Disciplinary technologies, Jim is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta, Canada and Director of the Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre. A sport sociologist and coach educator, his research examines coach effectiveness and the social construction and historical formation of coaches’ practices through a Foucauldian lens.

What Coaches Do: Problematizing Planning and Practice

“Being a coach” largely revolves around the practice of planning what athletes need to do in training to improve and develop their potential. Three components of training that coaches control, and that greatly influence athletes’ capabilities, are the training spaces used, the monitoring of time, and the organization of exercises. The consideration of these elements, and their impact on athletes’ progression and capacity for performance, derive from Michel Foucault’s analysis of technologies of discipline. In this talk I will examine Foucault’s conceptualization of discipline and it effects on athletes’ bodies, as well as how coaches can enhance their understanding of planning and athlete development by problematizing what they have their athletes do.

Held, September 2011.