Positive Coaching: Ethical Practices for Athlete Development

By J. Denison, Zoe Avner. 2011

115 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Positive coaching has traditionally been defined and understood through a modernist lens (Smoll & Smith, 1987; Thompson, 1995, 2003) and a combination of privileged scientific knowledges. One effect of this is that coaches' problemsolving approaches tend to disregard the complex social, and relational dimensions of coaching (Nash & Collins, 2006) and ignore how problems get selectively framed and named (Lawson, 1984). As a result, many problems in sport remain misunderstood or solved ineffectively. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault we critique these reductionist understandings of effective and ethical coaching and argue that for coaches to become a positive force for change, they must engage in an ongoing critical examination of the knowledges and assumptions that inform their problem-solving approaches. Further, we conclude that for coaching to become a respected profession worthy of deep and intelligent thought, it is vital that coaches carefully consider the effects produced by the way they solve problems.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5501311a073246530f58f72cfd80c9e245a274df

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

1. C. Cushion
2. F. Smits
3. F. Jacobs
4. A. Knoppers
5. Timothy Konoval
6. J. Mills
7. J. Denison
8. P. Potrac

In Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation

1. C. Cushion
2. J. Denison
3. P. Potrac
4. Robyn L. Jones
5. Stephen Harvey
6. M. Stuij

In Social Psychology

1. C. Cushion
2. J. Denison
3. Stephen Harvey
4. D. Collins
5. Robyn L. Jones
6. A. Abraham

Citations in the corpus

• 'You don’t realize what you see!': the institutional context of emotional abuse in elite youth sport (2017, background): “Several scholars (Denison 2007; Denison and Avner 2011; Denison, Mills, and Konoval 2015; and Jacobs, Claringbould, and Knoppers 2014) have shown how coaches who engage in coach-centred practices can be transformed to think and practice in a totally different manner that is athlete centred.”
• Reflection and reflective practice discourses in coaching: a critical analysis (2018, background): “The call here is for the development of a critical attitude both by coaches and researchers specifically to reflection as socially produced, developing a relentless commitment to the questioning of received knowledges and processes and of their potential problematic effects (Denison & Avner, 2011).”
• Sports’ disciplinary legacy and the challenge of ‘coaching differently’ (2017, background): “…and the well-documented consequences of this understanding— the formation of a specific type of athletic body that is normalized and docile (Denison & Avner, 2011; Phillips & Hicks, 2000)—is to ignore how coaching is primarily a social process bound by a number of contextual influences (Denison,…”