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Abstract
The multicultural landscape of contemporary sport sets a challenge to rethink sport and exercise psychology research and practice through a culturally reflexive lens. This ISSP Position Stand provides a rigorous synthesis and engagement with existing scholarship to outline a roadmap for future work in the field. The shift to culturally competent sport and exercise psychology implies: (a) recognizing hidden ethnocentric philosophical assumptions permeating much of the current theory, research, and practice; (b) transitioning to professional ethics in which difference is seen as not inherent and fixed but as relational and fluid; and (c) focusing on meaning (instead of cause) in cross-cultural and cultural research projects, and cultural praxis work. In the paper, we first provide an overview of the concepts of cultural competence and ethics of difference. Second, we present a step-by-step approach for developing a culturally competent project rooted either within cross-cultural or cultural research. Third, we focus on cultural praxis as a project that blends theory, research, and lived culture of practice. Finally, we summarize main points in nine postulates and provide recommendations for enhancing cultural competence in the field of sport and exercise psychology.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the ISSP Managing Council members for supporting this Position Stand. Special thanks to those who provided feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. We are very grateful to Dr Ted Butryn as external reviewer for his insightful comments and enthusiastic endorsement of this position paper.
Notes
Due to the limited journal space, it is impossible to acknowledge all authors whose innovative pioneering work has contributed to the development of this position statement.