Indigenous youth in sport and recreation on the Canadian prairies: mentor perspectives beyond the game
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Western research methods and ideologies have been shown to be incompatible with Indigenous culture, imposing righteous perspectives of what needs fixing and how to fix it. Indigenous youth have been subjects of research centralized around physical activity, sport and recreation, revealing common participation barriers. Previous research shows dominant social practices in sport/physical activity, including barriers to involvement/engagement, the notion of development, and various impacts of overcoming stereotypes. However, scholars often avoid linking these contextual factors to the root causes of oppression contributing to participation and engagement. In the literature review, I outline ways in which information regarding Indigenous populations has, historically, been gathered, analyzed, and applied through a Western framework, highlighting the absence of subjectivity impartiality’s role in perpetuating the oppression of minority populations within research/academic and governmental institutions (Wilson, 2008; Young, 1990). Through storytelling and personal experience, this study uncovers successes and trials experienced by individuals involved in coaching/mentorship roles for First Nations youth within the Canadian prairie provinces. Four participants gathered virtually for a focus group surrounding experiences of inclusion, exclusion, and leadership, followed up with one-to-one interviews. Personal journaling includes documentation of the researcher's perspective and progression throughout the project. Critical Thematic Analysis is a way of examining data within the data by identifying statements or ideas that are repetitive and forceful (Lawless & Chen, 2019), and comparing them to larger themes or theories. Primary analysis focuses on Young's (1990) five faces of oppression: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. The focus group and interviews were examined for repetitive and forceful statements, with the lens of the five faces as pre-determined themes/theories of investigation. Stories from participants affirmed barriers (i.e., transportation) as hindrances to participation. Moreover, discriminatory coaching and exclusionary leadership tactics impacted how mentors coach youth athletes, who expressed heightened compassion when working with Indigenous youth. Storytelling showed a strong sense of resilience and determination alongside a passion for improving communities. Journal entries (from the researcher) presented a day-to-day view of the project as a neurodivergent woman, articulating frustrations with self and within institutions (i.e., the academy), as well as reflections of confusion, and happiness/optimism.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.033 | 0.013 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".