Zoekresultaten

Coaches and officials

Despite the notable strides that have been made in terms of participation in sport, women continue to be underrepresented in sport leadership roles such as coaching and officiating. The 2014 United Nations (UN) International Working Group on Women’s Sport (IWG) noted that: ‘Women are significantly under-represented in management, administration, coaching and officiating, particularly at the higher levels’ (IWG, 2014 p. 6). This statement, part of the Helsinki Declaration, was made in the context of how sport can support the UN Millennium Development Goals. Across today’s sporting landscape, women’s sport experiences typically occur in male-dominated contexts, which favour men and masculinity (Norman, 2016). Recent data indicates the men to women ratio in high-performance coaching over the last four consecutive Olympic cycles has been approximately 10:1. Among US high school sporting officials, only 11% are women, and even a greater disparity exists with officiating sports traditionally played by men (Nordstrom, Warner, & Barnes, 2016). This data highlights a systemic absence of women in coaching and officiating leadership roles across sport. In this chapter we will discuss the impact this has on developing sport for women and girls. Specifically, this chapter aims to: - Provide an understanding of the roles and responsibilities of coaches and officials in women and girls sport delivery. - Explore career development pathways for improving opportunities for women in coaching and officiating. - Present a critical reflection of the differences and similarities between athlete development and coach/official development (systems and structures) for women and girls. We begin by discussing the gendered nature of coaching before turning our attention to women’s experiences in sport officiating. We draw on relevant literature throughout the chapter and identify issues and opportunities for further research. We conclude by providing practical actions and recommendations to help facilitate coaching and officiating development for women and girls LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donna-de-haan/

Thinking bodies

'You don't realize what you see!': the institutional context of emotional abuse in elite youth sport

Various discourses construct youth sport as a site for pleasure and participation, for positive development, for performance and for protection/safeguarding. Elite youth sport however continues to be a site for emotionally abusive coaching behaviour. Little attention has been paid to how the institutional context may enable or sustain this behaviour. Specifically, how do coaches and directors involved in high-performance women’s gymnastics position themselves in relationship to these discourses to legitimize the ways they organize and coach it? We drew on a Foucauldian framework to analyse the technologies and rationalities used by directors and coaches of elite women’s gymnastics clubs to legitimize and challenge current coaching behaviours. The results of the 10 semi-structured interviews showed how coaches and directors legitimized coaching behaviour using discourses of pleasure, protection, performance and of coaching expertise and assigning responsibility for current coaching behaviour to athletes, parents, (other) coaches and global and national policies.

'You don't realize what you see!': the institutional context of emotional abuse in elite youth sport.

Various discourses construct youth sport as a site for pleasure and participation, for positive development, for performance and for protection/safeguarding. Elite youth sport however continues to be a site for emotionally abusive coaching behaviour. Little attention has been paid to how the institutional context may enable or sustain this behaviour. Specifically, how do coaches and directors involved in high-performance women’s gymnastics position themselves in relationship to these discourses to legitimize the ways they organize and coach it? We drew on a Foucauldian framework to analyse the technologies and rationalities used by directors and coaches of elite women’s gymnastics clubs to legitimize and challenge current coaching behaviours. The results of the 10 semi-structured interviews showed how coaches and directors legitimized coaching behaviour using discourses of pleasure, protection, performance and of coaching expertise and assigning responsibility for current coaching behaviour to athletes, parents, (other) coaches and global and national policies.

‘Everything revolves around gymnastics’: athletes and parents make sense of elite youth sport

The continuation of emotional abuse as a normalized practice in elite youth sport has received scholarly attention, often with the use of a Foucauldian framework. The use of sense-making, a theoretical framework that focuses on how meaning is created in ambiguous situations, may give additional insights into the continuation of emotionally abusive coaching practices. The purpose of this study was to apply the seven properties of sense-making to explore how athletes and parents made sense of coaching practices in elite women’s gymnastics. We interviewed 14 elite women gymnasts and their parents to examine how they made sense of what occurred during practices. The results show how the sense-making of athletes and parents was an ongoing activity that resulted in a code of silence and a normalization of abusive coaching practices.

Understanding youth in sport

Sports are activities enjoyed by many across the globe, regardless of age. The existence and promotion of youth sports has often been based on various assumptions about its value and role in society. Sports participation is assumed to be fun and good and is assumed to contribute to the development of young people. As a result, sports are often seen as an essential part of life for youth. Participation in sports and physical activity is assumed to help young people to develop in a context in which they are able to learn important positive societal values (Fraser-Thomas et al., 2005; Holt, 2008). Although there is a widespread belief in the positive dimensions of sports participation for young people, there is a need for research and theory that identifies and critically looks at the processes through which sports participation by youth is experienced and shapes their lives (Coakley, 2011). I return to this critical perspective after I elaborate on the ways sports are viewed as important effective activities for positive youth development.