Lived experience and community sport coaching: A phenomenological investigation

Coaching in the participation domain as the act of coaching participants that are less intensely engaged in sport than performance orientated athletes. This form of coaching is a popular activity occurring in community settings such as schools or sport clubs, and it is often undertaken with a broad range of social and health outcomes in mind. The experiences and practices of the large army of 'community coaches' have been under-explored in comparison to those of elite performance coaches who focus on competitive success and dominate much academic research. This study focuses on the little known world of the community coach. Drawing on the philosophy of phenomenologists such as Husserl, and in particular the methodology of Van Manen, the study explored the lived experiences of a single case study community coach. Derived from semi-structured interviews and in keeping with Van Manen's methodology, findings are presented in a narrative format. The narrative describes the 'lifeworld' of the coach and seeks to identify the 'essential features' of community coaching in this case. Specifically, the narrative illustrates a dichotomy in the lifeworld of the coach; between a frenetic practical delivery mode visible in the public arena and a 'hidden' largely unknown, private world used predominantly for planning and organising. For this case study coach, the essence of community coaching lay in two complementary activities; planning and then delivering fun based activities that achieved social, health and sporting outcomes. Additionally, interacting with others, such as parents, carers and teachers was identified as an essential feature of this coach's experience. © 2013 © 2013 Taylor & Francis

Brief Encounters with Qualitative Methods in Health Research: Phenomenology and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Developed from a strong philosophical tradition, phenomenological research puts human experience at the heart of the research process. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, in particular, is a methodological stance that embraces the lived and subjective views of those who experience a given phenomenon. This flexible and descriptive approach provides researchers with an opportunity to depict and situate lived experience in rich contextual detail, while also accounting for the meaning-making of participants. Given the importance of patient/client voice, and a personalised view of health, phenomenological methods such as IPA can contribute extensively to health research by providing rich contextual accounts of experience which shed light on the essences of important phenomena

Care in Community Sports Coaching

Although increasingly associated with rational and objective scientific processes, sports coaching is nonetheless a social activity. More specifically, sports coaching always involves a relationship between a coach and athlete / participant (Cronin & Armour, 2017; Jowett, 2007). This chapter aims to explore the perspective that coaching relationships are essentially caring relationships, and that the care facet of these relationships has hitherto been taken for granted and undervalued (Cronin & Armour, 2018; Jones, Bailey, & Santos, 2013; Jones, 2009). In doing so, the chapter argues that both community sports coaching policy and practice are implicitly concerned with care. Yet, to date, care has largely been under theorised and marginalised in coaching policy and practice. Indeed, to a large extent, coaching discourse is dominated by a concern for what performers do (i.e., sport and physical activity) rather than performers themselves (Harthill & Lang, 2014). This does not mean that coaching policy is not well intentioned, nor that coaching is wholly without caring practice. On the contrary, good caring practice does exist, but it is perhaps not as widespread and explicit as it should be. To address this challenge, the later section of the chapter details examples of care in coaching from across international contexts. This is a valuable resource that will prompt coaches, coach educators, employers, and policy makers to consider how they can ensure that care is not peripheral to, but rather at the heart of the coaching process. After all, caring about communities and their inhabitants is essential to community sports coaching

'Sinking and swimming in disability coaching': an autoethnographic account of coaching in a new context

In terms of achieving wider health and social outcomes, sport coaching promises much for young people with disabilities. Despite this promise, the experiences and practices of those coaches who enter the disability sport arena are underexplored. This is particularly so for coaches who operate in community participation rather than competitive elite environments. Accordingly, this paper uses an autoethnographic approach to explore the experiences of a basketball coach (Colum), who enters a youth club for disabled participants for the first time. Utilising observational data, reflective field notes, and interviews, five relativist vignettes are collaboratively constructed to represent Colum’s (a pseudonym) experiences across 12 basketball sessions. The vignettes reveal that the disability and community context disrupted Colum’s normative coaching behaviours. An emotional laborious journey is recounted that includes significant lessons, which may impact coaching practitioners, researchers and sport development officers. In addition, the post-sport context (Atkinson, 2010a) is introduced to differentiate the youth club context from Colum’s normative sport context. Furthermore, the concepts of liminality and ludic, which are novel to extant coaching literature, are introduced to explain how and why Colum struggled to find structure within the context of a youth club for disabled participants

Ethics in youth sport: policy and pedagogical applications

Book Revie

Sociology, Curriculum Studies and Professional Knowledge: New Perspectives on the Works of Michael Young edited by David Guile, David Lambert and Michael J. Reiss, London, Routledge, 2018, 292, £88, ISBN: 9781138675834

Curricula have been the subject of sociological consideration for some time. In the UK, this interest has recently burgeoned, driven in part by policy makers such as the Scottish and Welsh Governments who have, to greater and lesser extents, reformed their school curricula. In England specifically, the educational inspectorate, OFTSED, has also challenged teachers and school leaders to consider the intent, implementation and evaluation of their curricula. Of course, the annual ‘PISA’ rankings also prompt consideration of curricula across international contexts. Against this backdrop, Guile’s, Lambert’s and Reiss’s book is a welcome text that adds insight on the sociology of education, curriculum studies and professional knowledge. To do so, the book uses the work of Michael Young as a basis for 20 chapters by individual authors. This approach is warranted because Young has been a key figure in the sociology of education since the 1970s when he vigorously argued for social constructivist approaches to education. More recently, he has adopted a social realist perspective and argues for greater appreciation of knowledge to empower individuals with the ‘power to do something’ in their lives. The book is a scholarly response to Young’s arguments, and it provides a welcome consideration of how and why curricula may be designed and implemented to benefit learners. That said, the text is neither an introduction to Young’s work, nor a practical manual on how to design curricula. Rather, it is a well-edited collection of chapters, authored by a gamut of senior scholars, who critically challenge and extend Young’s research. Indeed, each chapter provides insights that are valuable for those who wish to theorise education, curricula and professional knowledge from sociological perspectives. Accordingly, I recommend the text to postgraduate students and academics who seek, not only to prescribe education, curricula and knowledge, but to understand it from varied theoretical perspectives

Athletes’ views on care in coaching: Perspectives of women footballers in the U.K.

In recent times, researchers have argued that coaches should develop relationships that are caring and meet the needs of athletes. Yet, the views of athletes themselves are notably absent from this research. In response, this study used interviews to explore the care experiences of 4 case study footballers. Findings demonstrated that; 1) club culture influenced the care that participants received; 2) dialogue was both an enabler of good care, but also a means of disseminating uncaring attitudes; 3) a ‘web of care’ was provided by individuals other than the coach. These findings provide an original contribution by using the voice of athletes themselves to consider care in coaching

Lifting the veil of depression and alcoholism in sport coaching: how do we care for carers?

The purpose of this article is to explore the insights of an elite sport coach living with comorbid depression and alcohol misuse. Such consideration is necessary because as coaching is increasingly repositioned as a caring activity the wellbeing of coaches themselves has rarely been considered. To address this gap, a narrative analysis methodology and a story telling approach was used to present the experiences of a case study coach (Steve). The story is derived from Steve’s own perspective and the perspective of his wife, Jane. This novel multi-voiced approach reveals the complex interplay between the sporting environment, Steve’s depression and his alcohol related problems. In doing so, Steve’s story makes an original contribution by unveiling the issue of mental health in elite sport coaching. Steve’s story depicts the significant impact of depressive symptoms, coupled by excessive alcohol use on a coach, their personal life, and their career. Using the work of Goffman and Sartre, the story alludes to how such symptoms can be hidden, to greater and lesser extents, from professional colleagues. This is an important theoretical contribution, because to care for coaches, colleagues, employers, and health professionals will need to understand the needs of individuals such as Steve. Developing an open and supportive culture, which accepts that coaches are fallible, may however be a challenge within professional sport contexts

‘Baby Ban’ and ‘We are not the same’: Creative non-fiction dialogue exploring pregnancy and motherhood for a funded Paralympic and unfunded Olympic athlete

Elite athlete mothers are an under researched population. This is remiss given their increasing prevalence, sporting successes, and importance as role models that challenge dominant and traditional views of pregnancy and women in sport. Indeed, sporting organisations are gradually adopting policies to support elite athlete mothers. That said, elite sport is part of a complex social and economic environment that is likely to shapes support available to elite athlete mothers. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to explore the shared and different experiences of elite athlete mothers in and out of UK national funding programmes. Longitudinal semi-structured individual interviews with two elite athlete mothers, one Paralympian receiving funding and one Olympian not in receipt of funding, were conducted. Bengtsson’s 4-stage process was adopted to analyse data through the bioecological model. Data were merged and reorganised into two creative non-fiction dialogues; ‘Baby Ban’ and ‘We are not the same’. These reveal that national funding bodies’ pregnancy and motherhood guidelines, and funding policy were found to conflict, causing confusion and unsupportive experiences. Inconsistencies appeared in the exosystem guidelines and policy, and resulted in differences in communication, pressure, and support that prompted more positive interpersonal experiences for funded athletes than unfunded. Effective communication appeared as crucial for understanding athletes' needs and to foster a supportive environment, irrespective of funding status. This study was the first to apply a creative non-fiction approach and a bioecological lens to elite athlete mothers’ postpartum experiences and explore the inequalities between those who are funded and unfunded