10 Questions With Neag School Experts in Gaming and Education

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Student at esports conference
Students engage in multiplayer video games at an esports event hosted at UConn in April 2017. (Photo Credit: Eve Lenson/Neag School)

In our recurring 10 Questions series, the Neag School catches up with students, alumni, faculty, and others throughout the year to offer a glimpse into their Neag School experience and their current career, research, or community activities. 

In their recently published edited volume, Exploding the Castle: Rethinking How Video Games and Game Mechanics Can Shape the Future of Education (Information Age, 2017), Neag School faculty Michael Young and Stephen Slota — both longtime video game devotees — explore the value of games, the role of games in the future of K-12 and higher education, and more.

Here, Young, associate professor of cognition, instruction, and learning technology, and Slota, assistant professor-in-residence of educational technology discuss the book and share their insights on the intersection between games, technology, and learning.

 

What about gaming initially captured your interest?

Stephen Slota: I’ve been a gamer since I was very young. Much of my experience revolves around video and board games (the Super Nintendo Entertainment System being my first console). The combination of creativity and strategy is likely what spurred my interest — I loved drawing, and I loved puzzles, so games were a natural fit. I even mailed Nintendo headquarters a few game ideas!

Michael Young: Me, too. Like Steve, I have always been fascinated by jigsaw puzzles, board games, and actual sports, like tennis. But when the games are on the computer and can be played with thousands of others around the world simultaneously … now that gets fun. “World of Warcraft” was such a game for me.

“A quality game experience is one that enables you to accomplish some goal that is meaningful to you.”

—Michael Young, associate professor

What do you believe makes a quality video game or gaming experience?

SS: Different games can be appealing to different players for very different reasons, or even to the same player placed under different conditions —whether emotional, psychological, or physical. This makes it difficult to say concretely what makes for a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ game or gaming experience.

Personally, I find myself most engaged with games that have a cohesive narrative, challenging puzzles, interesting character interactions and development, player agency, and internal consistency (i.e., objects, characters, and interactions work as we would expect them to in the given game world). “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” is my go-to example for A+ design.

MY: Steve is right … gameplay is “situated,” meaning that it unfolds on the fly, in a different context every time. So it is not possible to make broad generalizations about how gameplay might affect any particular student or groups of learners. For me, games like “Two Dots” meet a need for a distraction to cleanse my concentration during the day, while “Pokemon Go” gets me out walking around, something I also need to do more. A quality game experience is one that enables you to accomplish some goal that is meaningful to you.

Stephen Slota and Michael Young
Neag School faculty members Stephen Slota, left, and Michael Young, both longtime video game devotees, recently co-published Exploding the Castle: Rethinking How Video Games and Game Mechanics Can Shape the Future of Education. (Photo Credit: Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)

What are the greatest myths or misconceptions about video games that you would like to see dispelled?

SS: There are two myths that really need to be dispelled.

First, that violent video games cause violent behavior. There are correlations between aggression and violent video gameplay, but there are similar correlations between aggression and reading violent passages in books, including works like the Iliad and the Bible. Like those, video game aggression appears to dissipate minutes after play, often below aggression levels measured pre-play — meaning “Mortal Kombat” and “Grand Theft Auto” are more likely to help a player burn off steam than induce horrific, real-world outcomes.

Second, that games are a silver bullet for fixing all that’s broken in education. Try as we might, no individual game will ever be able to meet the individual needs of every individual student. Our goal should simply be to ensure or afford players as many opportunities to tackle target learning objectives as possible.

MY: My favorite game myth is that if something is playful, it can’t be serious. Children play cops and robbers and war games like capture the flag. Certainly we can all agree war is deadly serious. Children also play house, and certainly that part of life is quite important to us as well. … Any teacher or parent who dismisses games and playful learning as not serious about the school curriculum has to reconsider that thought.

“Games are interactive fiction — and narrative will never be unimportant to teaching, learning, and human cognition.”

—Stephen Slota, assistant professor-in-residence

How do you see gaming as being relevant, beneficial, or important to learning, teaching, and/or the field of education?

SS and MY: Though the specific technologies used to create and implement educational games will continue to evolve, cycle into and out of popularity or out of use altogether, the broader concept will almost certainly persist as instructional strategies (hopefully informed by contemporaneously evolving learning theory). In the short term, [games] will likely become popular as part of massive online open courses (MOOCs), mobile/personalized “just in time” learning modules or applications, and competency-based evaluation methods, all of which we touch on in Exploding the Castle. Games are interactive fiction — and narrative will never be unimportant to teaching, learning, and human cognition.

Do different video games offer different benefits or help strengthen certain skills?

SS and MY: Each game — video or otherwise — offers a range of something we call affordances. In brief, affordances are the opportunities for action we perceive (see, touch, feel, etc.) around us and, under the right circumstances, choose to act upon.

One possible affordance of a game like “Assassin’s Creed” might be to use it as the basis for a history project (by way of comparing the game’s content to actual historical records). A puzzle game like “Tetris” affords players an opportunity to demonstrate and develop spatial recognition and manipulation skills. Games like “World of Warcraft” afford a range of social interaction and problem-solving opportunities (both individual and group), allowing players to develop very different skills than they might have developed through a game like “Super Mario Bros.”

Dr. Slota, you previously served as a high school teacher. Did you incorporate gaming into your classroom in any way?

SS: While I was teaching high school, I incorporated gaming — or game-like activities, at least — as often as I could. This was partly because it made lesson planning more engaging for me, but, more importantly, because some of my early gamified instructional experiments did wonders for engaging my students.

The effects were pronounced enough that I actually made the decision to return to graduate school after a particularly successful game-based unit that involved my lowest-tracked 10th- and 11th-grade biology students roleplaying as epidemiologists to investigate a fictional disease outbreak. Overall interest and achievement improved so dramatically in such a short period of time that I knew I’d tapped into something special, even if I didn’t yet understand it. Incidentally, a (2008) UConn Advance profile on Mike (Young) and Roger Travis was what started me down the educational psychology, technology, and game design path.

MY: I serve on the Ellington (Conn.) Board of Education. There, I get to see how games and playful learning are an increasing part of K-12 schools, starting from every kindergarten student’s day, and with the increasing use of technology for learning, building up in all classrooms with virtual environments to learn and role playing games that organize entire high school courses. Add to this the use of playful learning in times between classes (as in Makerspaces) and after school (as in robotics clubs and esports) and you have a pretty substantial role for games in schools.

Should more schoolteachers be finding ways to incorporate gaming it into their curricula?

SS and MY: While students at all levels can and do benefit from games and playful learning in their classes, not all teachers should necessarily have to incorporate games into their curricula. Teaching is partly a skill that must make contact with one’s personal goals and interests. To be genuine in the classroom, a teacher cannot be just doing what they are told. Teaching has to come from them. So to the extent that more teachers could be helped to find ways to incorporate games whose play can align with their desired student learning outcomes, then, yes. The more we do research and understand how games and playful learning can work, then we can design professional learning experiences to invite more teachers to try it. But I don’t think we’d ever say that games are the magic bullet that all teachers should be using.

Associate Professor Michael Young teaching class
“I believe the world’s next Shakespeare will be an interactive storyteller — someone who can tell a good story across multiple media in a strategic way. To that extent: a game builder,” says Michael Young, associate professor of cognition, instruction, and learning technology. (Photo Credit: Lucie Turkel/Neag School)

What audiences are you intending to reach with your book, Exploding the Castle, and what do you ideally hope those audiences take away from it?

SS and MY: We focused principally on students, teachers, parents, administrators, researchers, game designers, and self-described gamers.

It’s our hope that the volume will inspire more advanced and theoretically sound designs going forward, particularly among aspiring and practicing educators.

What would you tell people considering a career related in some way to gaming?

SS: My journey to the realm of educational game design and research is pretty nontraditional. I started out as pre-med with a focus on genetic engineering, made my way into K-12 education, and later found a serendipitous opportunity to blend my skills in art, science, education, and game design through the Neag School’s Cognition, Instruction, and Learning Technology program. That makes giving advice a bit challenging, but the following capture my ‘big ticket’ thoughts:

  • Connect with researchers and game designers to explore the creation of your own games or game-infused activities. One useful resource includes the Higher Education Video Game Alliance.
  • Explore different examples of gamification and game-based learning. Consider which learning theories (if any) were used to develop those games and whether or not the game maintains a consistent 1:1 ratio of game and learning objectives. (For a brief introduction, see Slota, 2017.)
  • Review James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007), considered a seminal work within the field of game-based learning.
  • Play games. Play many different types of games. Get a sense of which mechanics best meet your instructional and other needs.

What are you most excited about when it comes to the future of gamification?

SS: Game-based instruction is going to shape and be used to teach in the ever-expanding world of online and mobile education. Many popular technologies (e.g., FitBit, Apple Watch, digital insulin monitors/injectors) already utilize various games or game-like apps to promote user engagement and inform individual well-being, and some artistic, government, and medical institutions have done the same with the express purpose of strengthening public education (e.g., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Planned Parenthood). I’m excited to see this approach become more widespread as app development software becomes more accessible, K-12 students are trained in computer programming, and gaming continues to become more mainstream.

MY: Games are not new. They were part of learning before there was formal school and institutions of public education. Augmented reality can bring the world into the classroom, from the very small to the epic scale of the universe. Making anything, including school, more playful and enjoyable should be an aim of progress in all areas. I believe the world’s next Shakespeare will be an interactive storyteller — someone who can tell a good story across multiple media in a strategic way. To that extent: a game builder.

Read other installments of the Neag School’s 10 Questions series here.

$5M in Federal Funding to Support Educational Psychology Research

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Fourth-graders working on experiment with teacher
At the Renzulli Gifted and Talented Academy in Hartford, Conn., elementary school students work on an experiment with their teacher. (Photo Credit: Peter Morenus/UConn)

Led by educational psychology professors in the Neag School of Education, two research projects have recently been awarded a total of nearly $5 million in federal funding, made available through the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act.

“These are incredible, national-level investments in one of the world’s top gifted and talented education programs, furthering the research of two outstanding professors and their research teams,” says Scott Brown, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology and the head of the Neag School’s Department of Educational Psychology.

Project LIFT
Awarded a total of $2.4 million in funding that went into effect earlier this month, Project LIFT (Learning Informs Focused Teaching) is focused on students with high academic potential — particularly those from underserved populations.

“The overall premise of Project LIFT,” according to principal investigator Catherine Little, professor of educational psychology, “is that students with high academic potential are more likely to demonstrate high-potential behaviors while engaged in instruction that encourages such response.” In addition, she says, “teachers can strengthen their use of such instruction through professional development and access to resources.”

With Project LIFT, the research team will be building on ongoing work in the field centered not only on promoting teachers’ understanding of the behaviors that may indicate high potential in students, but also on offering students access to opportunities to demonstrate their potential.

“These are incredible, national-level investments in one of the world’s top gifted and talented education programs,
furthering the research of two outstanding professors and their research teams.”

— Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Scott Brown, Department Head, Educational Psychology

Professor Catherine Little
Professor Catherine Little is the principal investigator for Project LIFT, recently awarded $2.4 million in funding.

“We feel that it is really important to focus on how general education teachers are equipped to support the needs of advanced learners within the context of serving all the learners they support,” Little says, adding that “the most powerful supports can come through curricular and instructional resources.”

By examining differences in teacher practice, teacher perceptions, and student achievement between a treatment and comparison group, the researchers hope to learn more about how teachers understand these populations, as well as what professional development approaches are helpful for these teachers in their work.

Also part of Project LIFT are Christopher Rhoads, associate professor of measurement, evaluation, and assessment; Rebecca Eckert, associate clinical professor of teacher education; and Kelly Kearney ’14 Ph.D., a research associate in the Department of Educational Psychology.

The project is funded through September 2022.

Thinking Like Mathematicians
Professor of educational psychology E. Jean Gubbins is the principal investigator of a second newly funded project, entitled “Thinking Like Mathematicians: Challenging All Grade 3 Students.”

E. Jean Gubbins
Professor E. Jean Gubbins is principal investigator for a  project entitled “Thinking Like Mathematicians,” awarded $2.5 million over five years.

Funded for five years through the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act, the project is a “scale-up of promising evidence-based quantitative and qualitative mathematics studies; identification and programming studies; and a qualitative study of identification practices for English learners,” which were also previously funded by the Javits Act, according to the researchers. These prior studies emphasized the importance of supporting talented students from historically underrepresented groups.

The Thinking Like Mathematicians project “focuses on providing challenging curriculum to promote talent development among all students in academically and culturally diverse schools,” Gubbins says, “and experiments with developmental identification strategies, which are important issues in our field.”

Funding for the project’s first year, which went into effect Sept. 1, is $500,000, with funding for the second through fifth years remaining the same in each subsequent year, pending the availability of funds from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead and Aarti Bellara, assistant professors of measurement, evaluation, and assessment, as well as Tutita Casa, associate professor of curriculum and instruction, are serving as co-principal investigators.

 

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Educators Must Teach Civility, Inclusiveness

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Editor’s Note: The following — written by George Sugai, Neag School professor of special education, and Geoff Colvin, a retired research associate in the University of Oregon’s College of Education — was originally published in the “Guest Viewpoint” section of The Register-Guard, a local newspaper based in Eugene, Ore. 

George Sugai
George Sugai, professor of educational psychology at the Neag School of Education, speaks to teachers at Illing Middle School in Manchester, Conn. (Photo credit: UConn)

As a new school year begins, educators, families and students are gearing up with high aspirations for a successful year. However, relatively overnight we have witnessed significant changes in societal and global norms that are in sheer opposition to the norms and practices we promote in our schools. Specifically, the presidential election was associated with reports of unprecedented negativity, intolerance and disrespect.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, for example, reported 900 cases last November of harassment and intimidation in schools across the nation in which President Trump’s name was invoked by the harassers. In addition, the center disclosed that 90 percent of educators surveyed reported that the election created a negative climate in their schools that will likely have a lasting effect.

Sadly, these negative effects persist as we speak. For instance, the Unite the Right rally and torch-lit march of white nationalists in Charlottesville, Va., represented seemingly commonplace images of hate, intolerance, incivility, dishonesty and unbridled racism that children and youth are exposed to frequently. Instead of providing moral leadership for the nation on Charlottesville, the president of the United States chose to make inflammatory statements that only worsened the situation, setting the stage for further violent confrontations.

Moreover, the ongoing acts of terrorism throughout Europe, most recently in Barcelona, have exacerbated the divisions and hatred among people at a global level.

Our schools are in a prime position to support the academic, social, emotional and behavioral health of our children and youth and to counter the negativity
so prevalent in today’s society.

Of paramount concern to us is the effect that these messages of negativity may have on our children. Many years of published research (e.g., the U.S. Surgeon General’s report) warn that what children see and hear about the world through the media influences how they behave.

As the new school year begins, we appeal to all educators, school leaders and family members to redouble their efforts to actively resist and prevent the negative influence these troubling trends may have on the growth, development and education of our children and youth. How can this be done?

It is immediately within the purview of schools to 1) systematically model, encourage, and formally “teach” civil, safe and responsible behavior to promote and model respect for differences and diversity; 2) reject dehumanizing behavior, and 3) stand up for children and youth who are victimized by hate and discrimination. We cannot afford to wait and hope for the negative public discourse to simply go away.

Fortunately, we have teaching practices and effective models with strong evidence to guide this doubling-up effort. For example, in the early 1990s, the U.S. Department of Education funded a project we developed in the College of Education at the University of Oregon designed to shift school practice from reactive, exclusionary and negative discipline to more preventive, inclusionary and positive support.

Initially, this federally funded project was piloted in three local school districts, and then expanded to schools throughout Oregon and other states. The current form of this project, called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, widely adopted in Lane County schools and throughout the state of Oregon, has been tested and implemented in more than 25,500 schools across the United States and adopted internationally (e.g. Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, New Zealand and the Caribbean).

More than 20 years of research results indicate meaningful and sustained improvements in school discipline, academic achievement, school climate, school attendance and related social behavioral outcomes (see pbis.org).

Given the 180-day school year and the six-hour school day, our schools are in a prime position to support the academic, social, emotional and behavioral health of our children and youth and to counter the negativity so prevalent in today’s society.

Our schools must act decisively and urgently to (re)teach, model and encourage behavior that nurtures and maintains our most cherished individual and collective values of civility, diversity, equity, responsibility and freedom of expression that serve as the foundation of our democracy.

The tools are available. It can be done.

Malala Yousafzai, in her inspiring story of survival from terrorism, “I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban” (2013), expressed our message most poignantly: “Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.”

Geoff Colvin of Eugene is a retired research associate in the University of Oregon’s College of Education. George Sugai is a former professor at the UO and currently a professor at University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education.

Republished with permission from The Register-Guard

Campbell Named Co-Editor, Journal of Science Teacher Education

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Todd Campbell meeting with students
Professor Todd Campbell has been named editor of the Journal of Science Teacher Education. (Photo Credit: Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)

Todd Cambpell, professor of science education, has been named co-editor of the Journal of Science Teacher Education (JSTE), the flagship journal of the Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE).

As the only English-language journal focused exclusively on science teacher education, JSTE disseminates research and theoretical position papers concerning preservice and in-service education of science teachers, including articles offering ways to improve classroom teaching and learning; professional development; and teacher recruitment and retention at preK-16 levels[1]. It is published online eight times a year and in print on a quarterly basis by Taylor & Francis.

Also joining the new editorial team are Campbell’s fellow co-editors University of Colorado at Denver’s Geeta Verma and Lakehead University’s Wayne Melville. Their appointment begins Jan. 1, 2019.

Access the most recent issue of the Journal of Science Teacher Education here.

 

[1] http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=uste20

Staying in College to Help Others Graduate

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Erik Hines with Scholars House students
Erik Hines, assistant professor of educational psychology, with students at Scholars House at Next Generation Connecticut Hall in July 2017. (Photo Credit: Peter Morenus/UConn)

Editor’s Note: The following piece, authored by Julie (Stagis) Bartucca ’10 (BUS, CLAS), was originally published in UConn Magazine’s Fall 2017 Edition. View the original story on the UConn Magazine website. 

Erik Hines is passionate about helping black male students succeed at UConn. The assistant professor in the Neag School of Education says he is on a mission to help attract and retain African-American male students.

As faculty director of the new learning community ScHOLA²RS House, Hines hopes to gain a deeper understanding of the variables that influence positive academic and career outcomes for black males, the subject at the heart of both his day-to-day counseling work and his academic research. (ScHOLA²RS stands for Scholastic House of Leaders in Support of African-American Researchers & Scholars).

“We want to cultivate all of our students to be the best and brightest.”

“He is all in,” says Sally Reis, the former associate provost who brought Hines in to work on the newest of the University’s learning communities. “He is completely dedicated to these young men, focused on their graduation from UConn and their success in graduate school and work. He is passionate, committed, and a remarkably strong mentor.”

Born and raised in Tampa, Hines decided to become a school counselor while attending community college there. He went on to earn his bachelor’s in social science education at Florida State University, his master’s in education for school counseling at the College of William & Mary, and his Ph.D. in counselor education at the University of Maryland. He joined the UConn faculty in August 2014.

Hines says he is doing the work he set out to do at age 19. “My career feels purposeful, fulfilling, and empowering. All I think about now is solutions for improving the graduation rate for black males, recruitment of black males in STEM and career fields in which they are underrepresented, and how we help first-generation and other vulnerable populations be successful, too.”

We caught up with Hines over the summer in his Gentry Building office, which overlooks a grassy, tree-lined knoll next to The Benton.

Q: You work with graduate students, preparing them to become school counselors. How has educating them changed with new challenges, such as social media, cyber bullying, and climbing rates of suicide in adolescents?

Hines: Counselors’ goals still are variations of making sure students get their needs met socially and emotionally, even outside the school walls, and accountability — ensuring that students not only understand what they need to know to get to the next grade, but also think long-term: What will life be like post–high school?

I would say school counselors are needed now more than ever. When we were in the space race, after Sputnik, the federal mandate came to put in school counselors to identify the best and brightest in science and math [Title V of the National Defense of Education Act, 1958]. Now, we want to cultivate all of our students to be the best and brightest.

Q: Neag’s school counselor program emphasizes working with underrepresented students. What are some of the tools that you teach to specifically work with those populations?

Hines: We train students to look at the data, as well as how to collect data of their own through observations in classrooms, surveys, reading articles. We teach them to find literature that supports what they want to do and to address what the data is telling them.

Neag School Hosts Global Sports Mentoring Program Emerging Leader

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Agnes Baluka Masajja
Agnes Baluka Masajja, a 2017 Global Sports Mentoring Program Emerging Leader, takes part in a physical training session with fellow emerging leaders at Ambitious Athletics in Washington, D.C. (Courtesy of U.S. Dept. of State in cooperation with the University of Tennessee Center for Sport, Peace, & Society. Photographer: Jaron Johns)

The Global Sports Mentoring Program (GSMP)’s Empower Women Through Sports Initiative is an international initiative co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and espnW that partners emerging female leaders from 17 countries with leading executives and experts in the U.S. sports industry. For the second consecutive year, Neag School faculty members Jennie McGarry and Laura Burton will be serving in the coming weeks as hosts.

Now in its sixth year, Empower Women Through Sports recognizes female achievement in sport leadership and aims to empower these emerging leaders to serve their local communities through increasing access to, and opportunities for, women and girls to participate in sports — and, ultimately, ignite change as an ambassador for female athletes around the world.

McGarry and Burton, both professors in the Neag School’s Department of Educational Leadership, were invited back to GSMP to serve as 2017 program mentors for emerging leader Agnes Baluka Masajja, sports tutor at Uganda’s Busitema University and head of the Education Commission with the Association of Uganda University Sports. Baluka Masajja is one of 17 women tapped as 2017 GSMP emerging leaders, all of whom have three or more years of professional or volunteer experience with a sport-based development organization. Each selected emerging leader uses this opportunity to explore a key challenge facing girls and women or people with disabilities in her home country.

“What sports has done for me I feel it can do for girls throughout Uganda. … Sports becomes a platform for a bigger conversation.”

— Agnes Baluka Masajja,

2017 Global Sports Mentoring Program Emerging Leader

‘This is my destiny’

Baluka Masajja has always been a natural when it came to sports. She excelled in all her athletic endeavors, including netball, soccer and track and field. However, despite her achievement in sport, her father pressured her to abandon athletics and focus entirely on her academics.

In her featured GSMP emerging leader profile, she explains how she managed to continue her participation in athletics despite her father’s wishes, “I would have to hide when I ran so he wouldn’t find out,” she says. “I would avoid any national competitions or races where there’d be media coverage because I didn’t want to get in trouble. By the time I got to university, I told my dad, ‘This is my career. This is my destiny.’ So he couldn’t refuse me anymore.”

Agnes Baluka Masajja
Baluka Masajja is the second GSMP Emerging Leader to be hosted by professors Laura Burton and Jennie McGarry at the Neag School. (Courtesy of U.S. Dept. of State in cooperation with the University of Tennessee Center for Sport, Peace, & Society. Photographer: Jaron Johns)

Patriarchal structures in Ugandan society treat men and women very differently in sports. Athletics are seen as part of the natural domain of men. Females in sport often face societal pressure to focus on domestic duties as well as a threat of sexual harassment from male coaches.

Baluka Masajja’s story, however, is different. She broke through barriers and currently serves as a role model for other Ugandan female athletes to do the same. As a sports tutor at Busitema University, she holds positions as a coordinator and supervisor for the university’s 16 athletics programs, only five of which are available for women. The limited number of programs is something she is striving to change. In addition, she serves as head of the Education Commission with the Association of Uganda University Sports, through which she organizes national and international tournaments; coaches workshops for sports trainers and tutors; and hosts seminars and conferences across Uganda. Baluka Masajja also was a coach for the country’s athletics delegation for the 2015 World University Games in South Korea, and will serve in the same capacity for the 2017 competition in Taipei.

According to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs website, girls who participate in sports are more likely to have higher rates of school retention and participate in society more. “When women and girls can walk on the playing field, they are more likely to step into the classroom, the boardroom, and step out as leaders in society,” the website states.

For Baluka Masajja, this sentiment rings true. “What sports has done for me, I feel it can do for girls throughout Uganda … Sports becomes a platform for a bigger conversation,” she says. As a GSMP emerging leader, she adds, “I hope to develop skills related to management and business that will help me contribute to economic growth. I also hope to learn about U.S. sports and nonprofit environments so I may implement similar ideas at home.”

After attending this week’s annual espnW: Women + Sports Summit in California, an event that unites female athletes, leaders in sports, and other industry leaders, Baluka Masajja will arrive at UConn to spend three weeks immersed in various learning and networking experiences with McGarry and Burton as her host mentors, who are both experts in gender issues in sport, specifically with marginalized ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

The Neag School will welcome Baluka Masajja at the Department of Educational Leadership General Meeting from 9:45 a.m. to noon on Friday, Oct. 6, in Gentry Room 142 on the UConn Storrs campus, and will share more information on this and other GSMP-related activities in the coming weeks.

Learn more through this featured GSMP video or visit the U.S. Department of State’s GSMP website. Or, check out GSMP on Facebook. Read more about Agnes Baluka Masajja here, and view more photos of Baluka Masajja’s visit to UConn here. 

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#TakeAKnee Is Only Symbolic; Economic Activism Is the Real Black Power Salute  

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Joseph Cooper meets with student
Joseph Cooper, assistant professor of sport management, weighs in on the recent #TakeAKnee protests. “Symbolic gestures garner attention, but economic activism stimulates substantive change,” he says. (Photo Credit: Sean Flynn/UConn)

Over recent weekends, several NFL teams have engaged in public demonstrations to show their solidarity in response to President Trump’s recent comments about how owners should respond if players follow Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling action during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner. Several teams chose to kneel during the anthem in direct objection to the President’s comments. Most of another team decided against being on the field until after the anthem ended. Numerous team owners locked arms with players, while others offered public statements expressing support of their players.

Despite the symbolic nature of these demonstrations, they are just that: symbolic. Let’s be clear about what these demonstrations were and were not:

  • They were a sign that these players and select owners have a modicum of consciousness of and consideration for the blatant disrespect of players’ rights to engage in peaceful protests.
  • They were a sign that sport can be useful as a unifying force in our society, even while differing perspectives exist.
  • They were a sign that the NFL is committed to maintaining business as usual amidst tumultuous political times.

The multiple impacts of these demonstrations are not mutually exclusive (either positive or negative).

However, it is important to understand that these demonstrations were not a form of activism.

Activism through sport has manifested in symbolic gestures, sport-based challenges, and grassroots efforts. Yet the most powerful form of activism within a capitalist society is economic activism.

Kaepernick’s decision to take a knee last year was activism because it disrupted the social order, drawing attention to vast inequalities and injustices in our society and issuing a direct call to action to all U.S. citizens — particularly lawmakers, judicial officers, and law enforcement — to be more reflective and prudent in their roles in serving communities that have been historically and contemporarily disadvantaged.

The actions by the NFL teams and their owners this weekend reflect what American author Ibram X. Kendi has described as protecting their self-interests. Make no mistake: The NFL is not primarily concerned with promoting and securing justice for all, but instead with maintaining its economic standing. It is no wonder the same owners who were silent on, or outright condemning of, Kaepernick’s initial act of activism are now offering support to players’ rights to protest peacefully and express their political views. What caused the sudden shift in opinion or tenor? Low NFL ratings signaling a decline in viewership and growing public discontent with disdainful rhetoric and perceived apathy from team owners.

Activism through sport has manifested in symbolic gestures, sport-based challenges, and grassroots efforts. Yet the most powerful form of activism within a capitalist society is economic activism. Numerous NFL fans have engaged in economic activism by diverting their viewership and overall consumption away from regular season games this year. Although not activism, players’ unions in the past have utilized strikes as a means of leveraging their power in negotiations with their teams.

Within the current context, symbolic activism is helpful, but economic activism is the real Black power salute. Black males constitute 70 percent of the NFL, and the causes for which Kaepernick kneeled impact the Black community disproportionately. So these players would make a more powerful statement if they leveraged their economic power to achieve certain aims — whether the aim is to eliminate the overt discrimination against Kaepernick due to his political stance, to push for more substantive changes in the NFL’s stance on proven domestic violence offenders, or to champion their role in promoting social justice in the broader society. When money is impacted, change will follow.

Symbolic gestures garner attention, but economic activism stimulates substantive change. My hope is that NFL players will decide to do more than take a knee, lock arms, and raise a fist for a salute and instead exercise their economic strength to drive the change we really need in sport and society. There is a point when playing the game does not outweigh championing social justice.

Joseph Cooper is an assistant professor of sport management in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut.