, performance and exercise science has the potential to facilitate global integration through its inherent makeup of competitors from diverse backgrounds. As such, diversity management in performance is about enhancing and promoting the uniqueness of contributions that every athlete and performer (novice through professional) brings to achieve individual and collective goals. Retention of individuals and talents who belong to diverse backgrounds is the starting point to depict richer multicultural human potentials. Diversity initiatives are moving from merely counting numbers, to being more inclusive and representative of the experiences and voices of diverse individuals. Involvement of individuals with diverse backgrounds included in research designs are needed to provide authentic practices. Moreover, the engagement of target audiences is important to reduce the homogeneity led science. For example, research on people with disabilities often feel left out and the interpretation has been from an ableism perspective, of which hampers performance rather than enhance it.
The purpose of this special issue is to illustrate projects embracing concepts of diversity, equity, and infusion of multiple intersecting identity experiences of sport, performance, and exercise science populations. This special issue will allow for a more harmonious sport science set-up with collaborations fostering acceptance and inclusion to promote global cultural progress. Specifically, professionals in sport and exercise science will share their applied and theoretical experiences and research highlighting their contextual efforts for diversity initiatives. Additionally,
the challenges encountered in facilitating understandings of marginalized topics and cultural identities focusing on processes and participant’s engagement in performance enhancement will be addressed.
Submissions of any of the above topics and related issues are welcome. Please feel free to contact the Guest Editors: Dr. Poudevigne, Dr. Brutus, Dr. Taylor or Dr. Ng in advance for advice on potential suitability of any proposed manuscript.
For general guidelines on the appropriate preparation of manuscripts please visit the journal’s website. Please submit your paper to Performance Enhancement & Health via www.journals.elsevier.com/performance-enhancement-and-health, indicating that it is intended for this special issue.
