ANTH40H15: Ethics in Sporting Policy and Practice

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• By examining ethnographies of sporting practice and athlete experience, alongside critical scholarship on political philosophy applied to sport policy, the module aims to explore:
• A range of ethical and social justice issues associated with contemporary sport and sport industries.
• How these ethical and social justice issues are experienced differently by a diverse range of actors including: recreational to elite athletes, governance and regulatory bodies, NGOs and sporting businesses.
• How ethics is conceived in different ways by diverse parties in different sporting contexts, and the extent to which this diversity may be reflected in sport policy.
• How concepts from political and ethical philosophy can be applied to analysing contemporary sport policies and understanding issues of social justice in sport.
• How approaches associated with political philosophy and ethnography may be used to develop new sport policies.

• Indicative content:
• Introductory grounding in sport policy and practice, and ethnographic approaches.
• Ethnographies of ethical questions in sport. Each week will focus on one area of ethical questioning. Areas of focus may include: trans inclusion, violence, financialization, doping, migration and mobility, sport-for-development.
• Political philosophy and analysis of existing policies and potential alternatives for sport.
• Opportunities for student-led exploration of ethical and social justice issues in sport policy and practice

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Understanding of different political philosophy and anthropological theory and concepts that have relevance to sport policy and ethical practices.
• Have a wide-reaching knowledge of ethnographies of sporting ethics, and of contemporary ethical and social justice questions in sporting practice
• Understand how anthropological and philosophical approaches can be applied to contemporary ethical challenges and questions of social justice in sporting policies, practices and contexts.
• Be competent in accessing and assimilating specialised research literature of an advanced nature.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Reflect on diverse understandings of ethics in sporting policy and practice, and how these reflect different positionalities within sport and sporting industries.
• Apply concepts from political and ethical philosophy to analyse sport policies issues
• Use theory, arguments and evidence from political philosophy and ethnography to advocate for new sport policies
• Apply key skills (see below) to core concepts and debates in the anthropology of sport and the development of sporting policy.

Key Skills:

• Demonstrate competence in the preparation and effective communication of research methods, data, interpretation and arguments in written and oral form.
• Link ethnographic evidence to policy decisions, and evaluate the latter in light of the former.
• Re-evaluate policy and ethnography in light of contemporary events and dynamics, and vice versa.
• Be skilled in preparing and communicating research methods, data, interpretation and arguments in written form, with an awareness of how to communicate effectively with different audiences e.g. academic, governance, and policy makers.

• Teaching on the course will be through 10 x 2-hour seminars. Each seminar will involve presentation of key ideas by staff members and facilitated discussion of these in relation to students experience and set weekly readings, led by course conveners.
• Student preparation and reading time will support deeper learning required for this level of study. Students will be provided with key and recommended readings, and will also be expected to engage in wider independent reading outside of class time
• Formative assessment individual presentation of summative assignment plan. Verbal feedback and discussion provided by teaching staff on an individual basis.
• Summative assessment will require each student to develop a policy advocacy document addressing a specific topic of ethical questioning in sporting policy and practice. The advocacy document will require students to use ethnographic evidence, their understanding of sports policy, and diverse philosophical approaches to ethics in sport policy and practices, to suggest specific changes to sport policy in a given field. The assessment will thus build directly on the skills and content developed in their formative assessment, and synthesise the ethnographic, policy and philosophical materials covered across the course.
• The summative assessment will require students to draw on learning and independent study across the course, to demonstrate attainment of all learning outcomes. Students will have the opportunity to develop assessments which reflect their specific interests with the support of the teaching team, while still demonstrating all learning outcomes.

Individual presentation of summative assignment plan. Verbal feedback and discussion provided by teaching staff on an individual basis. Examples of themes may include, but may not be limited to: trans inclusion, doping, safety, financialization, migration and violence in sporting contexts.

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