On selected problems of low representation of women in coaching

Abstract

Coaches play a crucial role in the development of sport at all levels. However, there is often talk of a lack of coaches. This problem is compounded by the fact that female coaches make up only a much smaller part of the coaching staff. Significant deficits of woman are particular-ly noticeable in senior coaching positions (e.g., among head or national coaches). The issue of female representation in coaching has received considerable attention for forty years, es-pecially within the broader topic of women and sport. At the same time, the literature reflects an interesting paradox. Political and sporting bodies at the international and national level address the shortage of female coaches, and many projects promoting women in coaching have emerged. Research but shows that female representation in coaching is practically not improving. Many organizational and interpersonal problems and myths about the possibilities of women trainers remain. Also, in the Czech Republic, in the last two decades, political and research activities pay considerable attention to the topic of women in coaching. Our study builds on Czech empirical findings in the field of women in sport from the first decade of the 21st century. Apartial goal of our more extensive research was to find out the reasons for the low representation of women among sports coaches. We addressed women (questionnaire survey, n=103, average age 24.3 years), who at the performance or top-level are engaged in various sports and who are – at the same time – feel “at the end” of their active sports track, and realistically think about the professional future after finishing their sports career. We pro-cessed the results using statistical analysis and open coding. The most common reasons that negatively affect the continuation of the addressed female athletes as coaches, respondents report low financial remuneration of coaching work and loss of leisure time. Other reasons why women do not consider coaching include the lack of their professional ambitions and re-spect from sports associations and sports clubs. Research carried out shows that about half of the addressed female athletes are interested in staying in the sport as a coach, but they are aware of many obstacles in this area at the same time.