Social justice promotion in youth sport: insights from current high school coaches

Despite historic and contemporary injustices that permeate youth sport, few studies have explored perceptions of social justice among coaches. From a critical positive youth development perspective—which seeks to centre the voices of socially marginalised peoples and dismantle systemic inequities—this study sought to explore the unique perspectives of current high school coaches related to their social justice promotion efforts in youth sport. Nine United States high school coaches participated in two semi-structured interviews. Using reflexive thematic analysis, findings highlighted coaches had differing thoughts towards promoting social justice. Coaches indicated they predominately relied on reactive and implicit approaches to address social justice issues and, in some cases, coaches did not feel comfortable when social injustices arose. Moving forward, coaches should be empowered to embrace their positionalities in youth sport, understand the impact of sport, and seek support from the youth sport system to address social issues systematically and deliberately.