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"Sparkes, Andrew C"
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Everything Plays a Part Doesn’t It?’’: A Contemporary Model of Lifelong Coach Development in Elite Sport
Coach development is typically considered to consist of a complex mix of experiences, including formal, informal and non-formal. Elements of the early research in this area led to the production of a model of long-term coach development (LTCD) over a decade ago, consisting of three core categories of experience: athletic, coaching and education, later published in a number of significant coaching documents. Whilst this model has clearly been of benefit in providing a framework to consider long-term coach development, it can also be considered to have its limitations in focusing on a somewhat narrow coaching context (typically Olympic sports in North America) and lacking currency. This study therefore attempted to consider and update this model to a professional team sport context away from North America by investigating the life stories of head coaches in English rugby league. Data collection consisted of a novel life story approach, whilst analysis utilised elements of constructivist grounded theory. Though supporting elements of the original LTCD model, results here provide an additional category of experience occurring prior to athletic experience, childhood, consisting of a number of sub-themes, alongside several other novel elements with implications for both research and practice. This work points towards a need to further understand coaches’ lifelong developmental journeys across a range of sports and contexts.
Journal Article
Routledge handbook of qualitative research in sport and exercise
The last two decades have witnessed a proliferation of qualitative research in sport and exercise. This handbook offers an in-depth survey of established and emerging qualitative methods, from conceptual first principles to practice and process. Written and edited by a team of world-leading researchers, and some of the best emerging talents, the book introduces a range of research traditions within which qualitative researchers work.
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Volunteering for Research in Prison: Issues of Access, Rapport and Ethics and Emotions During Ethnography
Gaining access to formal institutions can be problematic for ethnographers. This is especially so when it comes to prisons where people are incarcerated by the state against their will for various crimes committed by them. Here, in such highly controlled environments, some authors have pointed out the lack of openness of correctional facilities to inquiry and the limited cooperation forthcoming from the various authorities that oversee them. Accordingly, this article examines the difficult processes undertaken to negotiate access to a high-security prison in Spain, and then maintain his role there for a 2-year period as a volunteer sports educator in order to explore the multiple meanings given to sport and physical activity in the prison setting by the prisoners, educational staff and the guards. The emotional costs and ethical dilemmas of sustaining working relationships with these different groups over time in order to achieve specific research goals are highlighted and reflections for future studies of prison life are offered.
Journal Article
Careership: a sociological theory of career decision making
In the current discourse on the transition from school to work, career decision-making has a pivotal but paradoxical position. Sociological literature emphasises the dominance of socially-structured pathways, whilst policy-making operates on assumptions of individual freedom to choose. In this paper we draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu to present a new model of career decision-making, given the shorthand title of 'careership'. There are three completely integrated dimensions to the model. These are (i) pragmatically rational decision-making, located in the habitus of the person making the decision; (ii) the interactions with others in the (youth training) field, related to the unequal resources different 'players' possess; and (iii) the location of decisions within the partly unpredictable pattern of turning-points and routines that make up the life course. This model avoids the twin pitfalls of implicit social determinism or of seeing (young) people as completely free agents.
Journal Article
Imperfect Perfection and Wheelchair Bodybuilding
This article explores the impact of the binary configuration of disabled bodies as opposite and unequal to able bodies, and whether or not contemporary bodybuilding provides a space where this dualism can be overcome. Drawing on life history interviews with Dan, a professional wheelchair bodybuilder, we consider how his hyper-muscular upper body may position him as a supercrip and thereby reinforce bodily and gender norms. Simultaneously, Dan’s powerful, disabled body and a competitive context that applies standard judgement criteria across all bodies potentially subverts this normative configuration. We reflect on the contradictions engendered by Dan’s corporeality by drawing on notions of the bodybuilder as body-garde involved in a process of enfreakment that disrupts and transcends contemporary bodily ideals. Here, variable self-reflexive bodybuilding projects can accommodate contingent conceptualisations of perfection, including disability, with implications for disabled bodies and identities more broadly.
Journal Article
Exploring multiple responses to a chaos narrative
Narratives do things. This performative aspect of narrative includes calling on people for a response. This article explores the responses we have witnessed to a chaos narrative told to us by a disabled man that we then shared with different audiences over time. The following four types of response were identified: depression-therapy restitution stories; breakthrough restitution stories; social model stories; and solace stories. Each kind of response is focused on in detail, and their potentials and limitations are considered. The article does not promote one response over another, or seek the last word on the four responses, as the intention is to generate dialogue rather than to finalize. Future possibilities regarding narrative research and responding to stories are also considered.
Journal Article
Taijiquan the “Taiji World” Way: Towards a Cosmopolitan Vision of Ecology
In this article, we present a case study analysis of data gathered on the practice of the art of Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) in one UK context. Our interest in looking at this physical culture was in exploring if/how physical cultures of shared embodied experience and practice may help “sow the seeds of environmental awareness”. In so doing, we illustrate certain affinities between this interpretation of the art and Beck’s idea of a “cosmopolitan vision of ecology”. We present an analysis of documentary and interview data of one English Taijiquan organisation and how it currently promotes the idea of interconnectedness, wellbeing and an alternative meta-narrative for living through the practice of Taijiquan. We conclude that, while further research is needed, there is evidence that a cosmopolitan vision for ecology is emerging in physical cultures such as Taijiquan.
Journal Article
Exploring Trans People’s Narratives of Transition: Negotiation of Gendered Bodies in Physical Activity and Sport
This paper explores how trans people who make transitions negotiate their gendered bodies in different moments of this process, and how their narrative storylines are emplotted in physical activity and (non)organized sports (PAS) participation. A qualitative semi-structured interview-based study was developed to analyze the stories of eight trans people (three trans women, two trans men, and three nonbinary persons) who participated in PAS before and during their gender disclosure. A thematic analysis was conducted to identify the patterns in the transition process and the structural analysis of the stories from the interviews. Three transition moments (the closet, opening up, and reassuring) were identified from the thematic analysis. Most participants showed difficulties in achieving their PAS participation during the two earlier moments. The predominance of failure storylines was found particularly in men, while success was more likely to appear in women because their bodies and choices fitted better with their PAS gender ideals. The nonbinary trans persons present alternative storylines in which corporeality has less influence on their PAS experiences. The knowledge provided on the moments and the stories of transition help to explain trans people’s (non)involvement in PAS and to guide policymaking and professional action in PAS fields.
Journal Article
Narrative inquiry in psychology: exploring the tensions within
In recent years, qualitative researchers in psychology have become increasingly interested in narrative inquiry. With a view to stimulating dialogue, in this article, we seek to make better sense of this field by exploring a range of theoretical tensions and differences embedded within it. Organized around three overall themes, eight contrasting perspectives are presented for discussion. Theme one, termed 'narrative and the self', is comprised of tensions surrounding: the relation between narrative and self; the unity of self; and the coherence of self. Theme two, 'ontology or nature of narrative', covers: (neo)realism/relativism; interiority or externality; and constructionism. The final theme, labelled 'approaches to narrative research', consists of tensions entailing: the whats and/or the hows, and an analysis of narrative and storytelling. We close by suggesting that each contrasting perspective is worthy of consideration in its own right and that co-existence is possible despite some differences.
Journal Article