Complicity, performance, and the 'doing' of sports coaching: An ethnomethodological study of work

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Author
Corsby, Charles
Jones, Robyn
Date
2019-12-20Acceptance date
2019-12-06
Date Accepted
2019-12-17
Type
Article
acceptedVersion
Publisher
SAGE
ISSN
1467-954X
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Recent attempts to ‘decode’ the everyday actions of coaches have furthered the case for sports coaching as a detailed site of ‘work’. Adhering to Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological project, the aim of this article was to deconstruct contextual actors’ interactions, paying specific attention to the conditions under which such behaviours occur. The paper thus, explores the dominant taken-for-granted social rules evident at Bayside Rovers Football F.C. (pseudonym), a semi-professional football club. A 10-month ethnomethodologically informed ethnography was used to observe, participate and describe the Club’s everyday practices. The findings comprise two principal ‘codes’ through which the work of the Club was manifest; ‘to play well’ and ‘fitting-in’. In turn, Garfinkel’s writings are used as a ‘respecification’ of some fundamental aspects of coaches’ ‘unnoticed’ work and the social rules that guided them (Garfinkel, 1967). The broader value of this paper not only lies in its detailed presentation of a relatively underappreciated work context, but that the fine-grain analysis offered allows insightful abstraction to other more conventional forms of work, thus contributing to the broader interpretive project.
Journal/conference proceeding
Sociological Review;
Citation
Corsby, C.L. and Jones, R.L. (2020) 'Complicity, performance, and the ‘doing’of sports coaching: An ethnomethodological study of work', The Sociological Review, p.0038026119897551.
Description
Article published in Sociological Review on 20 December 2019, available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026119897551.
Sponsorship
Cardiff Metropolitan University (Grant ID: Cardiff Metropolian (Internal))
Collections
- Sport Research Groups [1089]