Elite Coach Education: A Bourdieusian Analysis Robert Townsend & Dr. Christopher

Coach Education: Rationale  Research in coach education is very much still in its infancy (Piggott, 2013).  Consequently, coaching, inclusive of values, beliefs and practice, remains largely unchanged.  “lacking a micro-political consciousness and a social criticality” (Cushion, 2011, p.166; Cushion et al. 2003)  “to reveal, and therefore challenge, the kinds of deeply engrained cultural practices” that are likely to inhibit progress in coach education (Piggott, 2012,

Purpose  Critically interrogate the reality of coach education in elite cricket through the lens of social theory.  Derived from empirical engagement, with a focus on the visible social world of practice (Grenfell, 2013, Cushion, 2011).  “Habitus, field, and capital” and the epistemological shift in coaching discourse (Cushion & Jones,

Context  The subject of study was an elite cricket coach education programme (Level IV).  Upon completion bestows upon them the title of “Master Coach”. “The aim of level four coach education is to create generations of coaches who are better equipped than coaches in any other sport, in any other part of the world- (and) to maximise appropriately the ability to perform in the people with whom they work”. (Jeremy, Head of Elite Coach Development

Methods  Participants:  2 candidates, 8 graduates of the Level IV programme  Head of Elite Coach Development  Interviews (semi-structured)  the “artful improvisations” which characterise human interaction (Bourdieu, 1972), and enable us to piece together experience.  Data analysis followed an abductive

Bourdieusian Reflections Habitus & Learning to Coach Coaches are active social beings :  habitus is a means to understand how knowledge and practice can be legitimated, reproduced & transmitted throughout a cultural space (Bourdieu, 1972).  production of the “commonsense world” (Bourdieu, 1972, p.80)  We can begin to understand habitus as the mediating element in knowledge construction in the environment of the Level

Bourdieusian Reflections Habitus & Learning to “Over two years and within all those modules, you’re gonna find elements that you feel that you agree with or disagree with, (and) you have to think about what you believe in really, and where you get that information from in the first place” (Daniel) “You’re sat with people who’ve played the game professionally for twenty five years and this is their first, second month out of the game, you’re gonna have had a very different experience over your twenty years than their twenty years”. (George)

Bourdieusian Reflections Habitus & Learning to Coach  Institutionalised ‘new’ knowledge is likely to challenge coaches’ ontological security (Cushion, 2011). “That created some heads exploding really, and what the fuck have we been doing for the last few years?” “I think coaches at times, can be quite…not necessarily stuck in their ways from what they know, but there’s a lot of things that have been passed on throughout the decades of coaching and playing that work, and I think it takes a lot to disprove what they see” (Nigel)

Bourdieusian Reflections Habitus & Learning to Coach “We challenged the biomechanics content…biomechanics is a bit more science- cricket isn’t science- and I found that a bit frustrating” “There were people challenging the biomechanist, the ‘new guy’ if you like coming in with his theory on fast bowling, to year old bowling coaches or bowlers who’d been in cricket all their life” (Henry)

Bourdieusian Reflections Habitus & Learning to Coach “You’d perhaps be more questioning of people who would come in and tell you the traditions of batting and bowling are not how the game wants to move forward… and there were certainly people who (would) find things quite difficult because they were challenging their long held beliefs really” The coach incorporates the history of the game and the cultural field into his or her self, and that functions as a delimitation that not only reproduces knowledge but produces a “self-interested ignorance” (Schirato & Webb, 2002, p.258).

Bourdieusian Reflections Habitus & Learning to Coach  This acceptance of knowledge is not a straightforward process, and can lead to the “uncritical reproduction of outmoded coaching methods” (Piggott, 2013, p.6). “You get these biomechanists who come in and try and reinvent the wheel and try and tell you how you can do it better…once the bloke’s got flipping, ten thousand test runs, you’re not gonna pull him to pieces and say ‘you could do that better’… (Laughs)…you’re having a giggle aren’t ya?”

Conclusions Implications for coach education  Begin to recognise the power of experience- habitus- which shapes individual beliefs about coaching.  actively engage coaches in critical analysis of their biographies and the subsequent influence on coaching praxis.  examine coaches in situ, to critique and legitimate domain specific, contextually relevant, and practice-led

References Bourdieu, P. (1972) Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, London. Cushion, C. J., Armour, K. M., & Jones, R.L. (2003) Coach Education and Continuing Professional Development: Experience and Learning to Coach. Quest, 55, Cushion, C.J. & Jones, R.L. (2006) Power, Discourse and Symbolic Violence in Professional Youth Soccer: The Case of Albion Football Club, Sociology of Sport Journal, 23, pp Grenfell, M. (2013) “Shadow Boxing”: Reflections on Bourdieu and Language, Social Epistemology, 27, 3- 4, pp Jones, R. L. Potrac, P. Cushion, C & Ronglan, L. T. (eds) (2011) The Sociology of Sports Coaching, London: Routledge. Piggott, D. (2012) Coaches’ experiences of formal coach education: a critical sociological investigation, Sport, Education and Society, 17, 4, pp Piggott, D. (2013) The Open Society and coach education: a philosophical agenda for policy reform and future sociological research, Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, DOI: / Schirato, T. & Webb, J. (2002) Bourdieu’s Notion of Reflexive Knowledge, Social Semiotics, 12, 3, pp Wacquant, L. (2004) Body & Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer, Oxford University Press, New