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Understanding Effective Coaching: A Foucauldian Reading of Current Coach Education Frameworks
Abstract
Drawing on a modified version of Foucault’s (1972) analysis of discursive formations, we selected key coach education texts in Canada to examine what discourses currently shape effective coaching in Canada in order to detect what choices Canadian coaches have to know about “being an effective coach.” We then compared the most salient aspects of our reading to the International Sport Coaching Framework. Our Foucauldian reading of the two Canadian coach education websites showed that the present set of choices for coaches to practice “effectively” is narrow and that correspondingly the potential for change and innovation is limited in scope. Our comparison with the International Sport Coaching Framework, however, showed more promise as we found that its focus on the development of coach competences allowed for different coaching knowledges and coaching aims than a narrow focus on performance and results. We then conclude this Insights Paper by offering some comments on the implications of our Foucauldian reading as well as some suggestions to address our concerns about the dominance of certain knowledges and the various effects of this dominance for athletes, coaches, coach development and the coaching profession at large.
... Two dominant discourses in sport coaching are the performance-scientific discourse (Avner et al., 2017) and orthodox masculinity (Anderson, 2010). The performance-scientific coaching discourse focuses on winning-at-all-cost and the coach is framed as a sort of infallible expert (Avner et al., 2017). ...
... Two dominant discourses in sport coaching are the performance-scientific discourse (Avner et al., 2017) and orthodox masculinity (Anderson, 2010). The performance-scientific coaching discourse focuses on winning-at-all-cost and the coach is framed as a sort of infallible expert (Avner et al., 2017). Athletes are characterised as mouldable pieces of clay, often unquestioningly adhering to the coach (Denison & Avner, 2011). ...
... This has led Cassidy (2010) to conclude that athletecentred coach education can become meaningless, a token, and is often disregarded. This is evident in how other areas, such as physiology, biomechanics, and nutrition, have been supported, while recourses to successfully implement an athlete-centred approach, a psychosocial competency, are limited (Avner et al., 2017). Thus, our findings echo Avner et al.'s (2017) call to provide clearer and more effective coach education that develops not only athletes' performance, but also their overall well-being. ...
... Innovative or progressive coaching, or thinking outside the prevailing discourses, can therefore be dismissed or even 'excommunicated', leading to reproduction of dogma and stagnation Piggott, 2012). Dominant discourses identified in coaching include, for example, the discourses of 'science', 'performance', 'winning', 'philosophy', 'athlete-centredness', and reflection (Avner et al., 2017;Cushion & Jones, 2014;Downham & Cushion, 2020;Gearity, 2010;Grahn, 2014). ...
... In sport coaching, a Foucauldian lens has shown some of the rationalities and knowledges involved in formal coach education and coach learning (e.g. Avner et al., 2017;Downham & Cushion, 2020;Piggott, 2012), for example, dominant scientific discourses, and knowledges from sport physiology or sport medicine, alongside discourses of positive psychology and humanistic coaching. These conceptualisations imply assumptions and truths about effective coaching, which limit practitioners and encourage them to adopt rhetoric rather than effecting change (Avner et al., 2017). ...
... Avner et al., 2017;Downham & Cushion, 2020;Piggott, 2012), for example, dominant scientific discourses, and knowledges from sport physiology or sport medicine, alongside discourses of positive psychology and humanistic coaching. These conceptualisations imply assumptions and truths about effective coaching, which limit practitioners and encourage them to adopt rhetoric rather than effecting change (Avner et al., 2017). ...
The design and delivery of formal coach education and learning opportunities appear to be permeated by taken-for-granted discourses. These discourses exercise a systemised influence on the social construction of coaches’ professional knowledge, with potentially problematic consequences. Adopting a discursive methodology using discourse analysis, this study explored the ways in which facilitators and coaches in a high-performance coach education programme constructed coach learning. Data were collected over a two-year period using on-course participant observation (10 days), interviews with coaches and course facilitators (n = 29), and document analysis. Findings indicated a dominant discourse of ‘learning’ as a linear, mechanistic and unproblematic process occurring independently of context, and of coaches as experiential learners, which positioned participants as anti-intellectual and uncritical adopters of ‘what works’. These discourses functioned to reproduce relations of power between the facilitators (the holders of knowledge) and the participants (the recipients of knowledge). The impact of these discursive resources on programme design and delivery are discussed, alongside implications for elite coaches’ subjectivity and practice, in order to confront dominant and legitimate ‘truths’ in coach education.
... Specifically, exploring LTAD through a Foucauldian lens enables us to move beyond surface rhetoric and think critically about the consequences of how power relations operate through athlete development frameworks (Avner et al. 2017). Markula and Silk (2011) articulated post-structural research as having three aims: mapping, critique, and change. ...
... In sport, Shogan (1999Shogan ( , 2007 was one of the first scholars to note how Foucault's theories mapped almost perfectly to coaching. Since then, a growing body of work in sport coaching has used Foucault to develop coaching practice and education (e.g., Avner et al., 2017;Cushion, 2016;Denison, 2007Denison, , 2019Denison & Avner, 2011;Denison, Mills & Jones, 2013;Denison, Mills & Konoval, 2015;Gearity & Mills, 2012;, 2016Mills, Denison & Gearity, 2020). The recurring themes in this body of work show how many of sports coaching and science's assumptions, knowledges, and practices unintentionally produce a host of undermining, maladaptive outcomes. ...
... The implicit assumption by those that adopt the framework is that it offers an 'ideal' conception of how athlete development should occur. Development is informed by seven pre-defined, step-by-step 'guiding' stages and underpinned by 'bio-scientific' knowledge and discourse-sport physiology and medicine-that is stronger than anything else in the education and development of 'effective' coaches (Avner et al., 2017). Yet this singular, rational conception of athlete development, formed in a laboratory, is at odds with the 'real' world in which the athlete lives, their everyday experiences, and their messy social realities (Avner et al., 2017). ...
The purpose of this paper is to problematize the continued adoption and implementation of Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) framework (Balyi et al., 2005; 2014) as an increasingly orthodox conception of the athlete development process and for underpinning and designing sport coaching practice. In adopting a post-structuralist, Foucauldian perspective and drawing upon empirical interview data with Balyi and colleagues, senior government officials and sport administrators, our analysis examines some of the potential limitations for adopting and implementing LTAD as a conception of the athlete development process. In particular, we highlight the potential issues and contradictions linked to adopting such conceptions, namely their (mis)use as mechanisms of social control (i.e. governmentality), delimiting the ability of athletes and sport practitioners to think otherwise (i.e. disciplining and docility), and the potential to marginalize alternative ways of thinking. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for managerial and coaching practice.
... It is well-documented that coaching is a complex activity (Bowes & Jones, 2006;Horton, 2015;Martindale & Collins, 2012) and that preparing coaches to operate as effective practitioners in a dynamic environment remains problematic (Avner, Markula, & Denison, 2017). The gap between theory and practice is an equally knotty issue, and despite some excellent work that informs curriculum design and pedagogic innovations (Lefebvre, Evans, Turnnidge, Gainforth, & Côté, 2016;Morgan, Jones, Gilbourne, & Llewellyn, 2013;Paquette & Trudel, 2018a;Vella & Perlman, 2014), developing coaches often cite poor coach educator (CE) delivery and inferior communication skills as factors that limit the efficacy of formal coach education (Nelson, Cushion, & Potrac, 2013;Paquette & Trudel, 2018b). ...
... Notwithstanding the importance of formal education, current research continues to be critical of quality and reports a pervasive and dominant focus on discipline-specific professional knowledge (Avner et al., 2017;Côté & Gilbert, 2009). Beguiled by a reductionist approach that accelerates the certification and therefore operationalization of coaches, coach education could be accused of compromising a focus on learning and development in its quest for professionalized standards. ...
... Although there is some recognition for interpersonal knowledge to feature more prominently in formal coach education (Vella, Oades, & Crowe, 2013;Turnnidge & Côté, 2018, it is often assumed that effective interpersonal knowledge is innate and cannot be taught, with formal coach education neglecting to address interpersonal knowledge in a structured way (Avner et al., 2017;Jones, Morgan, & Harris, 2012;Lefebvre et al., 2016). Because interpersonal knowledge may be difficult to teach and equally challenging to assess within a coach education setting, it is often understandably left alone or, at best, judged informally. ...
Whilst recent work recognises a need for coach education to place greater emphasis on interpersonal knowledge when developing coaching expertise, it is our position that coach educators (CEs) must follow a similar trajectory in embracing the interpersonal knowledge requisite of their role, and move beyond a reliance on content and professional knowledge in order to shape their delivery. In order to better understand CE behaviour, we observed four experienced CEs in Alpine skiing, using an adapted version of the Coach Leadership Assessment System (CLAS) (Turnnidge & Côté, 2019) during delivery of a coach education and assessment course. We also interviewed CEs to further elucidate the observational data. Our findings suggest the benefit of transactional approaches to leadership during assessment, when set against the backdrop of an environment driven by intentions consistent with transformational leadership. Furthermore, we call for a greater appreciation of context when imagining CE behaviours that align with effective practice.
... Coach education in the UK has been the subject of criticism by various authors who cite a number of shortfalls including: what constitutes best practice being accepted without critical questioning; that course delivery presents a decontexualisation of learning which fails to transfer to localised practice; and that coach-learners are prescribed 'the right way' to coach by course educators (Avner, Markula, & Denison, 2017;Lewis, Roberts, & Andrews, 2018;Stodter & Cushion, 2019). Piggott (2012) suggests that within football coach education, educators cast themselves as authoritative agents who try to protect their positions by [re]producing a body of prescriptive and authoritative knowledge. ...
... Blackett, Evans, & Piggott, 2019;Cushion, 2018;Gerdin, Pringle, & Crocket, 2019;Taylor, Piper, & Garratt, 2016;Taylor, Potrac, Nelson, Jones, & Groom, 2018) and coach education (e.g. Avner et al., 2017;Piggott, 2012;Zehntner & McMahon, 2019). In doing so, they have helped to illuminate the hidden, yet powerful, structural and cultural practices that underpin particular and prevailing orthodoxies. ...
In this article we present a critical reading of female coach-learners’ experiences of the Union of European Football Association’s Advanced Licence (UEFA A), which at the time of writing have been largely ignored. It comes at a point when The Football Association’s policy, the 2017–2020 Gameplan for Growth Strategy, which focuses on the women’s game, has been completed. We wanted to understand better the challenges faced by female coaches as they navigate their way through the male-dominated educational programmes. We interviewed nine female UEFA A Licence holders who had participated in differing cohorts across a ten-year span. Interpreting the female coach-learners’ experiences through a critical and broadly poststructuralist lens reveals how the language, structure and assumptions inherent in the course impact female coach-learner experiences. The data exposes a catalogue of androcentric assumptions, toxic masculinity, sexualised language, dismissive practices and an ignorance of the women’s game.
... In sports research, studies have often focused on the coaches as identifiers of talent (Christensen, 2009;Russell et al., 2013). Avner, Markula and Denison (2017) illustrate the production of legitimate knowledge about effective coaching in coach education texts and demonstrate how this shapes a specific discursive formation. That is, the ways of becoming accepted as an effective coach are part of a discursive process of legitimization. ...
... These repertoires produce specific ways of representing and making sense of -in this case -talent and selection, and are made visible as recurring patterns in the material. For example, Grahn (2015) shows how certain repertoires shape perceptions of sport competitiveness as gendered, or how coaches understand effective coaching (Avner, et al, 2017). In what follows, familiar rhetorical repertoires of talent selection are repeated in the different historical periods studied, however featured for different purposes. ...
This article examines the long historical interest for the selection of young talented children in sports. This seemingly everlasting search for talents and the quest for the especially gifted is followed by the practice of trying to find and select the right individuals. This paper elucidates historical representations of talent and talent selection in a series of professional sports literature in Sweden during the 1930s, 1980s, 1990s and 2010s. Drawing on a discourse analytic approach, it illustrates the historical understanding of selection and how such practices produce formations of legitimacy. The study shows how certain historical elements reoccur in contemporary selection discourse and how specific actions are transformed into personal characteristics. These selection processes construct a rationale for a legitimate selection and illustrate how talent selection is based on historically specific assumptions, normative and moral statements and activities connected to a specific discursive formation. This insight underlines that talent selection cannot be understood as essential skills identified through observation, tests or interviews. It is rather to be understood as a discursive repertoire responding to a specific historical legitimacy.
... Despite the increased inclusion of Foucauldian-informed research within sports coaching scholarship, Foucault's thinking remains conspicuously absent from formal coach development curricula. This is not surprising given that mainstream coach education programs tend to privilege and legitimize bio-scientific knowledges (e.g., sport physiology, biomechanics) and "evidencable" ways of knowing about the human body and performance (Avner et al., 2017;Dowling et al., 2020). As a result of this orthodoxy, other ways of knowing about coaching in relation to the human body and performance that are not so easily quantifiable are easily dismissed as irrelevant or too esoteric to have any direct practical implications or influence on the development of coaches' practices (Denison & Avner, 2022;Konoval et al., 2019). ...
This paper presents our efforts and subsequent reflections in attempting to make Foucauldian theory accessible and relevant to a group of high-performance endurance-running coaches within the context of a coach development intravention and Foucauldian inspired workshop series. Specifically, we reflect upon our efforts to introduce coaches to Foucauldian ideas and concepts such as the knowledge–power–practice triad and upon the tensions we experienced in doing so. These tensions were related to the power of the theory–practice divide to set expectations around what it means to be an effective coach developer and a high-performance coach but also in the main related to our intentions regarding a broader shift in the coaches’ thinking concerning the influence of a number of social forces in the formation of their practices. We contend that coaching scholars invested in mobilizing ways of knowing underpinned by a different logic (e.g., relationally informed ways of knowing) within coaching and coach development settings would benefit from a deeper understanding of the politics of sports coaching knowledge and practice and how relations of power–knowledge impact learning within pedagogical contexts. Such an awareness, we believe, would in turn support more targeted pedagogical frameworks, practices, and strategies specifically aimed at disrupting established relations of power–knowledge and related problematic binary understandings such as the theory–practice divide which stand in the way of more diverse and ethical knowledge production processes in sports coaching and coach development work.
... Whatever reminder is ultimately implemented, it stemmed from an in-situ collaboration that led to a COP that in turn led to improved coaching practice and professional development that is sustainable and not dependent upon the coach developer in any way. Avner et al. (2017) noted that coaches as well as coach developers often declare they use an athlete-centered approach but have limited knowledge and/or training of how to practically employ athlete-centered practice. My in-situ work with the coaches enabled me to guide the S&C coaches of how to implement what they have learned through reflection and communities of practice in the training facility to become more athlete-centered. ...
Researchers highlight the importance of using constructivist, learner-centered approaches to develop effective S&C coaching practice, such as reflective practice and community of practice (COP). Such approaches are relational meaning that the S&C coach developer must build effective relationships with the learner (i.e. S&C coach) to enhance cooperation and engagement, which can take a considerable amount of time. Constructivist learning strategies are essential to develop an athlete-centered coaching approach, which focuses on developing not only performance but also the overall well-being of the athlete. Yet, there has been a considerable lack of evidence of a how to integrate and utilize reflective practice and COP within S&C coach development, as well as documenting their impact. This practical advance article aims to address this knowledge to action gap by examining how a S&C coach developer, who is paid by and in-situ working with an organization, implemented an effective longitudinal, learner-centered coach development program to promote athlete-centered coaching practice. In doing so, we outline the importance of relationship building, creating community and trust, which underlines the organic process that seamlessly integrates guided critical reflection and COPs as valued learning strategies to develop S&C coaches’ psychosocial skills.
... Coach education has been identified as key to raising the standard of coaching practice (Avner et al., 2017). The following actions can be taken as part of professional development: ...
Running a tennis business must consider different elements to be successful. The purpose of this article is to name several factors that can assist to establish a tennis organization, expanding it, and staying in the business long term. The possibilities and nature of the business in the tennis world are wide. Given the impossibility of covering all of them, this article will focus only on running the tennis programs in a recreational tennis club as a contractor partner.
... Just as in the case of USA Swimming, coach education primarily focuses on enhancing athlete performance with sparse attention to athletes as multidimensional individuals with social and emotional developmental needs (Avner, Markula, & Denison, 2017;Cushion et al., 2003). The practices I carefully constructed closely resembled those that my coach yelled through the thick morning fog; our athletes became docile bodies completing various drills and sets aimed at producing efficient swimming machines (Foucault, 1979). ...
Despite attempts to decrease mental illness in the United States, mental illness and death by suicide are still prevalent in the sports community. The most significant barrier to athletes seeking help is stigma produced through the social construction of normal subjectivity. We drew upon Michel Foucault’s concepts of discourse and power to problematise the current state of effective sports coaching, coach education, and how stigma is produced in a particular coaching context. Using an autoethnographic approach, we delve into the lived experiences of a former collegiate-level swimmer with depression and suicidal ideation, who would later as a coach, manage a non-fatal suicide attempt from an athlete he coached. We conclude with a critical reflection on the narrative and discursive relations of power, as well as implications for athlete mental health and wellbeing, which include the need for critical coach education on coaching discourses, practices, and the current sports coaching épistémè.
... Likewise, good quality, relevant training [152] delivered in a controlled exposure to environmental variables, is likely to improve safety skills enabling humans to apply more control over hazardous situations. Moreover, increase the likelihood of a human being able to effectively predict, unpredictable horse-related responses [147,[153][154][155][156]. We know safety-first training works to reduce unwanted or unplanned injuries, illnesses and fatalities in 'high-risk' industries [157][158][159]. ...
The equestrian industry reports high rates of serious injuries, illness and fatalities when compared to other high-risk sports and work environments. To address these ongoing safety concerns, a greater understanding of the relationship between human risk perception, values and safety behaviours is required. This paper presents results from an international survey that explored relationships between a respondents’ willingness to take risk during daily activities along with, their perceptions of risk and behaviours during horse-related interactions. Respondents’ comments around risk management principles and safety-first inspirations were also analysed. We examined what humans think about hazardous situations or activities and how they managed risk with suitable controls. Analysis identified three important findings. First, safe behaviours around horses were associated with safety training (formal and/or informal). Second, unsafe behaviours around horses were associated with higher levels of equestrian experience as well as income from horse-related work. Finally, findings revealed a general acceptance of danger and imminent injury during horse interactions. This may explain why some respondents de-emphasised or ‘talked-down’ the importance of safety-first principles. In this paper we predominantly reported quantitative findings of respondents self-reported safety behaviours, general and horse-related risk perceptions despite injury or illness. We discussed the benefits of improved safety-first principles like training, risk assessments, rider-horse match with enriched safety communications to enhance risk-mitigation during human–horse interactions.
... Despite this, the recognition of everyday experiences as valuable learning opportunities has gained increased acceptance in sports coaching (Cushion, Armour, & Jones, 2003;Gilbert & Trudel, 2001;Nelson, Cushion, & Potrac, 2006). Avner, Markula, and Denison (2017) have acknowledged the development of coach competences and knowledges as preferential to a narrow focus on performance and results. Research in Australia (Rynne, Mallett, & Tinning, 2008) and Canada (Wright et al., 2007) has attributed informal learning involved in everyday work situations as the greatest contributor to coach development. ...
A range of learning opportunities needs to be afforded to coaches to support the complexity of effective coaching. Coaches learn to coach in formal and informal settings. Much research has advocated collaborative coach learning, but there is a need to conduct research in order to evidence reliable ways to support collaborative coach learning. Self-study has been effective to support practitioners’ learning in teacher education and physical education teacher education. To date, there has been a very limited application of self-study in coaching contexts. This Insights paper advocates the use of collaborative self-study as a reliable and valid approach to support meaningful coach learning. This paper documents the researchers’ own experiences of learning to coach within a collaborative self-study. The coaches focused on developing an athlete-centred coaching approach. This paper illustrates how self-study supported collaboration, reflection, and pedagogical innovation over the course of a Gaelic football season. The authors outline implications for future research into coaching and coach education.
... Some authors that were cited in the introduction of this paper have focused on the production of docile or resistant athlete subjectivities to coaching practices; that is, the analysis has stayed within the war-repression model to critically examine the disciplining and normalizing nature of sport and sport coaching (Avner, Denison and Markula 2019). The recent work by Denison and others using the Foucauldian notion of problematization to inform coach education and practice suggest a destabilization of the disciplining model of coaching as an ideal to work towards (Avner, Denison and Markula 2019;Avner, Markula and Denison 2017;Claringbould, Knoppers and Jacobs 2015;Denison 2010;Denison and Mills 2014;Denison, Mills and Jones 2013;Denison, Mills and Konoval 2017;Mills and Denison 2013). But such programs have failed to find 'empirical examples' of the successful use of such a model (Crocket 2017, 32). ...
It has been suggested by some authors that, given the relationship between dependence and vulnerability to exploitation, a shift in coaching away from surveillance and control and towards autonomy-supportive behaviours by coaches will be conducive to athlete welfare. This paper utilizes an ethnographic approach, underpinned by the theoretical position of the later writings of Foucault, to understand the autonomous practices of athletes in a Japanese university rowing club. Of particular interest are the ways in which the relative absence of the coach contributes to athlete autonomy. The long-term sport-education of these Japanese university rowers results in an enduring subjectification that no longer requires the intervention of any coach. At the same time, these Japanese rowers still actively and autonomously engage in practices of the self, expressed in non-strategic, interactional ways.
... Markula and Silk (2011) identified that post-structuralist researchers try to create change in the world by rejecting universal 'truths' and by critiquing problematic privileged knowledge. Avner, Markula, and Denison (2017) recently demonstrated how a Foucauldian post-structural approach can be used to identify shortcomings in situated and accepted coaching approaches. Because of these recognised strengths, as with previous research , the current study adopted a Foucauldian stance to re-examine the application of wearable GPS harnesses within the working soccer setting. ...
Conventional wisdom dictates that the use of GPS surveillance technology in sport to assist athletic performance is an overwhelminglypositive phenomenon. Specifically, the health and performance benefits of the application of GPS and surveillance technologies have been well documented across a range of field sports. Previous research into the developmental implications of GPS surveillance in professional rugby league (Jones, Marshall, & Denison, 2016) has identified that there are some significant unintended consequencesof their use for elite athletes. We utilised the disciplinary analysis of Foucault to investigate the experiences of academy soccer playersin relation to wearable GPS technology. Five academy players took part in semi-structured group interviews as part of a wider study into the effects of surveillance technologies within an academy setting. We suggest that the now normalised and increasingly ubiqui- tous use of GPS surveillance technology within this particular British soccer academy is seen as relatively insignificant by its players. However, we also report that GPS use does act to impose discipline on academy players and may well have unforeseen and potentially problematic implications for academy players’ development experience.
... The discourses about coaching in which regimes of truth are embedded are also beginning to receive scholarly attention. Avner et al. (2017) critically analysed dominant discourses about coaching. They argued that excavation and disruption of dominant discourses are needed if significant change in coaching practices is to occur. ...
One of the most important sources of knowledge coaches draw on to inform their practice is their experience of being coached themselves. These experiences are gendered. To date, however, relatively little research is available that indicates how coaches do gender in their discursive coaching practices. We used a Foucauldian lens to explore discourses drawn on by 12 international elite rowing coaches to legitimate their ‘regimes of truth’ in their thinking about elite women rowers. Although they professed to treat everyone the same regardless of gender, they drew on discourses that constituted their women athletes as inferior to various implicit male norms. We suggest that coaches are reproducing the discourses about gender into which they were disciplined during their athletic careers and regard these as ‘regimes of truth’ in their own coaching practice. We discuss the implications of these findings with regard to the perpetuation of the gendering of coaching and conclude that the normalization of men and the gendered hierarchy in sport remains largely unchallenged.
Given the need for post-modern education, and likewise, coach development to better prepare coaches for messy and complex realities, the purpose of this study was to explore the use of coach developers’ post-structural pedagogical practices. Using post-structural assumptions as a lens for analysing two coach developer’s pedagogies in a higher education master’s degree coaching programme, such practices aimed to open-up multiple realities (e.g. debunking singular truth regimes strategies), power as relational (e.g. social constructions of knowledge strategies) and an ever-evolving self (e.g. encouraging errors and false starts). These themes encompassed 19 pedagogical practices, which are discussed in relation to the need for coaches’ post-structural understandings, coach developers’ implementation of post-structural pedagogies, and overcoming practical realities of producing docile coach learners.
Poststructural, Foucauldian-informed scholarship has shown the invisible consequences of how coaches use knowledge through various disciplinary techniques, which has prompted a need for coach development to bring awareness of such effects. However, a lack of literature exists on how coaches come to understand Foucauldian-informed coaching. This study explored how three strength and conditioning coaches learned to problematize disciplinary practices, how they rationalize their (un)intended effects, and why specific less disciplinary practices are produced and implemented, whereas others are left unattended. The findings include how the coaches engaged epiphanic contradictions , contemplated new and creative practices , and interacted with catalytic mediators to understand Foucauldian-informed coaching. Facilitators and barriers to Foucauldian thinking provide further insight into how the coaches’ thinking was accelerated or halted in the learning process. The findings are discussed in relation to literature on coach learning and recent scholarship on coaches’ exposure to poststructural, Foucauldian-informed coaching.
Within this paper we propose a need to better understand what is meant by a person-centred approach to coaching and in particular, to consider the intention that drives coach behaviours. Much of the extant coaching literature focuses on pedagogical models and theories of learning; without detracting from this important body of work, we suggest that a holistic approach requires a greater focus on coaches’ inter- and intra- personal knowledge. In this paper, video stimulated recall was used to guide interviews with Alpine ski coaches, to explore their thought processes and intentions behind person-centred delivery. The findings suggest these coaches adopted other-centred intentions that are facilitated by an accurate self-assessment, a big picture perspective and a willingness to learn. Consequently, the concept of humility is proposed as a guiding principle for person-centred coaching, and a conceptual model (POWA) is presented as a solution to the challenges we identify throughout the paper.
Foucauldian-inspired coaching practices have been a recent focus in the Foucauldian coaching studies literature. There can be no denying the emergence of a number of ethical coaching practices in synergy with Foucault’s work, yet in most coaches’ everyday practices there appears to have been little uptake. Accordingly, our central concern in this paper is considering how Foucault’s work could become a more deliberate feature of coaching. Using Thomas Kuhn’s concept of paradigms, we argue that more significant change is yet to occur because coach education does not include the post-structural paradigmatic assumptions underpinning Foucault’s work. As a result, coaches immersed in a modern disciplinary logic may interpret Foucauldian-inspired practices through incommensurable assumptions. In this paper, we develop numerous post-structural assumptions into coaching post-structural praxis (CPSP) to demonstrate what those assumptions mean for coaches’ knowledge and practice.
This study sought to unearth the attitudes of Caribbean Tennis coaches towards continuous education. Utilizing purposeful sampling, forty (40) respondents of assorted coaching levels from various islands were recruited to participate in the study. The results illustrated that, contrary to belief, coaches did not view continuous education negatively but rather illuminated that courses may not be adequately catering to the needs of coaching practitioners in a meaningful way. Additionally, results also highlighted issues such as inadequate exposure and disgruntlement of coaches who feel undervalued. As such, strategies must be focused on addressing these issues.
Problem-based learning along with other game and player-centred approaches have been promoted as valuable alternatives to more traditional, skill-based, directive, and leader-centric pedagogical approaches. However, as research has shown, they are not unproblematic or straightforward to apply. Heeding to calls for more empirical studies of game-centred approaches in coaching contexts, this study explored the impact of a unique problem-based learning (PBL) informed academy-wide coaching approach to athlete learning and development known as Beat the Game within a top-level rugby union professional club. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s ([1977]. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage) disciplinary framework, we specifically sought to critically examine whether, to what extent, and how a PBL informed academy-wide coaching approach challenges the dominant disciplinary logic of elite sport. Our data, based on observations and semi-structured interviews with three academy coaches and sixteen junior and senior academy players, showed a definitive loosening of disciplinary aspects in both training and game environments accompanied by a shift towards a less leader-centric, linear, and hierarchical understanding of leadership and decision-making. Despite these promising shifts, the application of a PBL-informed coaching approach within this elite development context also presented many challenges, not the least of which resulted from the non-alignment of academy and first team coaching approaches. Our analysis, therefore, indicated the need for more research which focuses on the short-term and long-term impact that such disconnects have on continued progression, performance, physical and mental wellbeing, and job satisfaction and longevity especially given the growing popularity of non-linear pedagogies in youth sporting contexts.
Coach developers (CDs) are an integral aspect of the coaching education system in Canada, as they are responsible for the delivery of the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) to coaches. A means of understanding the role of CDs within the Canadian coaching education system is to gain insight into the enablers and challenges of the interorganizational relationships (IORs) between the stakeholders (e.g., organizations, CDs, and coaches). The purpose of this insights paper was to use IORs to understand the CD relationship with other stakeholders in the coach education system as they pertain to enablers and challenges. The use of IORs is a relatively new theoretical concept within the field of coaching and coach education as it pertains to CDs. Through the empirical evidence of three sports—hockey, soccer, and baseball—there were three key themes that were indicative of IORs: the NCCP delivery, communications, and monitoring/evaluating for effectiveness . On the basis of the findings from this current study, the intended system design of the Canadian coaching education system, which is based on role-set IOR, is a vertical model of top-down governance model. On the basis of the findings from this current study, the intended system design of the Canadian coaching education system, which is based on role-set IOR, is a vertical model of top-down governance, where one decision from the top impacts all the other stakeholders within the system.
There have been numerous calls by coaching researchers for Foucauldian-informed coach developers to help coaches change their practices to be less reliant on discipline’s techniques and instruments. In this paper, we explored what it might mean for a Foucauldian-informed coach developer to work collaboratively with a male university endurance running coach as he learned how to problematize the use of discipline. More specifically, we examined some of the barriers, challenges, and opportunities that the coach experienced as he attempted to learn, in collaboration with the first author, how to question the unintended consequences of discipline’s techniques and instruments and rethink the “total effects” of his coaching practices. The results revealed that the coach was able to show a degree of problematization, however, in the field the deep-rooted connection between endurance running, physiology, and discipline made coaching for him in a less disciplinary way a challenge. To conclude, Foucauldian-informed coach developers working in sports where physiology is the predominant sport science could use specific pedagogical strategies that work with and explicitly complicate the strong cyclical relationship between discipline and physiology to help coaches implement practices that are less dominated by, not absent of, physiology.
Fun is deeply ingrained in the ways we talk about and understand sport: Having fun is what makes sport positive and healthy. Drawing on a Foucauldian perspective, we problematize how fun, a psychological construct, informs coaches’ practices. Interviews with 10 varsity coaches from a Canadian university indicated that the coaches used fun to overcome the ‘grind’ of physical skill training. In addition, fun was used to develop and naturalize a need for athletes’ positive psychological traits and skills. In their training contexts, thus, the coaches clearly employed fun to reinforce their use of a number of dominant disciplinary training practices. As a result, instead of operating as a positive force for athlete engagement, the incorporation of fun further legitimized and perpetuated coaches’ ‘normal’ training practices.
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