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The aim of this article is to examine how professionals within Dutch sports media give meaning to racial/ethnic diversity in the organization and reflect on the use of racial stereotypes in sports reporting.

Ten in-depth interviews with Dutch sports media professionals have been conducted to obtain the data. Respondents had a variety of responsibilities within different media organizations in the Netherlands. The authors used thematic analysis supplemented with insights from critical discourse analysis to examine how sports media professionals give meaning to racial/ethnic diversity and the use of racial/ethnic stereotypes.

The following main themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: (1) routines within the production process, (2) reflections on lack of diversity on the work floor and (3) racial/ethnic stereotyping not seen as an issue. Generally, journalists showed paradoxical views on the issue of racial/ethnic diversity within sport media production dismissing it as a non-issue on the one hand while also acknowledging there is a lack of racial diversity within sport media organizations. Results will be placed and discussed in a wider societal and theoretical perspective.

By focussing on the under-researched social group of sport media professionals in relation to meanings given to race and ethnicity in the production process, this research provides new insights into the role of sports media organizations in (re)producing discourses surrounding race/ethnicity in multi-ethnic society and the operation of whiteness in sports media.

Purpose – This chapter explores how select “evidence-based” police scholars act as gatekeepers to research opportunities, in Canada, thus impeding critical research that pertains to Black communities.

Methodology/Approach – Using the critical race method of counter-storytelling, the following narrative demonstrates how race and racism may play a role in the collection and dissemination of research that examines racial bias in Canadian policing. This methodology aims to refute the notion of critical objectivity, which is often used to promote the principles of evidence-based policing (EBP).

Findings – Findings suggest that through various powers and levels within both the policing and academic community, a select number of scholars have influence over Canadian policing research that explores racial bias and discrimination. As such, research that may help to develop effective and efficient policing programs to address racial bias, is thwarted.

Originality – No Canadian study explores anti-racist training programs or evaluates their effectiveness. This chapter demonstrates that this may be the result of gatekeeping. The following chapter provides insight into how this is done within EBP circles.

There is a growing consensus in education that schools can and should attend to students’ social-emotional development. Emerging research and popular texts indicate that students’ mindsets, beliefs, dispositions, emotions and behaviors can advance outcomes, such as college readiness, career success, mental health and relationships. Despite this growing awareness, many districts and schools are still struggling to implement strategies that develop students’ social-emotional skills. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by examining the social-emotional learning (SEL) practices in ten middle schools with strong student-reported data on SEL outcomes, particularly for African American and Latinx students.

Case study methods, including interviews, observations and document analysis, were employed.

The authors identify six categories of common SEL practices: strategies that promote positive school climate and relationships, supporting positive behavior, use of elective courses and extracurricular activities, SEL-specific classroom practices and curricula, personnel strategies and measurement and data use. Absence of a common definition of SEL and lack of alignment among SEL practices were two challenges cited by respondents.

This is the first study to analyze SEL practices in outlier schools, with a focus on successful practices with schools that have a majority of African American and/or Latinx students.

Our goals were to explore the pedagogies applied by instructors that supported Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) student learning in a leadership course and the leadership behaviors BIPOC students identified as being applicable after the course.

Through survey research and qualitative data analysis, three prominent themes emerged.

High-quality, purposeful pedagogy created opportunities for students to learn. Second, a supportive, interactive community engaged students with the instructor, each other and the course material to support participation in learning. As a result, students reported experiencing big shifts, new growth and increased confidence during their leadership courses.

We discuss our findings and offer specific recommendations for leadership educators to better support BIPOC students in their leadership courses and classrooms and for further research with BIPOC students.

This paper is an extension of a panel presentation delivered in response to a joint call for panels by the Social Informatics and Information Ethics and Policy Special Interest Groups for the 2022 Association for Information Science and Technology conference. The purpose is to introduce critical race frameworks and tenets as a lens to develop, assess and analyze the social informatics (SI) within information science (IS) research, professional discourse, praxis and pedagogical paradigms. This paper spotlights one of the presentations from that panel, an iteration of Critical Race Theory (CRT) designed specifically for information studies: CRiTical Race information Theory (CRiT).

Just as importantly, using SI as part of the context, the paper also includes a discussion that illustrates research and theory building possibilities as both counter and complement to the technocratic advances that permeate society at every level (macro, mezzo and micro), which can also be reasonably framed as the information industrial complex. Thus, CRiT joins other forms of critical discourse and praxis grappling with deconstructing, decolonizing, demarginalizing and demystifying the influence and impact of information technologies. While CRiT has global intentions and implications, this specific discussion has an extensive American focus.

If we consider the rapid pace in which techno-determinism is moving toward the vise grip of techno-fatalism controlled by frameworks generated from the information industrial complex, we can reasonably consider that humanity on a global basis is living within a meta-large technocratic crisis moment. This crisis moment is both acute and chronic. That is, the technocratic crisis is continuously moving quickly while simultaneously worsening over an extended period of time with no remedies and few responses to substantively address the crisis.

Part of the nature of information and data is measurability. Thus, identifying compatible nomenclature connecting the descriptiveness of intersectionality (a seminal CRT tool) as a qualitative research method to the measurability of data connected to quantitative research, a mixed method approach moves from possible to plausible. Additionally, within IS, there are often opportunities to measure human engagement, such as social media content, search engine use, assessing practices of categorizations, and multiple forms of surveillance data as a short list. Hence, the descriptiveness of intersectional qualitative research “mixed” with the measurability of quantitative research within information settings implies exponential methodological possibilities.

CRiT is multilayered, on the one hand, with the intention of being a discipline-specific, information-specific form of CRT. On the other hand, CRiT theory building is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary based on information as omnipresent phenomena. An ongoing challenge for CRiT theory building is identifying and working within a balance between, practitioners who typically throw anything and everything at practical problems, while scholars often slice problems into such small segments that practical understanding is severely limited. Embracing and integrating the dynamic interplay between developing ideas and using them is the key to evolving CRiT within the social sciences.

There is plenty of room as well as a need for additional narrative discussing or challenging the use or appropriation of information from a technocratic approach, a counter to the information industrial complex.

CRiT is emerging and cutting edge in discussion that addresses the technocratic determinism found in most scholarly discourses.

The purpose of this commentary paper is to analyze the burst of joy experienced by global football fans when England lost the final match during the Euro 2020 against Italy.

The author worked with netnography (Internet ethnography), gathering material from the internet.

The author would consider the emotional explosion as a creative expression that was possible to happen through football. Football is not only a part of popular culture, it also creates it. It acted as a platform allowing for emotional engagement and covering different issues connected to global politics.

It is just a small study based on very limited material (Internet sources). However, it highlights every-day use of Internet and the possible amplification of certain sentiments if allowed.

Methodologically, it shows how Internet sources might be used when connected to football. It also provides an insight how Internet users can exchange opinions using sports (e.g. football) as a background.

This text highlights that football can be used as a platform do express/discuss difficult issues and that average citizens can be heard just because the platform is football.

To the author’s knowledge there is no academic text with this issue in focus yet.