Over the past few decades, New Zealand schools have started elite athlete programmes (EAPs) to develop talented sportspeople. The purpose of this study was to evaluate teachers/coaches and elite athletes’ perspectives of their learning experiences in two EAPs. Ball’s concept of performativity and Gore’s techniques of power were integral in examining the relationships between power, knowledge and social practices. The results showed that the EAPs emphasised corporate values of loyalty, self-sacrifice and work ethic and perpetuated the dichotomies of theory/practice, thinking/doing and mind/body discourses that assisted in the marginalised academic status of the EAP. Most of the elite athletes struggled to reconcile their athletic identity with their teenage identity as they sacrificed time with friends, pleasures such as frozen colas and other pursuits to be role models for younger athletes and others in their community.
AbbottACollinsDMartindaleR. (2002) Talent Identification and Development: An Academic Review. Edinburgh: sportscotland.
2.
BaileyRMorleyD (2003) Talented pupils in PE: An inclusive approach. Gifted and Talented Update5: 4–5.
3.
BakerJCobleySSchorerJ (eds) (2012) Talent Identification and Development in Sport: International Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
4.
BallSJ (2000) Performativities and fabrications in the education economy: Towards the performative society?Australian Educational Researcher27: 1–23.
5.
BallSJ (2003) The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy18: 215–228.
6.
BallSJ (2010a) New class inequalities in education: Why education policy may be looking in the wrong place! Education policy, civil society and social class. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy30: 155–166.
7.
BallSJ (2010b) New voices, new knowledges and the new politics of education research: The gathering of a perfect storm?European Educational Research Journal9: 124–137.
8.
BallSJ (2012) Performativity, commodification and commitment: An I-Spy guide to the neoliberal university. British Journal of Educational Studies60: 17–28.
9.
BarkerDBarker-RuchtiNRynneSB. (2012) Olympism as education: Analysing the learning experiences of elite athletes. Educational Review64: 369–384.
10.
BarkerDBarker-RuchtiNWalsA. (2013) High performance sport and sustainability: A contradiction of terms?Reflective Practice15: 1–11.
11.
Beltrán-CarrilloVJDevís-DevísJPeiró-VelertC. (2012) When physical activity participation promotes inactivity: Negative experiences of Spanish adolescents in physical education and sport. Youth & Society44: 3–27.
12.
BrownSMacdonaldD (2008) Masculinities in physical recreation: The (re)production of masculinist discourses in vocational education. Sport, Education and Society13: 19–37.
13.
BrownSMacdonaldD (2011) A lost opportunity? Vocational education in physical education. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy16: 351–367.
14.
CamireMTrudelP (2010) High school athletes’ perspectives on character development through sport participation. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy15: 193–207.
15.
ClaphamA (2013) Performativity, fabrication and trust: Exploring computer-mediated moderation. Ethnography and Education8: 371–387.
16.
CoddJ (2005) Teachers as ‘managed professionals’ in the global education industry: The New Zealand experience. Educational Review57: 193–206.
17.
DenisonJ (2007) Social theory for coaches: A Foucauldian reading of one athlete’s poor performance. International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching2: 369–383.
18.
EruetiB (2005) Exploring the Expectations and Experiences of Students, Ex-Students and Parents/Caregivers of a Sport Academy Programme. Palmerston North, New Zealand: College of Education, Massey University.
19.
FoucaultM (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon.
20.
FoucaultM (1988a) The ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom. In: BemauerJRasmussenD (eds) The Final Foucault. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 1–20.
21.
FoucaultM (1988b) Technologies of the self. In: MartinLHGutmanHHuttonPH (eds) Technologies of the Self. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, pp. 16–49.
22.
FoucaultM (2000) Power. New York: New Press.
23.
GoreJ (1995) On the continuity of power relations in pedagogy. International Studies in Sociology of Education5: 165–188.
24.
GrantBCPopeCC (2007) Sport and education: Sport in secondary schools for all or for some? In: CollinsCJacksonSJ (eds) Sport in Aotearoa/New Zealand Society. Auckland, New Zealand: Thomson, pp. 246–262.
25.
HapetaJWPalmerFR (2009) TU TOA – Māori Youth standing with pride as champions in sport and education. Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues12: 229–247.
26.
HickeyCKellyP (2008) Preparing to not be a footballer: Higher education and professional sport. Sport, Education and Society13: 477–494.
27.
HoweMJA (1999) The Psychology of High Abilities. New York: New York University Press.
28.
IrvineNCarmichaelP (2009) Threshold concepts: A point of focus for practitioner research. Active Learning in Higher Education10: 103–119.
29.
JeffreyBTromanG (2013) Managing creative teaching and performative practices. Thinking Skills and Creativity9: 24–34.
30.
KeddieA (2013) Thriving amid the performative demands of the contemporary audit culture: A matter of school context. Journal of Education Policy28: 750–766.
31.
KellyPHickeyC (2008) Player welfare and privacy in the sports entertainment industry: Player development managers and risk management in Australian Football League clubs. International Review for the Sociology of Sport43: 383–398.
32.
KellyPHickeyC (2012) ‘Bringing the game into disrepute’: The Ben Cousins saga, sports entertainment, player welfare and surveillance in the Australian Football League. Asia-Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education3: 35–50.
33.
KirkD (1988) Physical Education and Curriculum Study: A Critical Introduction. London: Croom Helm.
34.
KirkD (2004) Beyond the ‘Academic’ curriculum: The production and operation of biopower in the less-studied sites of schooling. In: BakerBMHeyningKE (eds) Dangerous Coagulations? The Uses of Foucault in the Study of Education. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 117–134.
35.
KirkDGorelyT (2000) Challenging thinking about the relationship between school physical education and sport performance. European Physical Education Review6: 119–134.
36.
LangM (2010) Surveillance and conformity in competitive youth swimming. Sport, Education and Society15: 19–37.
37.
LincolnYSGubaEG (1985) Naturalistic Inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.
38.
LyotardJF (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
39.
ManleyAPalmerCRoderickM (2012) Disciplinary power, the oligopticon and rhizomatic surveillance in elite sports academies. Surveillance and Society10: 303–319.
40.
MeyerJHLandR (2005) Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education49: 373–388.
41.
O’NeillJ (2011) The privatisation of public schooling in New Zealand. Journal of Education Policy26: 17–31.
42.
PankhurstACollinsD (2013) Talent identification and development: The need for coherence between research, system and process. Quest65: 83–97.
43.
PenneyD (2000) Physical education, sporting excellence and educational excellence. European Physical Educational Review6: 135–150.
44.
PenneyD (2004) Policy tensions being played out in practice. The Specialist Schools initiative in England. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies2. Available at:http://www.jceps.com/archives/480 (accessed 5 February 2015).
45.
PerniaE (2004) Communication Research in the Philippines: Issues and Methods. Quezon City, Philippines: University of the Philippines Press.
46.
PopeCC (2002) Plato makes the team: The arrival of secondary school sport academies. Waikato Journal of Education8: 89–100.
47.
ReinardJC (2007) Introduction to Communication Research. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
48.
RichEEvansJ (2008) Now I am NObody, see me for who I am: The paradox of performativity. Gender and Education21: 1–16.
49.
RuddA (2005) Which ‘character’ should sport develop?Physical Educator62: 205–211.
50.
StarkesJLEricssonKA (2003) Expert Performance in Sport: Advances in Research on Sport Expertise. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
51.
StirlingAEKerrGA (2013) The perceived effects of elite athletes’ experiences of emotional abuse in the coach–athlete relationship. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology11: 87–100.
52.
ThompsonG (2010) Acting, accidents and performativity: Challenging the hegemonic good student in secondary schools. British Journal of Sociology of Education31: 413–430.
53.
ThualagantN (2012) The conceptualization of fitness doping and its limitations. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics15: 409–419.
54.
TristramKBattyR (2000) Sports academies: Assessing the academy ‘boom’. New Zealand Physical Educator2: 16–17.
55.
WebbL (2003) Teachers’ Careers, Leadership and Gender Equity in Health and Physical Education. St Lucia, QLD, Australia: School of Human Movement Studies, University of Queensland.
56.
WilliamsMA (2013) Science and Soccer: Developing Elite Performers. New York: Routledge.
57.
WillmottH (1992) Postmodernism and excellence: The de-differentiation of economy and culture. Journal of Organizational Change Management5: 58–68.
58.
WimmerRDominickJR (2004) Mass Media Research: An Introduction. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
59.
WrightJ (2000) Disciplining the body: Power, knowledge and subjectivity in a physical education lesson. In: LeeAPoyntonC (eds) Culture and Text: Discourse and Methodology in Social Research and Cultural Studies. Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin, pp. 152–169.
60.
YoudellD (2004) Engineering school markets, constituting schools and subjectivating students: The bureaucratic, institutional and classroom dimensions of educational triage. Journal of Education Policy19: 407–431.
