A social relational analysis of an impairment-specific mode of disability coach education

The purpose of this research was to analyse a mode of coach education provided by a major disability charity. The course was designed for sports coaches and physical activity professionals and focused on coaching people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The subsequent analysis drew on data obtained over two years, including participation observation, qualitative survey data and follow-up case study interviews. The research process was scaffolded by a level model approach. Data were analysed in an iterative fashion to generate themes representative of the process of coach learning in relation to discourses about disability, subsequently generating an understanding of the impact of disability coach education on coaches’ knowledge. To provide a level of abstraction and critical explanation, we drew on the work of Thomas and engaged with a social relational model of disability to analyse the formation and expression of coaching knowledge in relation to ASD. The analysis highlighted how coach education was an environment for the transmission of ideology about disability, that drew on medical model discourses and constrained coach learning, contributing to a ‘false’ ideology of inclusion

Book review: Sport, coaching and intellectual disability

Book review: Sport, coaching and intellectual disabilit

Elite cricket coach education: a Bourdieusian analysis

The social structures within coach education have been largely unexplored, undiscussed, and treated as unproblematic in contributing to coach learning, both in research and practice. The study used semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 11 elite cricket coaches to gather their perceptions of an elite coach education programme. In particular, this research attempted a more nuanced critical inquiry into the impact of culture on coach learning, habitus on knowledge production and the extent to which capital structures practice within the field of cricket coach education. Data analysis followed abductive reasoning, combining inductive thematic analyses of the data, with a deductive abstraction of these themes within a Bourdieusian framework to provide a level of explanation to the data. The findings present coach education as a complex social field in which coaches were active social beings in the (re)production of coaching knowledge. The culture of cricket was found to perpetuate a powerful doxic system that highlighted the tensions and conflict between an accepted model of coach education with a singular and prescribed body of knowledge and a strong underlying sporting culture and individuals hierarchically placed within it. This data further highlighted how coach education contributes to the (re)production of power within the field of cricket coaching

Disability sports coaching: towards a critical understanding

The growing work that addresses coaching disabled athletes has thus far failed to engage with the field of disability studies, and as a result misses a crucial opportunity to develop a critical understanding of coach learning and practice in disability sport. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to bridge the gap between coaching and disability studies and to review critically the current literature in coaching, in order to problematise some of the assumptions that underpin disability coaching research. Disability studies, and in particular the models of disability, are an important first step in a critical understanding in disability sport coaching. The models of disability provide a lens through which researchers, coach educators and coaches can question how they learn to coach disabled athletes, interrogate knowledge about impairment and disability, and critically evaluate coaching practice. In connecting with disability studies, we hope to help coaches and researchers make sense of how they position disability, and appreciate how coaching knowledge and practice are produced in context. In turn, we feel that such critical understandings have the potential to develop nuanced and sophisticated ways of thinking about, and developing, disability sports coaching