This book offers research findings of the different types of human rights issues that concern athletes and sports programs and the issue of how organizations are addressing safety and human rights issues. The study of sports has not typically been considered as a human rights field. In recent years it is clear that athletes have experienced a variety of human rights violations. As a result, many sports programs have been confronted with criminal violations of abuse and maltreatment. Some sports organizations are developing athlete bills of rights in response.
The book provides readers with an overview of the importance of human rights policies and practices in sports, and a synthesis of where the field of sport human rights could be developed. The chapters explores human rights in sports from both organizational and interpersonal approaches. There are both organizational and individual factors associated with human rights. There can be rights violations by coaches, trainers, doctors, or even other athletes. Violations can be physical, sexual, emotional, social, or financial. Organizational policies vary from being very equitable and rights-respecting to those that put athletes at risk or discriminate against them. This book is the first of its kind that links together sports and human rights in a systematic way.
Joseph Zajda is a Professor at the Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus). He specialises in globalisation and education policy reforms, social justice, history education and values education. He has written and edited 45 books and over 150 book chapters and articles on globalisation and education policy, higher education and curriculum reforms. He is also the editor of the 24-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research (Springer, 2009 & 2021). Recent publications include: Zajda, J (Ed). (2020a). Globalisation, ideology and neo-liberal higher education reform. Dordrecht: Springer. Zajda, J. (Ed). (2020b). Human rights education globally. Dordrecht: Springer. Zajda, J. (Ed). (2020c). Globalisation, Ideology and Education Reforms: Emerging paradigms. Dordrecht: Springer. Zajda, J. (2018). He is an elected fellow of the Australian College of Educators (FACE).
Yvonne Vissing, PhD, isa Professor of Healthcare Studies, focusing on health policy and public health, and the Founding Director of the Center for Childhood & Youth Studies at Salem State University. She is the US policy chair for the Hope for Children Convention on the Child Policy Center in Cyprus, on the Steering Committee for Human Rights Educators USA, and is on the AAAS Human Rights Council. Vissing is author of 17 books, including Children’s Human Rights in the USA: Challenge & Opportunities (Springer 2023), Changing the Paradigm of Homelessness (Routledge 2020), and The Rights of Unaccompanied Minors (Springer 2021). A clinical sociologist, National Institute of Mental Health Post-Doctoral Research Fellow on child abuse and Whiting Foundation fellow studying child rights, she was also a Dialogue and Democracy fellow at UCONN’s Dodd Center for Human Rights. She is a graduate of Equitas International Human Rights Training Program in Montreal. She is CEO of Training for Excellence.
