Coaches, sexual harassment and education

Sexual harassment in sport has become an active research field within the past decade yet we know relatively little about the characteristics of the harassing coach. How are harassing coaches characterized by their victims, that is, the athletes themselves? Do they demonstrate specific kinds of behaviours? One purpose of this article is to address these types of questions. Another is to assess the usefulness of general classifications of perpetrators of sexual harassment. This is done by examining whether qualitative data from sexually harassed elite female athletes support the various conceptual frameworks for sexual harassment that are presented. Results from interviews with 19 female elite athletes who were sexually harassed by their coaches produced a sport typology that consists of three main types: 1) The Flirting-Charming Coach, 2) The Seductive Coach and 3) The Authoritarian Coach. These types are discussed in relation to the previous classifications to test the degree of fit. The limitations of monolithic classifications are exposed by this exercise: the data suggest that, rather than being one-type only, sexually harassing coaches select from a repertoire that may include several different harassment scripts. They vary these according to situational conditions. The wider limitation of social science classifications, that their categories are not discrete, also applies here. This need not be a practical limitation, however, if the typologies are used as heuristic devices rather than to determine, for example, specific disciplinary outcomes or treatment regimes. Sexual harassment prevention is often either missing from coach education programmes altogether or subsumed within broader themes such as (gender) equity or diversity management. One of the educational values of typologies is that they focus attention on the range of potential sexually harassing behaviours in ways which might otherwise escape attention. Communication styles, postures, gestures and group management techniques are just some of the elements of coaching that can be improved with an understanding of sexual harassment scripts. It is difficult to assess whether feminization of the coaching profession would lead to a less harassing environment. But, since this environment is so closely linked to hegemonic masculinity, and what are often described as traditional male values, we hypothesize that a transformation of the coaching culture, and associated re-scripting of coach behaviour, might be easier if more female coaches were involved in sport

The grooming process in sport: Case studies of sexual harassment and abuse

Drawing on interviews with two elite female athletes from different sports, one from a study in Norway and the other from a study in England, this article explores the process of 'grooming' in the context of sport. Both athletes experienced grooming for sex by their male coaches yet were able to stop the process at a particular point. Grooming has been used to demarcate 'sexual harassment' and 'sexual abuse' as separate points on a continuum of sexually exploitative behaviours. Grooming involves slowly gaining trust before systematically breaking down interpersonal barriers. Elite athletes can become trapped into compliance because they trust and like, or even love, their abusers. The motivation behind sexual harassment and abuse is often power, whereby the harasser seeks to take control over another individual. The abusers use threats (such as being cut from the team) and rewards or privileges to secure co-operation and manipulate the victims to maintain secrecy. Our primary purpose here is to use these adapted realist tales to provide a richer and more personal illustration of these events (within-case) than is presented through extrapolated checklists of 'risk factors' (cross-case). The stories also illustrate vividly elements from the different stages in the grooming process in sport, as described in previous literature. Finally, they reinforce the need to identify protective factors as part of anti-harassment and abuse prevention programmes with both coaches and athletes

Using court reports to enhance knowledge of sexual abuse in sport: A Norwegian case study

Copyright @ 2013 The authorsSport scientists face difficulties in gaining access to data on sexual abuse in sport through conventional research sources and also in verifying media reports of such cases. One potential alternative source of data is court reports. The study reported here used a small number of court reports to examine issues confronting those researching sexual abuse in sport. Two questions were investigated: What do the court reports tell us about the perpetrators and their abuse strategies? How useful is content analysis of court reports for acquiring more knowledge about sexual abuse cases in sport? Data were drawn from electronic searches of the Norwegian Lovdata (Lawdata) website. 15 sport-based cases were revealed by the searches and then subjected to content analysis, both within- and cross-case. The findings confirm previous studies in relation to the perpetrator strategies and the absence of any perpetrator stereotype. The article concludes that court reports provide one valuable, yet still incomplete, source of information against which to test our understanding of sexual abuse in sport and develop abuse prevention measure

Using court reports to enhance knowledge of sexual abuse in sport

Sexual abuse in sport is a relatively recent addition to the research agenda but has risen to prominence as a result of a number of highly-publicised cases. For scientists it is difficult to gain access to data on sexual abuse in sport through conventional survey or interview methods, or to verify media reports of such cases. One potential alternative source of data is court reports. The study reported here used a small number of court reports to examine a range of issues confronting those researching sexual abuse in sport. The following two questions were investigated: What characterised the perpetrators who were sentenced for sexual abuse in sport? How useful is content analysis of court reports for acquiring more knowledge about sexual abuse cases in sport? Altogether 15 sport-based cases were revealed from the Norwegian Lovdata (Lawdata) website. Some perpetrator-related patterns of risk and harm arising within and across the cases were examined: the findings confirm many of those of previous studies in relation to the characteristics of perpetrators and the absence of any perpetrator stereotype. The article concludes that court reports provide one valuable, yet still incomplete, source of information against which to test our understanding of sexual abuse in sport

Performance level and sexual harassment prevalence among female athletes in the Czech Republic

The results presented in this article are from a larger research project on issues related to women in sport in the Czech Republic. The article tries to answer research questions related to whether there are any relationships between the experience of sexual harassment among female athletes inside and outside sport, and at different sport performance levels. The sample, totalling 595 women, was divided into three performance groups: elite, competing and exercisers. No significant differences were found between the different performance groups in relation to their experience of sexual harassment. When we their experiences inside and outside sport were examined this picture changed: the chance of being harassed from someone in sport increased with performance level, from 29.7% among the exercisers to 55.2% among the elite level athletes. The group with the highest proportion experiencing sexual harassment, however, was the exercises outside of sport, at 73%. The high prevalence of sexual harassment is discussed in relation to the gender order in the Czech society. The difference between the performance groups’ experiences inside and outside sport offer some confirmation to the proposition that being a competitive athlete, which is associated with physical strength and high self esteem, may offer a degree of protection from harassment outside sport

Participation in college sports and protection from sexual victimization

Some sociologists have argued that sport is a male-dominated institution and sexist culture in which female athletes experience various forms of discrimination, including sexual harassment from coaches and male athletes. Some research does indicate that female athletes suffer higher rates of sexual victimization from authority figures in sport than their nonathletic counterparts in education and the workplace. In contrast, researchers have also speculated that athletic participation can protect female athletes from sexual victimization through a variety of social-psychological mechanisms such as team membership, physical strength, and self-confidence. This paper reports on the first descriptive analysis to test the “sport protection hypothesis” among both female and male athletes, using cross-tabulation secondary analyses of data from the National College Health Risk Behavior Survey, conducted in 1995 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (N=4814). USA college students of traditional undergraduate age (aged 18-24) were included in the sample (N=2903). Some limited support for the protection hypothesis was found, and student athletes were significantly less likely to report sexual victimization during their late high school and early college years than their nonathletic counterparts. A gender gap in the pattern of sexual victimization also appeared between males and females across all student age groups, with females experiencing more sexual victimization than males. However, no significant gender gap was found among athletes. The results are discussed in relation to previous studies of campus athletes and to college prevention policy

A Creative Writing Case Study of Gender-Based Violence in Coach Education: Stacey’s Story

Accepted author manuscript version reprinted, by permission, from Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 2020, 28 (1): 72–80, https://doi.org/10.1123/wspaj.2018-0046]. © 2020 University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG).Creative nonfiction writing is the literary technique employed in this article to explore insights and assist our understanding of an “alleged” sexual assault in a sport coach education environment. Creative nonfiction employs various narrative tools— characters, setting, figurative language, sequences of events, plot, sub-plot, and dialogue—designed to render the sensitive and controversial elements of sexual assault significant. Readers are, therefore, invited to engage with Stacey’s Story and reflect on the actions of both the perpetrator(s) and the victim. While there are risks associated with the sharing of stories, especially those which are considered dangerous, it is envisaged that Stacey’s Story will be viewed as an opportunity to develop more critical responses and advance our understanding of gender-based violence in sport.Peer reviewe

Freedom, joy and wonder as existential categories of childhood – reflections on experiences and memories of outdoor play

This study conveys how young adults reflect upon their childhood experiences and memories of outdoor play, friluftsliv and outdoor places. Inspired by a phenomenological approach, we conducted walking interviews in nature areas where they used to play as children, revisiting the same informants and places as in a research project 14 years earlier. Today the respondents emphasise the experience of freedom encompassing joy, wonder and communication with surrounding nature and people, associating it with autonomy and self-determination. Joy, wonder and communication in someone’s experience are subjective existential categories often used to characterise friluftsliv in outdoor education. Personally meaningful to the young adults, these experiences have become important parts of who they are today. These results differ from previous research on outdoor play as it highlights freedom, joy and wonder. Based on this, we argue for facilitating self-directed outdoor play, and emphasize conscious choice of location for outdoor pedagogical work.publishedVersionPaid Open Acces

Gender and military issues : a categorized research bibliography

The purpose of this report is to give an overview of research related to gender issues in the military