Leanne Norman

The UK Coaching System is Failing Women Coaches

This paper engages with feminist cultural studies to illustrate how a cultural analysis of the coaching structure can contribute to our understanding of the underrepresentation of women in high performance coaching roles. Through the use of qualitative interviews with elite women coaches based in the UK, I highlight how the current coaching infrastructure and philosophies neglect womens potential and marginalise their position. My analysis of the interviews revealed that the participants report minimal or inappropriate coaching opportunities for women coaches. The participants were also provided little incentive, recognition or educational support to facilitate their development. Rather than a ‘glass ceiling’, I argue that womens progress through coaching is more comparable to a ‘bottle neck’ analogy whereby as women advance, most are excluded from positions of power through flawed pathways and few chances to coach. I conclude that the failures of the various UK sporting governing bodies to provide adequate coach development and education for women coaches are indicative of the gendered culture and organisation of sport.

Bearing the Burden of Doubt: Female Coaches' Experiences of Gender Relations.

Based on interview research, this study examined how master female coaches based in the United Kingdom experienced relations with men within their profession. Using a feminist cultural studies approach to examine how sport promotes and maintains a gender order unfavorable to women, we found that female coaches felt the need to continually prove themselves and often experienced coaching as a hostile and intimidating culture. Participants reported a gradual reduction in such unwelcoming behavior from men, seemingly because they had proved to be no threat to the existing patriarchal structure. A critical exploration of coaching is needed to understand how masculine hegemony leads to womens relative powerlessness as coaches. Furthermore, the findings present a case for a greater emphasis on sociocultural education within the UK coaching curricula.

The Under-Representation of Women in Coaching: A Comparison of Male and Female Canadian Coaches at Low and High Levels of Coaching

There are disproportionately few women in high level coaching positions. Explanations vary for this under-representation of women as coaches, but the focus of this research is the disproportionate gender ratio within the profession as based upon Kanters framework of occupational sex segregation. Two studies examining Canadian coaches undertaking introductory coaching certification (Study 1) (n = 809) and high-performance coaches (Study 2) (n = 819) were conducted. Both studies contribute evidence of decreasing proportions of women coaches from early certification and recreational positions to high-performance positions despite little difference between men and women in terms of qualifications including education and competitive experience. The results are discussed in terms of Kanters proposition of proportion, along with references to power and opportunity within the coaching profession. Potential administrative practical solutions to the problems are suggested.

Gendered homophobia in sport and coaching: Understanding the everyday experiences of lesbian coaches

The purpose of this article is to discuss a theory of everyday gendered homophobia as a way of understanding lesbian coaches’ experiences of their profession. I discuss the need to gain a better comprehension of homophobia achieved through deconstructing women’s day-to-day experiences of professional coaching, examining how their lives are individually organized along multiple power lines, namely sexual orientation and gender. Through this, it is possible to connect the macro-structure of sport to the micro- and recognize the everyday inferiorizations that take place within the participants’ lives. The main focus of the article is to explore the power of understanding the everyday and present the key conceptual issues and processes underpinning a theory of everyday gendered homophobia. The conception of everyday gendered homophobia is based upon data from in-depth semi-structured interviews with 10 professional women coaches who identified themselves as lesbian, from both individual and team sports within the UK.

The concepts underpinning everyday gendered homophobia based upon the experiences of lesbian coaches

This study focuses upon conceptualizing everyday gendered homophobia based upon the narratives of 10 lesbian coaches in the UK, connecting their stories of everyday inferiorizations to wider structural practices. This theory highlights that lesbians in sport and coaching continue to encounter marginalization through their gendered sexual identity. The participants recounted experiences such as being treated as paedophiles or predators, constructed as less able leaders and less knowledgeable than male coaches. Oppressive structural practices that influenced such experiences included inflexible or gendered professional development opportunities, apathetic stances towards welfare issues, inadequate sociocultural coach education and a culture of ‘unspoken truths’ that suppressed discussions of sexuality. The gender-blindness and sexuality-blindness cultures of governing bodies for how these ideologies allow organizations to ignore the construction of male privilege, heterosexism and homophobia and the impact on everyday lives of lesbian coaches are highlighted.

Surviving rather than thriving: Understanding the experiences of women coaches using a theory of gendered social well-being

In shifting our gaze to the sociological impact of being in the minority, the purpose of this study was to substantiate a model of gendered social well-being to appraise women coaches’ circumstances, experiences and challenges as embedded within the social structures and relations of their profession. This is drawn on in-depth interviews with a sample of head women coaches within the UK. The findings demonstrate that personal lives, relationships, social and family commitments were sidelined by many of the participants in order to meet the expectations of being a (woman) coach. We locate these experiences in the organisational practices of high performance sport which hinder women coaches from having meaningful control over their lives. The complexities of identity are also revealed through the interplay of gender with (dis)ability, age and whiteness as evidence of hegemonic femininity within the coaching profession. Consequently, for many women, coaching is experienced as a ‘developmental dead-end’.

The impact of an “equal opportunities” ideological framework on coaches’ knowledge and practice

This study focuses upon UK professional coaches’ experiences of equity training and the impact of the conceptualisation of equity as a matter of equal opportunities on this education and subsequent coaching practice. The research employs a critical feminist approach to connect the ideological framing of gender equity by sporting organisations to coaches’ ability to understand, identify and manage issues of gender equity, equality and diversity. The discussions are based on interviews with four coaches, Jack, Peter, Charlotte and Tony, who had all recently undertaken equity training, and all of whom represented sports and different stages of the coaching pathway. The data highlights that seeing gender equity through an “equal opportunities” lens results in a narrow conceptualisation of such issues by coaches, fails to challenge dominant and discriminative ideologies, and does not enable coaches to address equity within their practices. Consequently, coaches struggle to understand the importance of and manage such issues. The participants’ experiences reveal that gender relations, intersected principally with religion and ethnicity, underpinned their everyday coaching practices. The findings illustrate the need for sporting organisations to redefine how they approach equality and equity and for a more sophisticated sociocultural educational programme for coaches.

Negotiating the coaching landscape: Experiences of Black men and women coaches in the United Kingdom

The current article provides a critical examination of the racialised and gendered processes that reinforce disparities in sport coaching by exploring the experiences of Black men and women coaches in the United Kingdom. The findings are based on in-depth qualitative interviews with coaches from two national governing bodies of sport. Using a Critical Race Theory approach and Black feminist lens, the coaches’ narratives illuminate the complex, multifaceted and dynamic ways in which ‘race’, ethnicity and gender are experienced and negotiated by sport coaches. The coaches’ reflections are discussed under three themes: negotiating identities; privilege and blind spots; and systemic discrimination. The narratives from the coaches’ experiences emphasise the need for key stakeholders in sport to recognise the intersectional, structural and relational experiences that facilitate, as well as constrain, the progression of Black coaches in order to challenge racialised and gendered inequalities.

“It’s a Concrete Ceiling; It’s Not Even Glass”: Understanding Tenets of Organizational Culture That Supports the Progression of Women as Coaches and Coach Developers

The purpose of this study was to explore what particular areas of organizational cultures facilitate the development and progression of women as football coaches and coach developers. The English Football Association provided the context for the research. Previous statistics demonstrate that recruitment, retention, and progression of women in English football coaching and tutoring are lower and slower than their male counterparts. In-depth interviews were completed with 26 women coaches and coach developers during November 2015 and February 2016 to understand their personal experiences as linked to the structure and culture of their sporting governing body, and analyzed using Schein’s theory of organizational culture. Three key tenets of organizational culture were found to be most influential on the career development of the participants: journeys and crossroads (the establishment of a learning culture), inclusive leadership, and vertical and horizontal relationships. The research demonstrates the need to identify disparities between espoused values and assumptions to enact cultural change toward supporting more women to be valued, included, and progressed in the sporting workplace.

Understanding the gendered coaching workforce in Spanish sport

The present study focuses on the demographic and labor characteristics of coaches in Spain. Kanter’s theory on occupational sex segregation will be used as a guiding framework. The study was conducted with 1685 coaches (82.3% men and 17.7% women) from different sports and performance domains. The results show that there is an underrepresentation of women as coaches in Spain and data highlight that coaches’ gender is related to three structural factors: opportunity, power, and proportion. The present data reveal that women are younger, less likely to be in a marriage-like relationship, less likely to have children, and more likely to have competed at a high level as an athlete when compared to their male counterparts. However, fewer women than men access and participate in coach education in Catalonia and the working status of women was different to that of men. To expand, women worked less hours, were more likely to be assistant coaches, and had less years of coaching experience. Understanding of how gender influences women’s access, progression, and retention in coaching in Spain illustrates the need for gender sport policies and practices in sport organizations. This approach can benefit not only women, but the diversity and enrichment of the coaching system.