White Privilege in Canadian High School Sport: Investigating White Coaches’ Perspectives on Social Justice Issues

Abstract

Sport constitutes an important setting in which to study whiteness given ongoing issues related to power, privilege, and oppression. The purpose of the study was to examine white privilege in Canadian high school sport by investigating white coaches’ perspectives on social justice issues. A total of 463 high school coaches who self-identified as white completed an online survey. Results showed how coaches who had a greater awareness of white privilege in society had more favourable attitudes toward social justice, higher importance attributed to climate change issues, greater awareness of prejudicial attitudes against the LGBT community, and a higher propensity to engage in antiracist behaviours. Moderating effects for gender identity were also found. Moving forward, white privilege should continue to be studied in coaching to better understand how it is entangled with social justice.