Critical Approaches to Youth Development Through Sport: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Within the field of youth development, theories predominantly reinforce coloniality, whiteness, and patriarchy and normalize the white male identity. Despite calls for research addressing historical structural inequities in youth development, many studies continue to rely on approaches that center individual differences based on identities, which in turn obscure or even lead to the denial of systemic inequities. We continue to see race- and/or gender-neutral frameworks in the literature that classify those who identify as Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, and/or female or beyond the binary genders as others while simultaneously privileging whiteness as the standard.

This Special Issue on “Critical Approaches to Youth Development through Sport” sought to highlight research that transcends individual factors through appealing to scholars who have discarded traditional, normative perspectives in which young people are labeled as “at-risk” and “vulnerable.” We solicited submissions that countered the idea that positive development occurs simply through sport programs providing spaces where youth who have been othered can temporarily avoid environments that place them at a disadvantage or “stay out of trouble.” Furthermore, we sought work that facilitates discourse and informs theory to examine the problematic focus on the individual navigation of discriminatory systems as developmental. We encouraged submissions that not only challenge researchers in the field to examine the sociopolitical environment youth inhabit but also demonstrate how scholars can engage in the transformation of this field.

1. Recent Developments in the Field

In recent years, scholarships on youth development through sport have become more prevalent, yet the field still emphasizes programs that primarily measure individual change while leaving structural conditions and their ongoing impact largely unexamined. Bruner and colleagues’ meta-analysis (Bruner et al., 2021) provides a broad overview of sport-based positive youth development (PYD) interventions. Examining sixty studies, the review reported small but consistent gains in competence and confidence and a moderate gain in transferable life skills, yet it found no overall change in character, connection, health, or climate in the programs’ setting. These results are informative, with competence and confidence typically seen as individual skills that can be improved through focused drills, even when there is no shift in social environment. In contrast, outcomes such as connection, character, and climate may be intertwined with structural forces. A young person’s perception of their sense of belonging, for example, may fluctuate in response to race, gender, and class hierarchies that lead to unconscious assumptions regarding which participants fit the program. The relational domains of sport can be sensitive to power differentials and therefore offer a glimpse into systemic inequities that more individualistic measures are likely to miss (Young et al., 2024). Bruner et al. (2021) primarily attribute the lack of gains in these domains to measurement inconsistency and study heterogeneity. However, these findings may also shed light on the limits of a PYD model that prioritizes personal development yet leaves underlying social structures unchanged.

Williams and colleagues’ systematic review (Williams et al., 2020) shifts the focus from participant outcomes to the design and evaluation methods of sport-based programs, evaluating fifteen interventions for their theoretical grounding, intentional design, and methodological rigor. The review reveals that only a handful of programs drew on an explicit conceptual framework; few pilot programs were conducted to refine curricula, and coach training was documented in less than a quarter of the studies. Even when programs reported positive transferrable life skills, most relied on self-reported data and lacked control groups, making causal claims tentative at best. Williams et al. (2020) argue that clearer theories of change, longer dosing, and stronger fidelity checks could lead to stronger evidence, yet their recommendations remain anchored in the idea that better internal design and evaluation mechanics will address the core challenges in this field. While this may be true to a certain extent, it underscores how easily research can focus on improving program delivery without considering whether the dominant life skills and positive youth development models themselves perpetuate colonial and patriarchal norms (e.g., treating young people as individuals needing “to be fixed” rather than as members of communities navigating structural injustice) (Camiré et al., 2022; Coakley, 2011).

A different perspective emerges in the qualitative case study conducted by Newman and Anderson-Butcher (2021), which followed “socially vulnerable”1 adolescents after their participation in a community sport program. Using photo elicitation and in-depth interviews, the authors traced how young people applied skills related to self-control, effort, teamwork, and social responsibility to family caregiving, faith gatherings, classroom projects, and even cooperative video gaming. By prioritizing the voices of young people and mapping everyday settings of learning, this study transcends the program and illustrates that development is inseparable from the social environment that youth inhabit. Consequently, this work contributes to a richer ecological understanding of life skill development and transfer; however, the authors do not address more intricate questions regarding how racism, misogyny, and oppression have shaped the contexts in which youth are supposed to flourish.

A clear illustration of how deficit thinking continues to affect research in this field is provided in Piggott and colleagues’ systematic review of sport and physical activity programs aimed at preventing youth delinquency (Piggott et al., 2024). Every study included in this review focused on fostering prosocial values and behaviors or enhancing individual life skills, such as decision-making and emotional regulation, to prevent youth delinquency. The literature that Piggott et al. (2024) summarize continues to convey “at risk”2 youth as problems for a program and its leaders to address rather than partners in the task of combating and reimagining the social conditions that impact their lives. Additionally, it reinforces the assumption that youth delinquency arises primarily from personal deficits rather than structural or societal factors (Aazami et al., 2023). This review therefore illustrates how mainstream sport research celebrates individual growth while neglecting and reinforcing the oppressive structures that produce inequity and vulnerability in the first place.

Cronin et al. (2022) further exemplify how research centers on the individual while neglecting systemic factors. This study examined coaching methods within a physical education (PE) context. Utilizing Self-Determination Theory (SDT) in the context of sports, the authors examine the integral role coaches play in promoting or preventing life skill development in young participants. While these findings are informative, this research presents both problems and solutions regarding life skill development through sport merely at an interpersonal level (coach–player). This narrow focus reinforces the dominant belief in the field that development is dependent on individual interactions while concealing the structural and sociopolitical factors that impact experiences among youth.

Newman et al. (2020) shift the focus from interpersonal coach–player interactions to examining the perceptions of Youth Sport Leaders (YSLs) and the contextual factors of sport. The authors determine that Youth Sport Leaders (YSLs) play a significant role in the development of young people who engage in sport. The researchers defined YSLs as adults who carry out a variety of roles, including but not limited to community recreational instructors, sport managers in a university setting, and interscholastic sport coaches. YSLs are not only responsible for life skill development but the creation of a supportive environment that fosters relationships with young people and promotes positive health outcomes. Using social constructivism, or the theory that knowledge and reality are actively constructed through social interactions and cultural contexts, as a guiding framework, the researchers explored the relationship between the contextual factors of sport among youth and what YSLs perceive as the most important topics within their youth sport context, namely teamwork, sportsmanship, and parental influence. Yet, broader structural issues such as race, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and ability levels were virtually ignored (mentioned by ≤2% of respondents) by YSLs. These findings reveal how the very YSLs who are responsible for promoting positive development deem broader social issues of equity and inclusion as insignificant and perpetuate the dominant view of development through sport being individualistic/interpersonal. Consequently, these findings underscore the need for this Special Issue to shift its focus from individual-level factors to examine the sociopolitical structures that shape development in youth through sport.

To reimagine PYD models, several factors must be taken into consideration. First, Camiré et al. (2022) challenge researchers to describe the significance of sport in promoting the development of life skills relating to social justice. Alternatively, we must ask ourselves, what does social justice mean? Gloria Ladson-Billings (2015) states that while work related to social justice is admirable, it has become a buzz word and will “never be enough to undo the myriad of injustices … due to systemically oppressive conditions.” Instead, she urges educators and those who work with youth to seek justice as an alternative to the “systems of injustice that allow us to occupy places of privilege without critical examination.” So, in response to Camiré et al. (2022), we must ask how sport can embody principles of justice? How are youth development practitioners creating a productive environment where sport can be used to challenge systems of injustice? Are coaches examining their own lives to understand how they benefit explicitly and implicitly from unjust systems? How are coaches teaching in a culturally responsive way while constantly considering their own positionality? Additionally, researchers must take into consideration how cultural background and environmental context impact young people’s development through sport. Sport is one of many contexts shaping the lives of young people; therefore, we must recognize and manage expectations regarding the extent to which sport participation can reinforce or challenge injustice. Researchers must consider justice from a methodological standpoint as well. Purposeful sampling should be prioritized to provide diverse perspectives from young people and coaches in a quantitative and qualitative context. We must continue to reconsider the way we conduct and participate in research. Prioritizing voices and experiences from overlooked individuals and communities is critical to advocate for the needs, realities, and strengths of involved stakeholders. Camiré et al. (2022) suggest a creative methodology including photography, photovoice projects, journaling, and art expression as ways to communicate the meaning of life skills. These innovative methods promote personalized expression, connection, and knowledge that span beyond rigid Eurocentric knowledge production. Incorporating diverse perspectives through co-creation with community collaborators allows researchers to challenge mainstream approaches.

2. This Special Issue

This Special Issue focuses on “Critical Approaches to Youth Sport Development Through Sport”, and we invited researchers to submit articles that go beyond individual circumstances and examine the larger systems and institutions at play. The contributions in this Special Issue challenge long-established Eurocentric views that label youth as “vulnerable” or “at risk” populations, rather than identifying the state as the creator of these conditions. The articles included use discourse, theory, and methodology to critique the problematic focus on personal navigation within discriminatory systems as developmental.

Two of the six papers in this Special Issue provided insights into theoretical frameworks that could be used to examine youth development through the field of sport and specific sports programs. In their contribution, Park, Choi, Lee and Shin build on J. E. McGarry et al.’s (2023) theoretical contributions and discuss Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framework, a Critical Race Theory-based conceptualization of cultural capital, as a transformative theoretical approach to youth development through sport research. The authors provide a brief overview of the evolution of approaches employed to examine youth development contexts, with a particular focus on critiquing positive youth development (PYD). Park and colleagues describe critical positive youth development (CPYD), social justice youth development (SJYD), and the community action framework for youth development. However, the authors ultimately highlight CCW as an asset-based framework that emphasizes knowledge, experiences, and abilities in minoritized communities. In highlighting Yosso’s (2005) six interconnected forms of community cultural wealth (i.e., aspirational capital, linguistic capital, social capital, navigational capital, familial capital, and resistant capital), Park’s team demonstrates the utility of CCW in youth development through sports research with references to the existing literature, strongly advocating for the continued application of the framework and each of its forms of capital (pp. 11–12). The authors argue that the application of CCW could be transformational in several ways: CCW prioritizes community-defined markers of development over dominant methods of measuring outcomes, the “interplay between CCW and CRT enables researchers to recognize how even well-intentioned SBYD programs may inadvertently reinforce racial stereotypes, biases, and hierarchies” (p. 10), and finally CCW lends itself to intersectional analyses, where the compounded effects of racism, sexism, and other oppressive structures impact each young person’s experiences differently.

Next, Dutta, Evanovich, and Klein combine the capabilities approach (Nussbaum, 2011) with Freire’s (1996) critical pedagogy as a potential framework to investigate how sport-based youth development (SBYD) programs facilitate individual development while also incorporating existing community assets into the program’s design and delivery. Nussbaum defines central capabilities (i.e., life, bodily health, bodily integrity, senses, emotions, practical reason, affiliation, other species, play, control over one’s environment) as the freedom or opportunities that exist when one’s individual abilities interact with their political, social, and economic environments. However, the authors acknowledge that Nussbaum’s framework has been criticized as hypothetical and fails to incorporate a critical analysis of how individual capabilities can differ based on the accessibility they are afforded in their environment. Dutta and colleagues cite three empirical studies that have employed the capabilities approach and others that have discussed its potential theoretical applications. The authors cite Done contention that youth development through sports research needs to avoid deficit-based approaches. As such, Dutta and colleagues build on previous empirical and conceptual work by suggesting that critical pedagogy should be incorporated into the capabilities approach. Critical pedagogy has the potential to enhance the capabilities approach by emphasizing the voices of young people and subsequently enhancing program leader’s and researcher’s understandings of their lives. The authors emphasize leveling power dynamics that are often present in youth sport programs and embracing local and cultural practices as one way to accomplish a shift in power. They also point out that many practitioners lack training on how to integrate critical pedagogy into their programs, arguing that they must “reflect and deconstruct their own beliefs and values. If practitioners can successfully engage with the (re)learning process, then mutual learning with participants and challenging existing power structures within society can be enacted” (p. 11). Youth development through sport has become a practice that not only maintains social inequalities but also reproduces them, limiting one’s opportunities to experience the full extent of Nussbaum’s (2011) proposed capabilities. By incorporating the principles of critical pedagogy, practitioners could help young participants further their capabilities, increase their individual agency, and challenge oppressive social systems.

The next four papers highlight methodological approaches that have been used, or could be used, to engage youth in critically examining their own experiences related to sport. First, Morales references Latin American liberation movements as the origin for testimonio methodology, which is a “verbal journey of a witness who speaks to reveal the racial, classed, gendered, and nativist injustices they have suffered as a means of healing, empowerment, and advocacy for a more humane present and future” (Pérez Huber, 2009, p. 644). Testimonio is grounded in Latine ways of knowing and centers on the experiences of Latines while emphasizing the injustices that they have experienced at the hands of dominant cultures and systems, particularly in the U.S. Generally, Testimonio is understood to be a narrative with four components: bearing witness to individual experiences as representative of a more collective experience, calling attention to individual and collective struggles, focusing on social justice, and having potentially transformational power. With support from the small body of existing research on youth development through sport that employs Testimonio, Morales asserts that this methodology could contribute to a shared sense of identity and solidarity with others through highlighting connected cultural heritage and lived experiences. He continues to cite the existing literature to emphasize other potential outcomes, including the transformation of a personal narrative into a source of empowerment, narratives serving as acts of resistance against systemic oppression (i.e., racism, poverty, and educational inequities), educational and psychological growth, and intersectionality. Finally, as part of Morales’ paper, he shares a selection of passages from his own testimonio on his sport experiences during youth and documents the challenges and benefits of this methodology. Simultaneously challenging and liberating, Morales was able to examine injustices he was exposed to in sport while finding comfort by connecting to what other Latines have experienced—knowing “that a traditional interview or survey questionnaire would not have elicited such an emotional reaction” (p. 12).

In Navigating Complexity: Ethical and Methodological Insights from a Trauma-Informed Participatory Action Research Study with Young People in Sport for Development, Ferreira Gomes, Iqbal, and Hayhurst combine feminist-informed participatory action research (PAR, or FPAR) with a trauma- and violence-informed care (TVIC) approach. The researchers engaged with soccer coaches at GameChangers, an organization in Ontario, Canada, primarily operated by youth offering programs for youth survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. Ferreira et al. highlight the lack of discourse related to the challenges of PAR in comparison to the “romantic claims of PAR projects” (p. X). In particular, the authors focus on the difficulty of being a young adult researcher (i.e., a graduate student) collaborating with young adult participants. The researchers shared their own experience as young female adults engaging with the entirely male coaching staff at GameChangers. They found that power and privilege were not shared, as suggested by the tenets of PAR, but rather that “patriarchal hierarchies that remained unaddressed within the field site” (p. 8) shaped the ways in which they approached the project and their own roles in relation to their young adult co-researchers. The authors recognized that implementing a participatory design was challenging for multiple reasons. First, GameChangers was a program designed for survivors of gender violence involving coaches in a PAR project, which implies that participation could “exacerbate symptoms related to violence and trauma” (p. 5). Additionally, based on the dynamic between the researchers and the organization’s structures and the power dynamics between them and the coaches, they decided to incorporate TVIC. Using TVIC helped the researchers to understand that the coaches might not “fully” participate in the ways that academics might envision and should be able to engage on their own terms, in particular, by not being expected to discuss their own trauma. Ferreira and colleagues continuously reflected on their own identities and experiences, including as university researchers, who perceived their own power to create or sustain “oppressive and traumatic conditions” (p. 5). The interplay between gender, age, and position, among other identities, initially led to opposition from the coaches to the authors’ suggestions following discussions with the soccer program participants. The participants expressed a desire to have more choice in how they were learning to play soccer, while the coaches felt it was too much work to provide options. By utilizing collaborative dialog, the authors and coaches explored “how the training could support coaches in facilitating trauma-informed programs for children while also managing their workload” (p. 10). They worked together to co-create trauma-informed methods for supporting the participants and prompts for the coaches to recognize when a young person might need more support. In the end, the researchers believed it was more appropriate to label their work youth-informed rather than youth-led, and while they engaged in meaningful participatory research, proactive engagement, and the co-creation of knowledge, they recognized the complexities of PAR in sport-based youth development programs.

Next, in Anderson-Butcher, Newman, and Williams’ Empowering Youth Through the Power of Reflective Journaling: Understanding Life Skills from the Reflections of Youth, the authors provide a rationale for including reflective journaling in sports-based development programs for youth and share data collected from (n = 234) young people aged 6–15 who participated in the SBYD program (LiFEsports). LiFEsports participants (N = 800) engage in sports and develop life skills (i.e., self-control, effort, teamwork, social responsibility or SETS) through 4-week sessions each summer. Drawing on previous work by members of the research team, Anderson et al. described youth journaling as an understudied “autonomy-supportive research method” that focuses on co-constructing knowledge on how the life skills taught to young people are or are not transferable to their lives outside of LiFEsports (Newman et al., 2025). Anderson-Butcher and their team found that not only did the participants learn and begin to transfer the SETS skills, but they also reflected on their improved leadership skills. The authors suggest that the journals reaffirmed the capacity young people have for learning and applying life skills. Finally, as reflected upon by the researchers, the illustrations the youth were encouraged to incorporate into their journals were rich and insightful. For younger participants and those who were still developing their reading and writing skills, drawing became a means of expression and an outlet for learning. The authors reaffirm that it is critical to provide youth with multiple options for expressing their opinions, particularly socially vulnerable youth, who are often alienated from dominant forms of knowledge production prioritized in U.S. public schools.

Lastly, Whitley, Garnel, Gonzalez, Velasquez, and Oliveros contributed to this Special Issue both through methodological insights obtained from narrative inquiry with young participants and caring adults in their lives and empirically through the results of their study on the relationship between talent development and youth development in one sports organization, South Bronx United (SBU). This study, which included four youth participants, integrated a “participatory, collaborative, destabilizing approach” (p. 2) into the methodology while simultaneously resisting the “dominant, paternalistic” (p. 2) assumptions most research reproduces when prioritizing adult perspectives of what skills are valued instead of engaging young people in this process. Rather, Whitley and their team focused on the ways young people, in this case all Mexican and Ecuadorian child immigrants living in New York City, derive meaning from their experiences in a sport-based program. The authors included talent development as a critical outcome, even though most youth development research has avoided examining the value that becoming more skilled at a sport has for young people. Denisse talks about how her development of soccer skills impacted her:

I have also appreciated SBU’s focus on skill development on the field. My coach described how my performance enhanced my confidence: ‘In the beginning of the season, she moved all over and at first, she wasn’t super confident about it. Then, little by little, she started to see how good she was’ (p. 6).

The stories of the four young people, and the adults they selected to contribute their perspectives, also highlighted other areas of growth from participating in SBU (e.g., academic, leadership). But as Lizeth, Denisse, Kevin, and Jaime noted, it was the skillful integration of sport into their own upbringing and personalities that allowed them to benefit from SBU. The use of narrative inquiry, complete with a writing workshop for all authors, provided critical insights into youth development among sports program participants from their perspectives, which would not have been possible if only adult voices were included.

3. Directions for Future Research

In this introduction, we contextualize earlier and more recent research in the field of youth development. We acknowledge the hyperfocus on identity-based differences in youth sport development that has often been absent from sociopolitical and historical analysis. History shapes the material realities and environment that youth reside in and therefore undoubtedly impacts sporting ecology for potential youth development. For example, research investigations into sport for development (SfD), sport for development and peace (SDP), youth development, and sport-based social programs are broadly contingent on cultural practices, policies, interconnected structural factors, and the geopolitical climate, which has never provided a level playing field. Both SfD and SDP have largely acted as social interventions within communities that are considered to be “at risk”. The domestic and international aims of SfD and SDP are broadly understood as the intentional use of sport, physical activity, and various forms of movement with a focus on development and peace building. Similarly, while sport-based youth development programs have been designed specially, the use of sport alone does not have the power to fix the underlying structural pre-conditions in which these initiatives are being organized and carried out (Dart, 2019). We maintain that epistemological hegemony and homogeneity in youth development research contribute to disputes over sport development being a unique strategy for youth empowerment (Burnett, 2014; Bruner et al., 2021). As such, youth development in sport often mirrors rigid compliance to hierarchies of authority, including governance and funding structures (see Whitley et al., 2015), binarized notions of gender and sex, and cisgender heteronormative social structures.

Youth development and sport are always simultaneously tethered to social, political, cultural, economic, and historical factors and thus embody colonial contradictions in practice. According to Hartmann (2001), youth development programs, for example, the Midnight Basketball League initiative in the 1990s, are used to legitimize racial capitalism and the discriminatory maintenance of legislating “law and order” policies and practices that pathologize Black and Latine youth in city environments in particular (e.g., the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994). Racially targeted sports-based youth programs have an extensive history. The National Police Activity League (PAL), for example, is another program managed by law enforcement that uses sport and recreation to build relationships with youth and is promoted as an intervention to teach youth leadership and life skills. Scholars should shed light on the parallels between law enforcement programs, their missions, and how often language and outcomes are obfuscated within these programs that seemingly promote ’social justice’ and ‘youth development’ through sport.

While youth development programs and organizations may advocate for social justice in their mission statements, yearly reporting, funding requests, and sport and physical activity programs, these efforts are largely operated through Western ideological approaches. These practices mirror capitalistic youth development being coupled with state or governmental surveillance and compliance to standardized objectives and outcomes.

What are the current requirements for youth development through sport research? As outlined previously, the authors in this Special Issue propose more imaginative conceptual, theoretical, and methodological research within the field of youth development. As a challenging component in this field, it will be important to identify and rethink scholarly and community-oriented interventions. For example, it will be critical to identify the current incompatibilities that exist between communities with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), non-profit organizations, for-profit entities, and universities known to implement youth sport development programs. Researchers have a responsibility to explore and establish theoretical interventions that politicize the Global North youth development praxis. These interventions should expose the reality of colonial residue, social, economic, and gendered inequalities as well as the complicity of youth development programs and organizations (Darnell et al., 2016; Gardam et al., 2017; Spaaij & Jeanes, 2013).

Moving forward, youth development investigations could benefit further from both interdisciplinary and empirical research. Drawing from research through a cross-multidisciplinary approach may further strengthen youth development research and deepen our understanding of participants’ experiences. E. J. McGarry et al. (forthcoming) describe an approach to facilitate both informal and formal participant feedback through an initiative called Husky Talk. This initiative creates frequent opportunities for participants, including youth, caregivers, educators, and administrators, to share their experiences. Researchers engaging in the study of youth development through SfD and SDP need to further contend with the ways in which current youth development governance and funding structures aid and abet the ongoing “invisible imperialism and the universalization of capitalism” (p. 1895), as Chen (2022) refers to it. As scholars in the Global North and, in particular, North America, we need to commit to circumventing traditional U.S.-centric practices in youth development research. We encourage scholars to further investigate the corporations, foundations, non-profits, and other resource streams that invest in youth sport development programs. Re-examining an organization’s mission and praxis alongside their funding stream has the potential to reveal the hidden interests of funders more clearly and to larger audiences.

Future research is necessary, drawing explicit connections between youth development and colonialism, youth development and militarization (e.g., youth athletes in occupied territories such as Gaza Sunbirds3 and PK Gaza4), youth development and the environment (e.g., the climate catastrophe), and youth development and gendered experiences beyond the binary. Transgender youth are currently being restricted from participation in sport and physical activity. How will youth development programs and initiatives contest and combat anti-transgender participation policies and procedures? In the current global political climate, scholars need to reflect on the question of what ‘youth development’ through sport is under capitalist imperialism and amid occupied territories, on-going genocide(s), and mass disabling events? According to Camiré et al. (2022), the sociopolitical context matters, and we also add that the geopolitical context in which youth practice sport and/or are prevented from practicing sport is consistently relevant for the future of youth sport-based development research, and it is the responsibility of scholars to further investigate these aspects. One consideration for furthering the dignity of others in research and community-based work is how scholars describe youth and communities of people. In this introduction, we have shed light on the problematic terms that are often used to describe people of the global majority (PoGM).5 While this terminology is not perfect, it can be used to situate discussions in a global context, decentering the United States.

Finally, in reflecting on the future of this field, we consider how scholars researching the use of sport for development will “…resist the ideological capture of sport under capitalist imperialism…” (Chen, 2023 as cited in Brown et al., 2023, p. 347). Currently, as scholars in North America, we are not winning this battle, let alone fighting it collectively. We encourage scholars to collaborate in considering what strategies and transformative action need to be taken in the context of youth development research. Is youth development research currently focused on justice? We need to consider how youth development programs, organizations, and research can raise awareness of these issues while also subverting structural power. Though it is necessary to apply critical approaches to youth development, it will also take collective action and strategic efforts to alter the longstanding practices of youth development programs and organizations, from the design process to the implementation of curricula, participants’ experiences (and how those narratives are shared), critical pedagogical approaches, and the training of staff and facilitators.