Abstract
Despite burgeoning sociological coaching literature on the agency of coaches and the nature of coaching fields, scant attention has been paid to the relationship between micro-level internal subjectivities of coaches and macro-level external structure of society. Drawing on Erving Goffman’s classic work as well as more contemporary interpretations of symbolic interactionism, the thesis examines the interplay between the identities of individual coaches, their coaching practices and the societal environment in which they are immersed. South Korea’s elite sports context serves as the central setting for this study. This context has been undergoing major sports reforms aimed at promoting more liberal and democratic conditions that differ from the former authoritative elite sports environment in which almost all high-performance coaches were athletes. Employing an interpretive qualitative research design, and relying on document analysis, in-depth interviews and observation, the investigation analyses three interrelated processes of coaches’ identity construction: coaches’ former socialisation processes, wider socio-cultural contexts and the interrelationship between self and society.
The analysis reveals three major findings. First, being athletes in the former elite sports environment produced a one-dimensional identity among coaches, which was optimised only for the elite sports setting. Second, coaches shared a collective perception of their stigmatised selves, as a consequence of sports reforms that generated and perpetuated the stigmatising attitudes and beliefs across the society. Third, feelings of shame that arose from coaches’ social relationships drove them to improve their coaching practices through careful negotiation with the social discourse of sports reforms.
Overall, the findings of the research highlight the interconnectedness between the identities of coaches, their interactions with others and the social, historical and political context of the wider society. In its claim that we can learn more about ‘who coaches are’ through exploring the complex interplay between the micro-level experience of coaches’ subjectivities and the macro-level reality of societal structure, this thesis contributes to a relatively under-researched area in academic research on sports coaches’ identities. Moreover, by offering a perspective that underlines coaches’ manifest agency and critical reflection in changing and constructing their own coaching practices, the findings of the thesis could help us to gain a much deeper understanding of the coaching process.