Following global efforts to impose an orthodoxy on knowledge generation that is above all, evidence-based, a number of social science scholars have begun to question the very ground on which evidence has been given its cultural and canonical purchase (e.g., Denzin & Giardina, 2008). For coach educators, this debate raises a number of relevant questions. For example, how should evidence be represented when researching coaches' effectiveness? Or, how should evidence be used to help coaches identify and solve problems? Further, what implications does the evidence-based movement have for the development of ethical coaching practices? In this paper, I present two narratives that show how these questions played out in two coaching contexts—one in the field and one in the classroom. I conclude by problematising various apparatuses of knowledge and evidence present in sport that define the conditions of acceptable coach education scholarship (Foucault, 1980).
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
ChapmanG. E. (1997). Making weight: Lightweight rowing, technologies of power, and technologies of the self.Sociology of Sport Journal, 14, 205–223.
2.
CheekJ. (2008). A fine line: Positioning qualitative research in the wake of the politics of evidence. In DenzinN. K., & GiardinaM. (Eds.), Qualitative inquiry and the politics of evidence (pp. 119–133). Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press.
3.
CushionC., ArmourK., & JonesR. L. (2003). Coach education and continuing professional development: Experience and learning to coach.Quest, 55, 215–230.
4.
DenisonJ. (in press). Planning, practice and performance: The discursive construction of coaches’ knowledge.Sport, Education & Society.
5.
DenisonJ. (2007). Social theory for coaches: A Foucauldian reading of one athlete's poor performance.International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 2, 369–383.
6.
DenisonJ. (2004). Bannister and beyond: The mystique of the four-minute mile.New York: Breakaway Books.
7.
DenisonJ. (1999). Boxed in. In SparkesA. C., & SilvennoinenM. (Eds.), Talking bodies: Men's narratives of the body and sport (pp. 29–36). Jyväskylä, Finland: SoPhi, University of Jyväskylä Press.
8.
DenisonJ. (1996). Sport narratives.Qualitative Inquiry, 2, 351–362.
9.
DenzinN. K., & GiardinaM. (2008). (Eds.). Qualitative inquiry and the politics of evidence.Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press.
10.
FoucaultM. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings.Pantheon BooksNew York.
11.
GilbertW., & TrudelP. (2006). The coach as a reflective practitioner. In JonesR. L. (Ed.), The sports coach as educator: Re-conceptualising sports coaching (pp. 113–127). London: Rout-ledge.
12.
HalasJ., & HansonD. (2001). Pathologizing Billy: Enabling and constraining the body of the condemned.Sociology of Sport Journal, 18, 115–126.
13.
HannB. (2002). Foucault's critical project: Between the transcendental and the historical.Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
14.
HeikkalaJ. (1993). Discipline and excel: Techniques of the self and body and the logic of competing, Sociology of Sport Journal, 10, 397–412.
15.
JohnsD. P., & JohnsJ. (2000). Surveillance, subjectivism and technologies of power: An analysis of the discursive practice of high-performance sport.International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 35, 219–234.
16.
JonesR. L., ArmourK., & PotracP. (2002). Understanding the coaching process: A framework for social analysis.Quest, 54, 34–48.
17.
KönigE. (1995). Criticism of doping: The Nihilistic side of technological sport and the antiquated view of sport ethics.International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 30, 247–261.
18.
Koro-LjungbergM., GemignaniM., ChaplinS., HayesS., & HsiehI. H. (2009). “Mission civilisatrice”: Fixing scientific evidence and other practices of neo-colonialism in social sciences.International Review of Qualitative Research, 1, 491–514.
19.
LawsonH. (1984). Problem-setting for physical education and sport.Quest, 36, 48–60.
20.
LyleJ. (2002). Sport coaching concepts: A framework for coaches’ behaviour.London: Routledge.
21.
MarkulaP., & MartinM. (2007). Ethical coaching: Gaining respect in the field. In DenisonJ. (Ed.), Coaching knowledges: Understanding the dynamics of sport performance (pp. 51–82). Oxford: AC Black.
22.
McNameeM. (1998). Celebrating trust: Virtues and rules in the ethical conduct of sports coaches. In McNameeM., & ParryJ. (Eds.), Ethics & Sport (pp. 148–168). London: E & FN Spon.
23.
MidgleyA. W., McNaughtonL. R., & JonesA. M. (2007). Training to enhance the physiological determinants of long-distance running performance: Can valid recommendations be given to runners and coaches based on current scientific knowledge?Sports Medicine, 37, 857–880.
24.
RichardsonD., AndersenT., & MorrisR. (2008). Overtraining in sport: Towards a holistic perspective.Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
25.
ShoganD. (2007). Sport ethics in context.Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.
26.
ShoganD. (1999). The making of high-performance athletes: Discipline, diversity, and ethics.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
27.
SparkesA. C. (1998). Athletic identity: An Achilles’ heel to the survival of self.Qualitative Health Research, 8, 644–664.
28.
TinningR. (1997). Performance and participation discourses in human movement: Toward a socially critical physical education. In Fernandez-BalboaJ-M. (Ed.), Critical postmodernism in human movement, physical education, and sport (pp. 99–119). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
29.
TorranceH. (2008). Building confidence in qualitative research: Engaging the demands of policy. In DenzinN. K., & GiardinaM. (Eds.), Qualitative inquiry and the politics of evidence (pp. 55–79). Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press.
30.
TsangT. (2000). Let me tell you a story: A narrative exploration of identity in high-performance sport.Sociology of Sport Journal, 17, 44–59.
31.
VillenasS. (2006). Latina/Chicana feminist postcolonialities: Un/tracking educational actors’ interventions.International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19, 659–672.
