Data, Play, and Power: Sports as Culturally Sustaining Learning Sites

Session Type: Working Group Roundtable

Abstract

This roundtable session explores how sports function as powerful, culturally sustaining spaces for learning, identity, and equity across K–college. Framed by the GRIND (Generative Research and Inclusive Networks in Data) framework, we examine how athletic contexts often overlooked in educational design can catalyze STEM engagement, computational thinking, and critical literacies. This session rethinks how Black athletes’ futures are framed, while pushing to start early conversations linking sports, data science, and careers not just for athletes, but for anyone who sees sports as a way in. Presenters draw on interdisciplinary methods and lived experiences to surface new models that challenge the jock/nerd binary and reimagine learning through the lenses of play, policy, race, and representation.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Research Focus on Education and Sport

Chair

• Kareem Edouard, Drexel University

Papers

• The ‘Real Ticket’: Reimagining Social Mobility for Black Athletes in the Era of NIL - Lien Amin, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Big Fish or Little Pond? National Evidence on the Relationship between Transferring and Athletic Performance within Division I Men’s College Basketball - Kendall Cole, Stanford University; Francis A. Pearman, Stanford University

• The GRIND: Generative Research and Inclusive Networks in Data as a Site for Equitable STEM Identity - Kareem Edouard, Drexel University; Marcelo A.B. Worsley, Northwestern University

• Applying the Computer Science Capital Framework: Understanding Computing Engagement Among Student-Athletes - Michael Smith, Northwestern University; Ashley Serine Quiterio, Northwestern University; Jacob Puthipiroj, Northwestern University

Session Organizer

• Kareem Edouard, Drexel University