Enacting sport policy : towards a micropolitical and emotional undertstanding of community sports coaching work

Ives, Ben

Abstract

State agencies in many Western nations have utilised sport and physical activity as a means of facilitating various sporting and non-sporting policy outcomes. Surprisingly, however, there remains a dearth of empirical research addressing the working lives of those community sports coaches who are responsible for enacting such initiatives. This includes not only what community sports coaches consider to be the everyday challenges, tensions, and dilemmas that they experience in their work, but also how and why they attempt to navigate these issues in the ways that they do. Similarly, little consideration has been given towards understanding how the employment demands of community sports work impacts upon their health and well-being. To partially address the situation, this thesis provides an insight into the micropolitical and emotional challenges faced by two community sports coaches, Greg and James, when enacting a government-funded initiative to increase young people’s participation in sport and physical activity. Data for this study were collected in two interrelated phases. Phase I entailed the use of participant observations to explore the behaviours and interactions of Greg and James as they sought to realise the programme outcomes in practice. Following the observations, Greg and James participated in a series of in-depth, one-to-one, informal interviews. The fieldnotes and interview transcripts were subjected to an iterative and recursive process of analysis that occurred alongside data collection and writing. Several interrelated themes were identified across Greg’s and James’s career stories and were principally understood in relation to the work of Kelchtermans (e.g. Kelchtermans, 2005; 2011; Kelchtermans & Ballet, 2002a, 2002b), Goffman (1990 [1959]), Hochschild (2012 [1983]), Bauman (2007), Burke and Stets (2009), and Stryker (2002 [1980]). I contend that the inherent structural vulnerabilities of their community coaching jobs, as well as their determination to protect and advance their respective careers in order to fulfil various non-workplace ambitions, meant that Greg and James had to learn to act micropolitically. It is believed that by recognising the ambiguity, pathos, and dynamic complexity of Greg’s and James’s community sports work this investigation offers a more reality grounded understanding of this topic area.

Citation

Ives, B. Enacting sport policy : towards a micropolitical and emotional undertstanding of community sports coaching work. (Thesis). University of Hull. https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4219465

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Aug 10, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 23, 2023
• Keywords: Sports sciences
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4219465
• Additional Information: Department of Sport, Health and Exercise Science, The University of Hull
• Award Date: Sep 1, 2016