Realist evaluation of the Football Association’s Post Graduate Diploma (PG Dip) in Coach Development

Recent studies have provided important initial insights into the relational and micropolitical dimensions of coach educators’ and coach developers’ work. However, there remains a paucity of inquiry addressing how sporting organisations prepare these members of their workforce to achieve desired goals and objectives. This research uses realist evaluation and normalisation process theory to examine a bespoke ‘reality grounded’ learning initiative that targeted the professional judgements and decision making of experienced coach developers. This rigorous, longitudinal, and theoretically informed approach allowed for the generation of rich, causal, explanations of ‘what has worked within this learning initiative, for whom, and under what circumstances’. Specifically, the study provides original and significant insights into the interconnections between (a) new ways of thinking, organising and acting, (b) already existing, socially patterned, knowledge and practices, and (c) positive and sustainable changes in everyday professional practice; something that has been largely absent in the wider coach education literature base to date. The research concludes that the programme entails more a transfer of knowledge from tutors to coach developers. Importantly, this intervention also aided (a) the development of a coach developer community, (b) facilitated the exchange of information and ideas between peers and, ultimately, (c) impacted on coach development practices and behaviours

‘Lines of Flight or Tethered Wings?’ A Deleuzian Analysis of Women-specific Adventure Skills Courses in the United Kingdom

In this paper we examine women-specific adventure sport skills training courses in the UK utilising a feminist new materialist approach. Drawing on Deleuze & Guattari’s (1987) concepts of ‘assemblage’. ‘lines of territorialisation’ and ‘lines of flight’, we apply a new lens to ask: what type(s) of material-discursive assemblages are produced through human and non-human, discursive and non-discursive intra-actions on women-specific adventure sport skills courses? To what extent do these courses enable participants to engage with an alternative praxis and ethics and to think, feel, practice, and become otherwise? Our Deleuzian reading showed that the affective capacity of these courses is currently limited by dominant understandings of these courses as bridges to the real outdoors and as primarily designed for women who lack the confidence to participate in mixed-gender environments. However, these courses also enabled productive lines of flight and alternative understandings and practices related to the self, the body, others, material objects, learning, movement, and physical activity to emerge. These were both characterised and supported by less instrumental and hierarchical flows of relations and an openness to not knowing

Beat the Game: A Foucauldian Exploration of Coaching Differently in an Elite Rugby Academy

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

Coaching in the shadows: Critically examining the unintended (non)influence of pedagogical practice

Background Influence is at the very core of physical education and sport pedagogy. Indeed, a large and growing body of work has focused on the (inter)actions of sport pedagogues which are deemed to be influential in terms of shaping the thoughts, feelings and actions of others. In comparison, little attention has been paid to the practices of sport pedagogues that are noninfluential or unintentionally influential. That is, when pedagogues or learners choose not to do something, how they are not influenced/influential, or when practice (unintentionally) influences those who were (or were not) the original target. Paying greater attention to these issues holds strong potential to develop more critical and ethical understandings of influence that can inform the education and development of sport pedagogues. Aims The aims of this study are two-fold. Firstly, we seek to break new ground by providing novel insights into how, when, why, for whom, and under which circumstances pedagogical (inter)action is not influential, and where (inter)actions have had an unintended influence. Secondly, and relatedly, we seek to advance and illustrate methodological perspectives capable of critically understanding this topic. Data collection Data were generated using a bricolage of methods (i.e. participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and stimulated recall interviews) as part of a critical realist ethnography with one representative-level junior cricket squad in the UK. Data were subject to emic and etic readings in response to the aims of the study. In total, 182 h of observational data and 46 h of interview data were generated and analysed using the Critical Incident Technique (CIT). Here, the primary sense making devices were provided by Jones and Wallace’s (2005) theorising of orchestration, Elder-Vass’ (2010) causal power of social structures, and Mason’s (2002) concept of noticing. Analysis and discussion A small number of richly detailed and critical coaching (inter)actions are presented to illustrate the emergent meaning-making of different tacticians and targets of (non)influence. Specifically, the analysis introduces incidents that are illustrative of three novel types of (non)influence. The examples all highlight pathos between the coaches’ original intentions for (and reading of) influence, and the actual influence of practice for the athlete(s). Here, the discussion provides accounts of (a) noninfluence on targeted individuals, (b) unintended influence on non-targeted individuals, and (c) unintended influence on targeted individuals. Conclusion Overall, this paper contributes to a growing body of critical pedagogical research, positioning the work of influence less obtrusively. It provides a novel methodological, theoretical, and empirical contribution which practitioners, educators, researchers, and other stakeholders can engage with to critically consider how, when, why, for whom, and under which circumstances (inter)actions are (likely to be) influential or not. Further work could examine what pedagogues and learners decide to do and not do, as well as what they notice and do not notice as a basis to develop more critical and ethical practices

Genomic Dissection of Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia, Including 28 Subphenotypes

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are two distinct diagnoses that share symptomology. Understanding the genetic factors contributing to the shared and disorder-specific symptoms will be crucial for improving diagnosis and treatment. In genetic data consisting of 53,555 cases (20,129 bipolar disorder [BD], 33,426 schizophrenia [SCZ]) and 54,065 controls, we identified 114 genome-wide significant loci implicating synaptic and neuronal pathways shared between disorders. Comparing SCZ to BD (23,585 SCZ, 15,270 BD) identified four genomic regions including one with disorder-independent causal variants and potassium ion response genes as contributing to differences in biology between the disorders. Polygenic risk score (PRS) analyses identified several significant correlations within case-only phenotypes including SCZ PRS with psychotic features and age of onset in BD. For the first time, we discover specific loci that distinguish between BD and SCZ and identify polygenic components underlying multiple symptom dimensions. These results point to the utility of genetics to inform symptomology and potential treatment

Embodying Indigeneity in the Mountains: Creating Inclusive Adventure Spaces for Welsh Women, UK

This case study examines an intersecting legacy of exclusion in the Welsh mountains, UK, and how this is challenged by Welsh women’s participation in outdoor adventure courses. The research critically appraised how Indigenous Welsh women navigate gender, class, and racial landscapes in mountain leisure to create inclusive spaces. Facilitated by a National Charitable Organization (NCO) that engages Indigenous Welsh communities in mountain adventure, we explored women’s embodied experiences through mobile video ethnography. Methodologically embodiment facilitated a way of capturing bodily sensations and experiences, which provided a language to express those ideas through reflexive analysis (Ellingson, 2017). The findings highlight how women embody cultural identity in the mountains, which contributes to understanding issues of exclusion/inclusion in adventure spaces

Moving Mountains: Gender, Politics and Change in Mountaineering

This book contributes the first edited collection that focuses on gender in mountaineering adventure sports and leisure. The book offers original theoretical, methodological, and empirical insights into mountain spaces as sites of cultural reproduction and transformation

Contextualizing gender and transformational spaces in mountaineering adventure sports and leisure

This book is the first edited collection to offer an intersectional account of gender in mountaineering adventure sports and leisure. It provides original theoretical, methodological, and empirical insights into mountain spaces as sites of socio-cultural production and transformation. The popular perception of sporting adventure is saturated with notions of European exploration and colonisation that have been prolifically relayed and romanticised through adventure stories. Adventure is part of who we are and has its origins in exploration, science, and war (Kirk, 2021). Simply put, adventure is different from everyday life and entails a sensory knowledge formed of risk, exclusivity, and elitism (Cater, 2013). Yet, as Cater (2013, p. 9) notes “adventure has an underlying masculinist imperative that is culturally constructed” and thus gendered. Moreover, adventure as an object of knowledge is materialised within adventurous masculinised bodies as semiotic generative nodes that symbolise, and are sedimented in adventure environments. As such, the familiar trope of mountaineering heroism is embodied in the suffering, bravery, strength, speed and risk-taking that are characteristic of this masculinist pursuit. Adventure sports and leisure are inescapably part of a hegemonic global society that works to justify the subordination of those outside dominant norms (Connell, 2005). Accordingly, we treat gender as a broad spectrum where identity is not tied to nature/culture, mind/body and male/female binaries, whilst recognising the importance of embodiment (Eger, Munar, & Hsu, 2021). Indeed, historically assigned gender identity continues to have significant consequences, in the worst case by essentialising bodies as having fixed traits (Eger et al., 2021). For example, bodies can be ‘inscribed’ with gendered meanings in relation to the masculine norm in an adventure that privileges heroic characteristics such as aggression, competition and unwillingness to admit weakness or dependency (after Connell, 2005). Yet, the codification of mountaineering has changed little since the conjoining of Victorian notions of adventure, modernity and manliness evolved in the 1850s as a leisure and nation-building sport (Logan, 2006). This hypermasculine mountaineering legacy based on male institutions and styles of interaction (white middle-class males from the West) has silenced the achievements of those outside the dominant norm (Frohlick, 2006; Hall & Brown 2022; Ortner, 1999; Rak, 2021). Mountaineering is largely a monoculture that excludes those of ethnicity, dis/ability, gender, sexuality and age leading to significant underrepresentation (Frohlick, 1999/2000; Miller & Mair, 2019). Topographically and geographically, femininity is virtually absent in the classification of mountains as sporting adventure and leisure spaces and places. This is indicative of how far current governance structures must go to mainstream gender and address inequality. Women and those of difference are significantly underrepresented in general participation and leadership roles in mountaineering and face discrimination when they do (Allin & West, 2013; Avner et al., 2021; Hall, 2018; Hall & Brown, 2022; O’Brien & Allin, 2022). Such inequalities are compounded by a lack of role models, access to appropriate outdoor clothing, poor media representation and the challenges of securing leadership and governance roles and employment in the outdoor adventure industry (Frohlick, 2006; Gray & Mitten, 2018; Morton, 2018; Rak, 2021; Rickly, 2016; Sharp, 2001). Despite these challenges, those of difference are using mountaineering to resist, rather than submit to, these constraints by employing a broad range of strategies that enables their participation (Evans & Anderson, 2018). In doing so, they challenge traditionally gendered discourses in mountaineering and promote alternative mountaineering practices and ways of being in the mountains (Dilley & Scraton, 2010)

Online learning in higher education in the UK: Exploring the experiences of sports students and staff

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the majority of higher education programs were delivered online and programs involving practical sessions were unable to deliver these activities on campus. This study explores the perspectives of students and staff from the sport department at a United Kingdom (UK) university. Undergraduate students (N = 21) and members of staff (N = 10) who taught on the same programs took part in online focus groups and one-to-one semi-structured interviews respectively. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes from the qualitative data. These themes are discussed in the context of pedagogical research and future practical recommendations