Despite its positive rhetoric, formalised coach mentoring can be problematic due to the institutional agendas of National Governing Bodies (NGB), with mentoring functioning as a method to reproduce organisational cultures and beliefs. This research attempted to explore this issue in greater depth by critically analysing a formalised coach mentoring programme. Fourteen mentors and four mentees participated in semi-structured interviews to discuss their experiences of a NGB's formalised mentoring programme.Analysed through a Bourdieusian lens, the findings present formalised coach mentoring as a source of cultural reproduction, where mentors embodied a group habitus that reinforced the NGB's dispositions and beliefs towards coaching practice. Mentors strived to inculcate mentees and rework their habituses to align with the field's doxa through a process of pedagogic action, with symbolic capital proving influential in reproducing coaching ideologies. NGBs should begin to critically analyse their coach mentoring provision to maximise opportunities for mentee learning and development.

This article takes a look back, in order to take a step forward, for sports coach mentorship within both academia and practice. Consequently, this article aims to review the contemporary trends within the sports coach mentoring literature and beyond to build upon earlier foundations.Throughout, four areas of significance are identified: (1) A sociocultural analysis of sports coach mentorship; (2) multiple-mentors and developmental networks; (3) developing sports coach mentors; and (4) gender and role models. The existing literature within each area is introduced, analysed, and critiqued, before an innovative future research agenda is established. Whilst mentorship is regularly utilised within sports coaching, the practice remains undertheorised and conceptually vague.Therefore, this literature review attempts to reconstruct sports coach mentorship by highlighting gaps in our knowledge and instigating innovative research agendas to produce contextually and culturally bound empirical evidence. Thus, this article advances our understanding of mentoring practice within sports coaching.

The purpose of this study was to understand the workplace learning of sports coach mentors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 coach mentors employed by a sport governing body (SGB) as part of a formalised mentoring programme. ‘Current’ coach mentors (n = 9) had been employed for a minimum of one year by the organisation and were all interviewed once. ‘New’ coach mentors (n = 9) were all interviewed twice, once at the start of their employment and once again 9 months later. Moreover, regional mentors (n = 8) who oversee the training and practice of the coach mentors participated in one focus group. Data were analysed thematically, with the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and relevant workplace learning literature used to support the analytical process. The findings highlight how habitus structures coach mentors’ participation in learning opportunities afforded to them in the workplace. In addition, habitus and embodied capital will impact how coach mentors interact with and interpret mentor training, whilst influencing their level of engagement with other employees. It is argued SGB social fields are crucial in the production of promoted norms and ‘legitimate’ knowledge within workplaces, which subsequently influences mentor learning. Recommendations are made for critically transformative approaches to training coach mentors.

Whilst coach education has been the subject of much critique, it is often the first opportunity for novice coaches to be formally taught how to coach. Nevertheless, novice coaches arrive at coach education courses with an array of pre-existing dispositions and coaching theories, referring to naturalised and self-referenced approaches towards coaching practice, which can be resistant to change. Consequently, the aim of this research was to explore the construction and development of four novice coaches' dispositions and coaching theories, and whether they were either confirmed, developed, challenged, or changed by a Level 1 sport-specific coaching course. Following an instrumental case study design, four novice coaches were each interviewed before, during, and after their engagement with a Level 1 sport-specific course. Data were analysed thematically, informed by Phil Hodkinson and colleagues' theory of 'learning cultures' and the metaphor of learning as becoming, which draws upon Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field, and capital. Three themes were developed which are representative of the three interview phases: (1) Pre-course: The development of coaches' dispositions towards practice; (2) During course: Challenging coaches' dispositions and coaching theories; and (3) Post-course: Future learning and critical reflections. The findings demonstrated that the four novice coaches' dispositions and coaching theories were largely underpinned by behaviourist assumptions, which were developed experientially. These dispositions and coaching theories were challenged and subsequently showed signs of transformation both during and after the Level 1 course, which promoted a constructionist games-based approach to coaching. Recognising the significance of novice coaches' dispositions and coaching theories may help governing bodies to support learners with understanding and engaging with constructionist informed coaching approaches, whilst appreciating coach learning as a social, embodied, and on-going process of dispositional re-construction.

Research which identifies and describes the learning situations coaches engage with often overlooks how coaches' dispositions and the 'learning cultures' they occupy influences their opportunities for learning, limiting our understanding of what 'works' and for 'whom'. Seven coaches from five sports were interviewed regarding their experiences of 'The Coach Talent Programme' (CTP); a non-formal learning situation consisting of cross-sport CPD workshops delivered by a UK County Sports Partnership. Data were analysed thematically, integrating Pierre Bourdieu's sociology alongside Phil Hodkinson's theory of 'learning cultures'. Three themes were developed: (1) social interaction and cross-sport learning; (2) workshop content and online learning; and (3) tutor capital and the coaching field. The findings demonstrate how coaches' 'learning' within non-formal situations varies significantly due to embodied dispositions, capital, and the social fields coaches are positioned within. Sports organisations would benefit from recognising the influence of these factors to develop transformative non-formal environments for coach learning.