Dean Garratt

The professionalisation of sports coaching: relations of power, resistance and compliance

This paper examines the changing landscape of the professionalisation of sports coaching and is presented in response to the dearth of empirical research and peer-reviewed literature existing within the field. This absence or ‘lack’ has, in turn, created a political context in which the discourses that inhabit transitions towards professionalism are becoming increasingly rigid and inflexible. Policies too, have exacerbated this situation, creating imposed reforms that have sought to homogenise coaching practice and further gloss over cultural difference and diversity. While volunteerism is often regarded as a socially embedded activity, and one that is part of the UKs long-established coaching tradition, still there remains an ambition to transform coaching into a form of certified, professionalised activity. That is, a notion of professionalism with clearly benchmarked standards, novel forms of commercial engagement and ever-present systems of formal accreditation. Out of which has evolved a series of treatments prescribing somewhat standardised solutions to otherwise unique and individualised professional challenges. Against this backdrop, this paper adopts a more critical orientation towards the debate on the professionalisation of sports coaching. It examines the tensions, power and resistance that are manifested in practice across different areas of sport, and moves to understand some of the key differences emerging between contemporary reforms, situated practice and socially embedded coaching traditions. Drawing extensively on Bourdieurian and Foucauldian philosophy, the analysis reflects upon the experiences of coaches and stakeholders operating at the levels of voluntary and community-based practice in the north-west of England. It examines notions of resistance and compliance in situ, external factors and policies that have impacted the field, and analyses the complexities that inhabit the profession of sports coaching as a whole.

IDENTITY AND CITIZENSHIP: SOME CONTRADICTIONS IN PRACTICE

ABSTRACT:  We argue that many current forms of anti-racist and multicultural teaching, whilst well-intentioned, nevertheless serve to ‘fix’ identities on children in ways which inhibit their agency and reinforce stereotypes. In our exploration of the issues we employ a wide range of theoretical ideas.

Democratic Citizenship in the Curriculum: some problems and possibilities

Abstract This article reflects upon the recently published final report of the advisory group on citizenship in England and Wales, and examines the implications of this document within the context of the governments proposals for a revised national curriculum. Following a brief historical review, the article goes onto explore issues of practical relevance, by rehearsing some of the anticipated problems surrounding the implementation of citizenship as a foundation subject within the curriculum. The article then reflects upon a range of substantive issues presented within the document Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools (1998). In analysing the model of citizenship implicit within the advisory groups report, a critique of its prescriptive overtones, sociocultural perspective and nostalgic sensibilities is elaborated. Finally, the article considers the possibility of a way forward, discussing the idea of a working model of citizenship based on the Aristotlean notion of moral action.

Collecting Data in the Information Age Exploring Web-Based Survey Methods in Educational Research

51 T tRISSt project is a major UK, cross-institutional scoping study of the ICT skills of staff in higher and further education institutions, funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). The tRISSt project is set against a background of recent UK government education policy initiatives and the technological imperative of globalisation, both of which have created a need for all levels and categories of staff to possess a high level of ICT skills. The tRISSt project has three main objectives:

Heterotopian cosmopolitan citizenship education

This article examines the on-going saga of citizenship education in the UK against a backdrop of conceptual confusions and contradictions around the question of what it means to share a civic identity. Noting calls to grasp the social and political realities of an emerging cosmopolitanism, and move towards a more identity-based conception of citizenship, the article questions whether in fact nationhood is a socially just concept worthy of pursuit? It suggests that the teaching of citizenship in schools is perhaps the wrong place to start, and that this is likely at best to lead to confusion, and at worst perpetuate binary and/or discriminatory thinking. In the absence of a realignment and reprioritization of teacher education, it seems unlikely that most teachers will be au fait with the complexity surrounding concepts such as identity, nationhood, and citizenship, and consequently pupils are likely to experience relatively crude and simplistic coverage of the topic.

Citizenship Education And The Monarchy: Examining The Contradictions

This paper addresses the teaching of citizenship in schools and focuses on the monarchy as an example of one issue often ignored within curriculum discourse. We argue that to conflate subjecthood and citizenship in unacknowledged ways may serve to perpetuate the status quo and is potentially unhelpful to the development of young peoples critical thinking.

Citizenship Education in England and Wales: Theoretical Critique and Practical Considerations.

This paper presents a theoretical critique of citizenship education in England and Wales, as a means of raising pedagogical considerations for teachers, and policy issues for curriculum makers and planners. Drawing on a range of recent empirical studies, we construct an analysis of practice and suggest that differences between dominant models of citizenship in England and Wales owe much to their histories. We suggest that such differences create opportunities for new curriculum‐making practices as well as democratic possibilities in the context of citizenship education, at a time when curricula in both England and Wales are under revision. Considering school councils/forums as an exemplar of practice common to both contexts, we question the wisdom of schools employing a narrow conception of active citizenship, via forums, in order to demonstrate they are satisfying the relevant requirements of the Order for Citizenship in England, and aspects of the Personal and Social Education curriculum in Wales. While the exemplars are both from the UK context the arguments apply beyond these borders and to more general concerns regarding the development of global citizenship.

‘Sporting citizenship’: the rebirth of religion?

This paper considers the social significance and interaction between sport and the allied themes of citizenship, civic identity and social control in contemporary Britain. It is set against a backdrop of an emerging cosmopolitanism and politics of difference and is posed in response to renewed interest in notions of ‘Britishness’, ‘nationhood’ and ‘shared national identity’. In the context of the forthcoming 2012 London Olympic Games, the paper challenges the use of ‘sporting citizenship’ as a pedagogical device intended to rekindle notions of ‘civic patriotism’ and social cohesion across communities nationwide. The analysis questions the role of sport as a panacea for the perceived ills of society and means of social control, and further considers the extent to which the state pedagogy of ‘sporting citizenship’ can be conceived as the rebirth of a folk‐religion. Finally, the paper critically considers the implications of renewed ‘faith’ in sport as part of the Olympic legacy, post 2012.

Academic Identities in Flux: Ambivalent Articulations in a Post-1992 University

The discourse of power and agency in higher education (HE) is strongly linked to political notions of autonomy and ‘academic freedom’. Recently, however, such notions have been impacted by sustained and ongoing sector-wide reform. With various checks and balances of accountability, surveillance and new forms of regulation, this has led to a reformulation of the academic habitus, creating turbulent sites of struggle and contestation. The intrusion of new targets and technologies has in turn challenged the intellectual freedoms of academics, promoting new vistas of empowerment and constraint. Changing academic identities and social and pedagogical relations have produced somewhat ‘ambivalent articulations’, in Morleys words, around the future relationship of teaching, research and administration in HE. In this article, we draw attention to some of these pressures in a case study of a post-1992 university where, in spite of more recent calls for it to succeed, research has traditionally emerged a poor second to the delivery of taught programmes. The article discusses the attitudes of academics towards the context of changing values and conditions and further considers the contested freedoms that are part of the evolving landscape of contemporary HE.

‘Régime of Truth’ as a Serendipitous Event: an essay concerning the relationship between research data and the generation of ideas

Abstract This article argues that realist social researchers tend to regard serendipitous events within the research process with great suspicion. One result of this has been the virtual absence of any serious analysis of the role that serendipity plays in the generation of research ideas. This article attempts to address this absence through the retrospective analysis of one case study, in which the significance and impact of serendipity is explored through an example of an epiphanous experience. In capturing this moment, a serendipitous, Foucauldian reading of school discipline as a ‘regime of truth’ is developed and examined. This is then juxtaposed with a second reading or deconstruction of the first account. The article contrasts the illumination within the first account with the sobering retrospection in the second, ultimately exposing several methodological weaknesses within the original perspective. As a result, the article deliberates upon the problematic nature of constructing plausible research...