Facilitating Youth Sport Coaches in Learning to Problematize

• Author / Creator

  Watson, Crystal

• Abstract
  Despite the commonness for coaching courses, manuals and websites to heavily emphasize conventional sport science concepts (such as physiology, biomechanics and sport psychology), sport scholars have suggested that coaches could benefit from learning about, and utilizing, social theory (Avner, Markula & Denison, 2017; Potrac & Cassidy, 2006). Irrespective of this scholarly support, the coaching literature seems to lack practical strategies for supporting coaches in exploring these concepts. Accordingly, I decided to develop and implement a coaching workshop that was intended to facilitate youth sport coaches in utilizing social theory, specifically the work of French social theorist Michel Foucault. My decision to draw upon Foucault was supported by Denison (2010), Jones, Denison, and Gearity (2016), and Shogan (1999), who have contextualized Foucault’s work within sport and are now advocating for coaches to ‘think with Foucault’. One way coaches can be facilitated in ‘thinking with Foucault’ is through learning to problematize, which involves critically questioning one’s taken-for-granted assumptions and practices by assessing the workings of power and knowledge, to reveal the unintended consequences associated with their actions. Doing so can help coaches ensure that their actions align with their intentions, which has the potential to enhance coaches’ effectiveness and in turn improve their athletes’ performances.
  Accordingly, my Foucauldian-inspired workshop consisted of two, 2.5-hour sessions that were separated by a one-week break. Through a variety of interactive learning activities, the coaches were challenged to problematize the taken-for-granted coaching logics that view the athletic ‘body as a machine’ and position the ‘coach as an expert’. Afterwards the coaches were encouraged to problematize their own habitual coaching practices. Correspondingly, to generate empirical material the participants’ were asked to complete guided reflective journals. These journal responses in combination with my own field notes provided rich insights into how the four youth sport coaches’ experienced both the Foucauldian-informed learning environment and content, where it became apparent that multiple, fragmented perspectives shaped the reality of this workshop. Furthermore, although a number of measures were taken to support the poststructuralist view of learning, as an active, social, collaborative process, these efforts ended up having a mixture of facilitative and constraining effects. As a result, the coaches engaged with the workshop’s content to differing degrees. Nevertheless, the happenings within the workshop illustrated that Foucault’s concepts can be introduced to coaches in understandable and relevant ways that prompt the development of readily implementable, innovative coaching practices.
  Overall, I believe the insights gained from this research illustrate how ‘thinking with Foucault’, which involves challenging taken-for-granted assumptions, can create space for innovative practices to be developed by coaches, learning facilitators and coach developers. The fact that the workshop had both facilitative and constraining effects emphasizes the importance of adopting a poststructuralist lens, which reveals the workings of power and knowledge while also honoring reality as fragmented and multiple (Markula & Silk, 2011). In closing, I feel this research can be used as a springboard to prompt further exploration of innovative and enriching coach learning opportunities that acknowledge and accommodate for the distinct social, cultural and historical aspects of a given learning context.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Sport
  • Youth Sport
  • Coach Education
  • Foucault

• Graduation date

  Fall 2018

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3571843R

• License

  Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.