Author(s): MORRIS-EYTON, H., SUBRAMANY, L., KRUGER, E., BURNETT, C., Institution: UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG, Country: SOUTH AFRICA, Abstract-ID: 2650

Introduction
Anti-doping education across Africa is shaped by structural inequities, limited resources, and inequitable institutional capacity, raising ethical concerns related to fairness, access to knowledge, moral responsibility, and justice in clean sport governance. Contemporary scholarship and international policy frameworks emphasise that effective anti-doping education should move beyond procedural rule transmission towards values-based learning, ethical reasoning, and the development of moral agency. Guided by this perspective, this study examined the levels of anti-doping education and ethical perceptions of doping within a values-based framework among African high-performance athletes participating in the 13th African Games, held in Accra, Ghana.
Methods
Using an adapted GRADE IT questionnaire (r = 0.89), data were collected from 198 athletes representing 29 countries across 21 sporting codes. Questionnaires were administered in English and distributed across multiple competition venues as well as within the athletes’ village. The distribution was supported by trained fieldworkers to ensure standardised administration and data integrity.
Results
Findings revealed a significant ethical gap between perceived knowledge and applied moral competence. While self-reported anti-doping knowledge was highest concerning the health side effects of doping, it was lowest regarding the WADA prohibited list, with 21% of respondents reported being not at all informed about the list. Confidence in navigating the anti-doping system was limited indicating reduced ethical autonomy and moral agency. Ethical vulnerability increased when athletes were concerned about their sporting careers and when compliance with anti-doping rules required excessive time or effort. Athletes moderately endorsed the moral legitimacy of anti-doping rules, in the protection of clean sport, but expressed weaker trust in system effectiveness and fairness.
Discussion
Anti-doping education in Africa remains predominantly informational rather than ethically transformative. The findings expose a justice and equity deficit within current anti-doping education, where procedural knowledge fails to translate into ethical competence or practical moral agency. This indicates the limits of compliance driven paradigms and highlights the need for African contextualised, culturally grounded, values-based education models that prioritise critical reflection, ethical dialogue, moral responsibility, and communicative empowerment. A systemic transformation is required, shifting from reductionist, enforcement orientated strategies towards educational redesign and capacity building approaches that cultivate ethical competence, agency and sustainable integrity in clean sport systems.