Youth Sports Coaches and their Community in Air Pollution Governance

该奖项是作为NSF的社会，行为和经济科学博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界，工业或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF的奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。NSF致力于促进来自科学界各部门的科学家，包括来自代表性不足的群体的科学家参与其研究计划和活动;博士后期间被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的重要水平。每个博士后研究员必须解决推进各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在加州大学欧文分校Kim Fortun博士的赞助下，该博士后奖学金支持早期职业科学家对空气污染对青少年体育教练实践和教学发展的影响的调查。儿童时期暴露于空气污染对健康和福祉具有重大的短期和长期破坏性影响。边缘化社区的K-12学生经常因暴露于空气中的危害而受到伤害。学校工作人员，特别是体育教练，能够通过决定何时、何地和如何锻炼来减少儿童接触空气污染的机会。然而，大多数教练没有充分准备应对这些环境危害。该项目帮助教育决策者和课程开发专业人员通过获得实时数据，大大改善他们对不同学校环境中的环境危害的核算。特别是，它侧重于为工人阶级，少数民族和移民社区提供此类数据。因为尽管这些社区经常是污染相关研究的对象，但他们很少被邀请在基本数据收集过程中提供投入-即使他们处于特别有利的地位，并将受益最多。该项目开发了一种新的研究方法，将教练作为日常活动中的空气污染行为者进行理论化。通过使用参与式行动研究设计元素和领先的社区参与，以环境正义为导向的研究方法，这种创新是可能的。拟议的项目，“青年体育教练和他们的社区在空气污染治理”，将研究学校体育教练在当地公立学校的日常决策和教学选择，及其周围的社区，在圣加布里埃尔谷，加州，由于靠近许多主要高速公路，该地区空气污染严重。该项目的目标是（1）收集、组织和绘制污染研究和治理的经验数据;（2）收集利益相关者的访谈数据;（3）通过监测设备收集空气污染数据;（4）开发多标量理论框架来描述污染治理;（5）开发高速公路和运输走廊档案。该研究将采用新兴的城市人文方法，人种学观察，访谈，档案研究和空气质量监测数据，以产生与学校教练的本地化经验相协调的原始数据集。利益相关者教练将佩戴，邻居将安装空气污染监测设备，并将学习如何通过智能手机应用程序访问和理解生成的数据。其成果包括开发地图和其他可视化的教练在学校的日常活动，定位他们的教学决定维斯于学校，城市和国家的污染治理基础设施。该项目的一个更广泛的影响是为体育教练和社区利益相关者制定指南，以了解和有效沟通空气污染危害。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Kim Fortun at the University of California, Irvine, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist’s investigation of the effects of air pollution on youth sports coaching practices and pedagogical development. Exposure to air pollution during childhood has significant destructive effects on health and well-being, both short and long-term. K–12 students in marginalized communities often suffer disproportionally from exposure to airborne hazards. School staff members, especially sports coaches, are well positioned to mitigate children’s exposure to air pollution through their decisions of when, where, and how to exercise. Yet most coaches are inadequately prepared to address such environmental hazards. This project helps education policymakers and curriculum development professionals dramatically improve their accounting of situated environmental hazards in diverse school settings by giving them access to real-time data. In particular, it focuses on providing working class, minority, and immigrant communities with such data. For while such communities are often the subject of pollution-related research, they are seldom invited to give input during basic data collection—even though they are particularly well positioned and stand to benefit the most. This project develops a new line of research that theorizes coaches as air pollution actors in their everyday activities. Such innovation is possible by using participatory action research design elements and leading community-engaged, environmental justice-oriented research approaches.The proposed project, “Youth Sports Coaches and their Community in Air Pollution Governance,” will study the daily decision making and pedagogical choices of school sports coaches at a local public school, and its surrounding neighborhood, in the San Gabriel Valley, California, a region with significant air pollution given its proximity to numerous major highways. The project objectives are (1) to collect, organize, and map empirical data on pollution research and governance; (2) to collect interview data from stakeholders; (3) to collect air pollution data through monitoring devices; (4) to develop a multi-scalar theoretical framework to characterize pollution governance; (5) to develop a freeway and transportation corridor archive. The study will employ emerging Urban Humanities methods, ethnographic observations, interviews, archival research, and air quality monitoring data to produce original data sets finely attuned to localized experiences of school coaches. Stakeholder coaches will wear, and neighbors will install, air pollution monitoring devices, and will learn how to access and understand the generated data via smartphone applications. Outcomes include developing maps and other visualizations of the daily activities of coaches on school grounds, situating their pedagogic decisions vis-à-vis the pollution governance infrastructures of school, city, and state. A broader impact of this project is the development of guides for sports coaches and community stakeholders to understand and communicate effectively about air pollution hazards.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.