Learning to Problematize Disciplinary Practices: Strength and Conditioning Coaches’ Experiences Within a Foucauldian Learning Community

Abstract

Poststructural, Foucauldian-informed scholarship has shown the invisible consequences of how coaches use knowledge through various disciplinary techniques, which has prompted a need for coach development to bring awareness of such effects. However, a lack of literature exists on how coaches come to understand Foucauldian-informed coaching. This study explored how three strength and conditioning coaches learned to problematize disciplinary practices, how they rationalize their (un)intended effects, and why specific less disciplinary practices are produced and implemented, whereas others are left unattended. The findings include how the coaches engaged epiphanic contradictions, contemplated new and creative practices, and interacted with catalytic mediators to understand Foucauldian-informed coaching. Facilitators and barriers to Foucauldian thinking provide further insight into how the coaches’ thinking was accelerated or halted in the learning process. The findings are discussed in relation to literature on coach learning and recent scholarship on coaches’ exposure to poststructural, Foucauldian-informed coaching.