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Abstract
The aim of the present article was to present a specific activity approach called the ‘life course of a practice’ that could be used for the analysis of the long-term dynamic of learning within diverse social practices. The cases of unethical actions (doping) within a population of high-level athletes were examined, considering they could be fruitful examples for this type of analysis. After describing the theoretical construct ‘life course of a practice’, the places of these unethical actions in the sporting life courses and elements that characterize their emergence in the long-term dynamics are described. Last, targeted prevention measures of unethical actions over a lifetime are presented.
Acknowledgment
The present research was supported by a grant from the French Ministry of Health and Sports between 2008 and 2011.
Notes
1. Doping is defined as the consumption of substances or the use of methods that have been explicitly prohibited. In this article, we deal only with the use of prohibited substances.
2. The salaries of high-level athletes vary widely, with the difference exceeding a factor of 100,000.
3. The participants in this research were all recognized high-level athletes and it was easy to collect information on their respective careers from Internet sites of the sports federations, as well as in the press.