Youth Sports for Social Justice: Coaching, Mentoring, and Community Organization

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course engages students in an ongoing project to build an equitable and developmentally oriented youth sports system in South Bend, Chicago, and high poverty urban communities throughout the United States. The first part of the course will draw on the latest research in the sports sciences, developmental psychology, and education to identify the basic principles of youth sports coaching and mentoring. The students will receive preparation in identifying and responding to the chronic stress and trauma that affects a sizable proportion of the children they will be working with. The second part of the course will help students to continue to develop their coaching and mentoring competencies while studying generational child poverty in the Unites States.