How power moves: A Foucauldian analysis of (in)effective coaching

Abstract

Knowing how to coach effectively is one ever-present truth across all sports and yet our previous research based on the work of Michel Foucault has illustrated how the effectiveness of endurance running coaches' everyday coaching practices is limited by their use of various disciplinary techniques. Missing from these analyses was any consideration of Foucault's conceptualization of how modern power works through the disciplinary instruments or the confession to progress coaches' practices. To address this gap in this paper, we present data from interviews and observations with 15 male high-performance endurance running coaches in the United Kingdom and the United States to examine how the exercise of disciplinary instruments along with the confession affects endurance running coaches' understanding of how to coach. In our analysis we show how discipline's instruments and the confession operate in ways that significantly restrict and limit endurance running coaches' efforts to develop their athletes and progress their practices. In order to develop effective coaches it is therefore essential that coaches become aware of how power operates in and around their coaching environment.

Reflection in a High-Performance Sport Coach Education Program: A Foucauldian Analysis of Coach Developers

“…These practices produce and exclude individuals, for example a coach developer may label a coach in line with the conventions of the prevailing discourse thus classifying, disciplining, and normalizing through social processes that they have little direct control over (Markula & Pringle, 2006). In coaching (Mills & Denison, 2018) and other related practice fields (Cotton, 2001;Rolfe & Gardner, 2006), an increasingly unnoticed operation of power that supports dividing practices is confession that occurs in the presence of an authority, such as a coach developer, who has the ability to judge, punish, forgive, console and reconcile the confessor (Foucault, 1998). Mills and Denison (2018) have identified athlete confession in coaching that acted to address 'abnormality' and so reinforce and normalize whatever was 'true'.…”

“…In coaching (Mills & Denison, 2018) and other related practice fields (Cotton, 2001;Rolfe & Gardner, 2006), an increasingly unnoticed operation of power that supports dividing practices is confession that occurs in the presence of an authority, such as a coach developer, who has the ability to judge, punish, forgive, console and reconcile the confessor (Foucault, 1998). Mills and Denison (2018) have identified athlete confession in coaching that acted to address 'abnormality' and so reinforce and normalize whatever was 'true'. However, research is yet to consider how such disciplinary mechanisms may play out in coach education, specifically between coach and coach developer.…”

“…Docility can limit the development of skills and qualities, such as problem solving, decision making, and understanding capacities and capabilities (e.g. Denison, 2007;Gearity & Mills, 2013;Mills & Denison, 2013 (Mills & Denison, 2018). That is, discourses are produced and accumulated, they circulate and function, thus establishing, consolidating, and implementing relations of power (Foucault, 1980).…”

Mind the gap: the presence of capital and power in the female athlete–male -coach relationship within elite rowing

“…Discourses that express ideas that seem to be self-evident often become what Foucault called, regimes of truth. These regimes or discourses shape thought and practices and therefore serve as a source of power that discipline coach and also that coaches use to discipline their athletes (Mills & Denison, 2018). Coaches have created a "regime of truth" that females ask more questions than men.…”

Coaches as sport workers: professional agency within the employment context of elite European basketball

“…Substantial consideration within this research has been afforded to conceptualisation of the varied role(s) of the coach and their 'effectiveness' in their careers and specific employment contexts (e.g. Mills & Denison, 2016;Santos, Jones & Mesquita, 2013). Reflecting the disciplinary genesis in education, sociology, psychology and management, much of the work within the coaching field has relied upon social theories and philosophical constructs and frameworks within these areas to help understand and analyse the complexities of coaches' experiences and the issues that arise from the execution of their specific roles (e.g.…”