Educating future advocates in sport and social change

Sport and social change includes sport for development and peace, sport and human rights, and advocating for any ways that the power of sport can create a better world for all. 

Future advocates can include students, athletes, young professionals, and others who are learning and engaging. Future advocates bring with them new ideas, new strategies, and new tactics. So, what are ways that we can educate these future advocates? How can we help these future advocates to “know more” in order to be successful?

We could use this model:

K – Knowledge

N – Networks

O – Ongoing exploration

W – Wisdom

M – Mentorship

O – Open mindedness

R – Reflection

E – Experiment

Let’s take a look at how this model can provide a structure to consider for educating the next generation.

Knowledge

Future advocates need to read and soak up knowledge on the history of sport and social change. They need to also read about social justice, power, and institutional change. This knowledge will help future advocates better understand and appreciate broader perspectives on the issues, ideas and their history for a strong foundation and building expertise. Reading books, articles and blogs, listening to podcasts, having conversations with professionals working in the field and watching documentary films on sport and social change are great places to start.

Networks

Future advocates need to join or create networks and communities of peers involved with sport and social change. The more future advocates connect to peers and learn from communities, the more skilled they will become at advocacy work.

Ongoing exploration

Future advocates must think about, search for, and find interesting questions and problems that they want to explore and resolve. Identifying these questions is central for finding passion and dedication as a future advocate in the space. Constant exploration for finding answers and solutions is central for developing as a future advocate. Engaging in research projects, examining research available online, discussing ideas and questions with peers and colleagues, and writing down questions and what you are curious about are all great ways to explore and develop as an advocate.

Wisdom

Future advocates must build and develop wisdom with respect to patience, perspective and understanding about the speed of advocacy. Social change in and through sport often takes years and sometimes decades. Future advocates need to develop a level of wisdom that embraces this as part of the process. New advocates will sometimes get impatient, so developing wisdom over time will help achieve longer-range goals. This is akin to planting a tree and knowing and accepting that it will take time for it to grow.

Mentorship

Future advocates need mentors and mentorship. Seeking out and building mentoring relationships helps to educate and develop future advocates who better understand history through shared experiences. Mentorship also helps advocates navigate the complex and oftentimes political nature of this work

Open mindedness

Future advocates need to always be open to new ideas and perspectives about sport and social change. This allows for recognizing there can be new solutions and new approaches and that the current reality or the status quo is not necessarily the best way or the only way.

Reflection

Future advocates need to always reflect on their personal experiences and must think deeply about their advocacy work and approaches. Being able to reflect and learn from previous experiences must be an essential practice for future advocates.

Experiment

Future advocates need to experiment and try out different avenues and formats for finding their voice, platform and issue or issues they want to dedicate their life’s work to. Future advocates will evolve and grow through the process of experimenting and gaining critical experience through trying different approaches and strategies. Doing internships, fellowships, volunteering, and working with sport and social change organizations and institutions are great ways to experiment and gain this experience.

Amplifying sport and social change to engage the power of sport for a better world requires that we educate the next generation of advocates and leaders. Developing future advocates for sport and social change will be a critical investment for growing the field, growing the movement, and building out the global community in all sectors and all areas of sport and society. We can all do better when we all “know more”!

_____________________________________________________________________________

Eli A. Wolff directs the Power of Sport Lab, a platform to fuel and magnify creativity, diversity, connection, and leadership through sport. Eli serves as a co-organizer for the Athletes and Social Change forum with the Muhammad Ali Center, and he is an instructor with the Sport Management program at the University of Connecticut. He is co-founder and advisor to Sport and Society initiatives at Brown University, and he is affiliate faculty with San Jose State University. Twitter: @eliwolff10 @powerofsportlab

Mary A. Hums, PhD is a Professor of Sport Administration at the University of Louisville. She has been named a North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) Earle F. Zeigler Lecturer, the organization’s most prestigious academic honor. She has authored over 150 refereed journal articles and book chapters and given over 200 presentations in the US and abroad. Twitter: @mahums