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“Please Bear with me a Moment as I Write About Sports”: Addressing the Dearth of Sport Scholarship in General, High-Impact Higher Education Journals

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Abstract

The presence of research regarding specific student populations demonstrates their importance to the field given the importance of research and knowledge creation in shaping higher education. A growing number of higher education scholar-practitioners have engaged in work addressing college sport but an overwhelming dearth of college sport and athlete-focused higher education research in higher education journals is cause for concern. The purpose of this study is to investigate the presence of college sport research within high impact, general higher education journals between 2010–2019. Using content analysis, the authors examined seven highly regarded higher education journals. Findings support the hypothesis that an absence of sport-related research exists in such journals. Suggestions to address this gap are provided.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, DLS, upon reasonable request.

Code Availability

The authors confirm that the code supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Sport Management, Department of Health & Kinesiology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Sayvon J. L. Foster & Daniel Springer

  2. School of Education and Human Development, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Molly Harry

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  1. Sayvon J. L. Foster
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  2. Daniel Springer
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Sayvon JL Foster: Conceived and designed the analysis, collected the data, performed the analysis, wrote the paper. Daniel Springer: Collected the data, performed analysis, wrote the paper. Molly Harry: Collected data, performed analysis, wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Daniel Springer.

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Foster, S.J.L., Springer, D. & Harry, M. “Please Bear with me a Moment as I Write About Sports”: Addressing the Dearth of Sport Scholarship in General, High-Impact Higher Education Journals. Innov High Educ 47, 175–200 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-021-09564-8

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